A foundation is something that you build upon. It is the primary building block. It is the sturdy undergirding that supports the house that is built upon it. In regards to bet sizing, the following is the foundation from which you size your bets. You either size your bets by the actual foundation or size them by a derivative of the foundation.
FOUNDATIONAL LAW: With 100bb stacks in a PFR'd pot, if you size your bets effectively you can get all-in with
3 streets of betting.
What do I mean? You start with 100bb's effective and PFR to 4bb and get called by SB. Pot is 9bb's, 96 behind. On the flop, you bet 8bb's and get called. Turn pot is 25bb's with 88 behind. On the turn you bet 22bb's and get called. River pot is 69bb's with 66bb's behind, setting up a river push/PSB. This is the foundation upon which all your betting should flow.
Example hand:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from
FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)
BB ($47.15)
Hero ($50.00)
MP ($47.90)
CO ($25.05)
Button ($29.45)
SB ($50.00)
Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $2</font>, <font color="#666666">
3 folds</font>, SB calls $1.75, BB folds.
Flop: ($4.50) 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
SB checks, <font color="blue">Alright, Hero flops a set on a dry flop. He should get action from an Ace, 33, and maybe one call from a hand like TT-KK maybe if they played it weakly PF. 33 is felting pretty much no matter what we do. TT-KK may look us up once no matter what we bet. The thing we want to do is give AT-AK the chance to stack off to us. So... </font>, Hero bets $4.50, SB calls $4.50.
Turn: ($13.50) 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
SB checks, <font color="blue">Helpful hint about bet sizing (a general rule): if you can bet 1/3 of the effective stacks on one street, you'll be able to get AI on the next street. That is our goal here. We're not going to mess around, we want to take his Ax hands to ValueBetCity. Stacks are $43.50. We need to size our bet here (THINK about it) to set up betting on the next street. We want him to have less than a PSB left on the river but also optimize our sizing to get him to call two more times. So...</font> Hero bets $12, SB calls $12.
River: ($37.50) J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
SB checks, Hero pushes all-in for $31.50....
That is the foundation when thinking about sizing your bets. And you adjust off of that. Can he really call off his stack given the board texture? Is he a station? Is he a nitty TAG? Is our hand/flop more conducive to maybe getting 80% of our stacks in the middle? Do we need to look at pot control sometime during the hand? etc etc etc.
GETTING A STACK IN THE MIDDLE STARTS WITH THE FLOP BET SIZE. If you size that bet right, you can get it in in 3 streets; flop, turn and river.
3b pots
The same foundation is found in 3-bet pots. Except we deal with different streets. It's still 3 streets total to get all-in, but the streets are now preflop, flop and turn.
Example hand:
Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.25/$0.50 Blinds - 6 Players - (
LegoPoker Hand History Converter)
SB: $32.50
Hero (BB): $50.00
UTG: $25.60
MP: $50.00
CO: $49.25
BTN: $50.00
Preflop: Hero is dealt A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (6 Players)
3 folds, <font color="red">BTN raises to $1.75</font>,
SB folds, <font color="red">Hero raises to $6.50</font>, BTN calls $4.75
Flop: ($13.25) 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (2 Players)
<font color="blue">Alright, we've already had one street of betting when we got an extra $4.75 in preflop. We can get it in with 2 more streets of betting here if we size this bet properly. We should play AA and AsKs the same here mostly. </font> Hero bets $10.50, BTN calls $10.50.
Turn: ($34.25) 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (2 Players)
Hero pushes all-in for $33...
We bet the flop here and if he pushes we happily call. We bet the turn with FE vs the bottom of his range which is anything less than QQ. We can play AA the same way or vary from our foundational play on the turn as long as preflop and flop look like Boomboomboom, we are getting all-in here sir, do you care to come along.
EDIT: Again, this is just the foundation. Make sure you read Triggerle's post below.