[DarkMagus]

[ QUOTE ]
The first goal is to learn what those small bets mean. They could mean value bets with TP. They could mean scared bets. They could mean monsters suckering you in. This is all assuming either a bad player or a straightforward player. Against a good, tricky player, they will mean different things so I would just avoid those players.

Once you figure out what they mean, you can react appropriately. However, also keep track of how they react back.

Just the other day I had a gutshot on the flop. It was a multiway raised pot and I called late with JTs. The raiser min bet and two players called and I was getting about 15:1 pot odds so I called. The same min bet occurred on the turn and I called again. I hit the gutshot on the river. The original raiser paid me off with AA. So in that case, if I had raised, AA would certainly have called and might have even gone in. Anyways, I never would have hit since I would have been out of the hand.

Other hands I play differently. Having TPWK is not a good situation if you are up against a better kicker. In this case I will usually raise hoping that villain has a pp lower than TP or otherwise has not much. The reason I will raise here is I don't want to call with 3 outs to pair my kicker. If I have second pair, I actually like this hand better. Now, I usually have five outs so a small bet might give me the right odds. And if the board is dry, I might also like my implied odds if villain has TP.

Also I might chase backdoor draws if I have even bottom pair which could give me extra outs. I calculate how many turn cards would be really nice and go from there.

The other thing is that a min bet on the flop followed by a check on the turn usually indicates severe weakness. So sometimes calling a small flop bet might be good just for the chance of taking the pot away on the turn.

Finally, if the pot starts small and you call one or two small bets and get to the river cheap for a fairly small pot, even if you lose that pot (assume you are deep here), you can get some great information about villain and see what cards he had and why he min bet.

[/ QUOTE ]



I don't really think I agree with most of your points. First of all, from most players, a minbet doesn't mean anything. I think that a lot of players hear, "you have to mix up your play" and then they look at minbetting on 50% of the flops they see (and these players usually see a lot of flops) as a way to mix it up. With some players, you may be able to pick up a pattern, but IMO, with the majority of chronic minbetters, their minbets just don't have much meaning. And to be honest, against weak-tight players who panic anytime anything non-standard happens, it may not even be that awful of a strategy (though there are certainly much better strategies).

I think it's silly to think that you must raise or fold with a hand like TPWK. I often just call them down like you would in limit. There's no sense in blowing him out of the pot if he's got nothing, when you could instead control the pot with a call and maybe keep him minbetting with his 3rd pair or whatever. By raising you risk too much for not enough gain, IMO. If he's got a big hand, he's probably going to fire a big bet later on when he realizes that he got so caught up in his fancy play that he forgot to build the pot. Then you can make your decision there, and for a lot less chips than if you raised earlier in the hand.

I do agree though that you can chase a lot of weak draws, but remember to have half-decent pot odds, because a lot of times he'll have nothing and you won't get much implied odds.