PNL Study Group Day 3: Pot Size

[Sean Fraley]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a basic question on pot size - who's stack are we measuring it against to establish "big" or "small" pot? Reading through this thread it sounds like we measure it relative to villain's (which is what I imagined from reading the book anyway) but:

1. What if there's more than one villain? Just measure it against the shorter of the two? Or for 2 villains (for instance) where 1 is the shortest stack it's 2x the shortest stack?

2. On pg 57 I'm getting a little confused by not knowing for sure the answer to #1. We're the short stack at 500 vs 2 villains, pot is 195, we have 440 left and the book says "the pot is large relative to the remaining money." Who's money? I'm the short stack so if both villains individually have more than me doesn't that make this a 'small' pot if anything? Or does "large" not mean "big/small pot" here?

[/ QUOTE ]

In general if making a pot size bet or pot sized raise made during the current betting round will either get at least one of the players all-in or leave them with a decision to get all-in of fold, it is a big pot. It doesn't matter if the player betting or calling all-in has only one third the money of the other players, it should still be considered a big pot. The reason behind this is the issue of pot commitment and the likely actions of a player who has decided that they are pot committed. For example:

Villain (BB): 40BB
Hero (Button): 100BB

<u>Preflop</u>
Hero is dealt 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

1 fold, UTG+1 calls 1BB, CO calls 1BB, Hero calls 1BB, 1 fold, BB raises to 4BB, 3 folds, Hero calls 3BB

<u>Flop</u>
Hero: 96BB, Villain: 36BB, Pot: 11.5BB

A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Villain bets 9BB, Hero ???

While the pot here is still small if compared only to your stack, a pot size raise will face villain with the decision to call all-in or fold, and a call will leave us likely to face a pot size bet all-in on the turn which will suck if we are still drawing.

Basically, the size of the pot now and how big it is likely to become on later streets is used to ascertain what is likely to happen over the course of the hand based on the interaction between our opponents actions and ours.

In situations where more than one opponent is in the hand we are playing a different size pot against each villain, but need to keep in mind that each villain is also in the same boat. Let's say that UTG starts the hand with a 150BB stack, called BB's raise preflop and his flop bet. Now we need to plan the hand based on the fact that BB is still likely to behave as he did in the previous example (or likely more so since UTG's call will have made the pot even bigger in relation to his stack) and the fact that this pot will play entirely differently if BB gets it all-in either here or on the turn since UTG could be giving us implied odds for our draw. On the same token UTG has to factor in the fact that he is playing a small pot in position against BB but a medium pot OOP against you and that may change how he approaches the hand.

Poker gets complicated.