How do you balance agression?

[Peleus]

Hi all,

Just a question in regards to betting amounts. I know general principles such as pricing out the draws etc, but how do you deal with people not calling you're monsters.

I know generally speaking, people aren't going to be calling without a hand no matter what you do, so that might be the answer to my question straight away.

I keep running into the scenario however for instance I flop top set and a dry board, and I lead into the flop as a c-bet (say 1/2 - 2/3 bet) and they fold. Now I know this vary's from hand to hand, but whats the best thing to do. On the one hand you want to get money into the pot, and I see all the time much of the advice is given as raise, or re-raise. On the other hand you want to keep the second best hands in to incorrectly chase. On the other you can also give away two many free cards and get stacked by the hitting of an unlikely two pair etc.

As always, I know the answer is 'it depends'. It depends on how vulnerable you're hand is, it depends if the villain is a call station or not.

Is it all read dependent? Do I chalk it up to oh well he didn't have a hand? Do we bet less next time or keep at it? How do you adjust to find the right max bet sizes for each player?

[Jamsym]

Just make sure when you raise pre flop you do a 3/4 size pot continuation bet on about 80% of flops. Leave out the ones where 4+ people see and you missed obv.

Hopefully your continued aggression is spotted and then you will get action on your good hands.

[dedenburn]

IMO, continued aggression is the key to getting paid off. If they see you constantly betting hard over and over again, hopefully they'll figure something's up and call you.

[aaokwitme]

Get caught bluffing once and a while. If you C bet more often when you miss, peeps will start to look you up more. So bet that set, and a flop like Q27 if you hold AK or poket 9s or any hand you preflop bet with.

[Arjonius]

You're not gaoing to get paid off every time you have a big hand. It's just not going to happen. So the key question is how to milk the most chips each time. I don't think there's a single answer, so to some extent at least, it's read-dependent in terms of figuring out how much to get against a particular player so you'll bet called. Against some people, a small suck bet is your best shot because they'll basically never call a big bet without a big hand, while some others always seem to think an overbet signifies a bluff, and thus call far more often than they should, which give a big bet a higher EV.