playing small pots strategy

[Philwannab]

I heard Phil Helmuth talking about a strategy of playing small pots and not risking as much for a single hand. What is the outline of this strategy? I know my tendency when I hit top pair is to bet the pot size to get middle pairs out and flush drawers. But of course when new players or big stacks hit the flush then you lose more. I thought a change of strategy would be good to try but I want to do my homework. Is this theory layed out in any books?

Thanks!

[Beermantm]

I designed a betting strategy that corelates to the best known sports betting strategies. I've been betting sports now for so long and know exactly how the house opperates that I apllied that knowledge into a structured betting system based on the current strength of your hand. The strategy limits liability and maximizes profits for NL Holdem. However I have shared it with others before and never did get a great responce from sharing. Let me know if your intrested in a small post that outlines the theory and I'll shoot you an PM.

[PokerN00b]

I think you would play this way when you care more about winning the tournament than the money. You give your opponent better odds to draw, while minimizing the cost of the suckout. Then when you have a lock, you're finally playing a big hand.

[DipsetByrdGame]

im interested, PM ME.

[sykotic]

This strategy relies on playing a lot of marginal hands. To play these hands, you will need to be playing very well after the flop. You will be constantly winning small pots with all your continuation bets after the flop and such. There is also little risk. But, if you don't know when your beat, you will lose your entire stack. It is very important to be able to let go of a marginal hand.

There is less variance to this approach because you won't be putting all your chips in on one hand.

[Mahatma]

I'm a bit inexperienced with this game but I'll try and help you out regardless. After my recent crisis of confidence which included a -8 buyin downswing I've attempted a similar strategy of trying to play lots of small pots with alot of starting hands. It's only 264 hands in the making (at a massive 15.23ptbb/100 [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ) so I'm also interested in how to play this way effectively. If TKO, mikever or anyone else wish to comment on what I write below, please do.

here's what I do on the 6-max tables

1. I play lots of hands, about 35-40% of them, and raise 25% of the time. I do this to widen my hand range, confuse my opponents, irritate my opponents and keep myself entertained. I also think I'm going to improve quicker by putting myself into all these tricky situations, and I'm also praying that my crazy image gets me lots of action.

2. This is key. My opening raise is 2.8xbb+.8bb per limper. As I'm playing many hands, sometimes out of position, this raise amount, being slightly less than standard (which is 3.5bb+1bb/limper usually) keeps the pot small at the start of the hand, therefore keeping the pot smaller on flop, turn and river. I think this is because the pot size increases exponentially but i may have mixed words up there.

3. There was a good post titled 'bet pot button' in this forum somewhere. I aim for around 2/3 on average to keep the pot managable with all the $hit cards I've got in my hands. No need to commit more than necessary. I used to bet pot like you do, however TKO in that topic I pointed you to explained something about c<x<f where c is the bet size that is correct for villian to call, and f is the bet sized that will make villian fold incorrectly. So you want to shoot for a little below f and above c. Do a search for author 'Matt Flynn' words 'pot control' in the highstakes no limit forum and you'll find, wait for it, aha I've bookmarked it

http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/show...4&fpart=all

Good luck.

[toms2866]

I've noticed (on tv) that Helmuth likes the micro-probe bet when first to act on the flop. I'm not psychic, but my guess is he figures it has some fold equity and tries to take a read when he's called or raised. If he's called and a scare card comes off, he can get away cheaply. If no scare card, he can try to take the pot at that point. The logic might be that an opponent only sometimes has a drawing hand, and if they do, they probably won't hit it on the cheap card. Thus, offering a cheap card only has a smallish probability of giving the pot away. The strategy seems to risk losing a few extra small pots to avoid getting mixed up in big pots with just a pair.

Whatever his reasoning, it seems to irritate people, and it's usually a good sign when folks don't like your bets. It also mixes up the game with confusing signals ("why such a small bet?"). The probe may also induce a raises letting him escalate the pot when he has a real hand.

[MattUNCC]

I noticed that you said you tend to make near pot-size or pot-size bets after the flop to drive out draws. Be sure to keep flop texture and your opponents possible holdings in mind when you make your bets. Sometimes you just build the pot for strong draws and redraws. The most important thing when playing small pot poker (in a NL game at least, which I'm assuming is what you're talking about) is knowing where your opponent(s) is/are at in a hand at ALL times. If you hold T3o in the bb and the flop comes Th 8h 7c with three other limpers preflop to act behind you after the flop, checking and folding may be your best option bc of the combination of the other players holdings and the fact that your hand may be best now, but has virtually no chance of improving.

[Beermantm]

[ QUOTE ]
I've noticed (on tv) that Helmuth likes the micro-probe bet when first to act on the flop. I'm not psychic, but my guess is he figures it has some fold equity and tries to take a read when he's called or raised. If he's called and a scare card comes off, he can get away cheaply. If no scare card, he can try to take the pot at that point. The logic might be that an opponent only sometimes has a drawing hand, and if they do, they probably won't hit it on the cheap card. Thus, offering a cheap card only has a smallish probability of giving the pot away. The strategy seems to risk losing a few extra small pots to avoid getting mixed up in big pots with just a pair.

Whatever his reasoning, it seems to irritate people, and it's usually a good sign when folks don't like your bets. It also mixes up the game with confusing signals ("why such a small bet?"). The probe may also induce a raises letting him escalate the pot when he has a real hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very much the way my betting system is designed to work however the probeing bet slides up and down as both position and hand strength become more favorable. The probeing bet then becomes quite unpredictable and compleately disguises your current holding. Correlating the smaller probing bets to the same size as hands you are too dominate in so that you are hoping for a raise but are pumping the pot on a call is the basic system.

I made 7 different betting percentages of the pot or 7 different size bets based on your hand strength and position. That way you can never be pegged down for giving away information however your opponent has to give you information back to either scare you off the hand or get out of the way. If he calls you it's completely neutral because you bet so close to the actual strength of your hand that the pot is growing at a maximum rate for you to improve your hand for a maximum reward if you do and a minium risk if you do not improve and have to fold. If you get called with a very strong hand it's also a good move because there is a good chance that a bigger bet at that spot would induce a fold and if you are say 75% or higher to win you want to be called even if it means that you might have to toss the hand if the other player makes his draw. Either way the system puts your opponent on the spot to make the moves and for the most part you control those moves to your best advantage.

Good Post!!

[PokrLikeItsProse]

That's interesting. With top pair, I usually want middle pair to call me.