Bet Sizes

One common source of confusion for beginners is how to properly size their bets. I frequently see bad players bet 20 chips into a pot of 100, or bet 120 chips into a pot of 40. Both of these are almost always terrible bets. So how much should you bet?

Obviously, it depends on many things. However, if you always bet between 2/3 and 3/4 of the pot, your bets will usually be appropriate. Betting much less than that is just silly, because it allows your opponents to call correctly with a wide range of hands. Betting much more than that is pointless, because the suggested 2/3-3/4 pot bet will already be getting out most of the hands that you want to fold. All you're doing by overbetting is giving away more money to an opponent who has a monster.

If your bet is a value bet that you'd like a weaker hand to call, ~2/3 is usually a good amount. Betting much more than this will make too many marginal hands fold, and betting much less will not extract very much money.

If your bet is intended to prevent drawing hands from calling correctly, you must usually bet a little bit more. 3/4 of the pot, or maybe a little more, is probably your best option.

If your bet is a bluff, bet an amount that would be appropriate if you actually had the hand you're pretending to have.

There's also the concept of a probe bet, which is usually no more than 1/2 of the pot. The point of this bet is to find out where you stand with a marginal hand without spending too much on the information. Don't use this very often.

On the river, your value bets and bluffs can sometimes be smaller than 2/3, depending on the size of the pot and the action to that point. The reason is that there are no longer any draws, and thus no need to charge opponents to chase them. If you think it's unlikely that a very large bet will be called, for whatever reason, betting half the pot or even a little less can sometimes be appropriate. I don't often do this, but it's a good option to have in your repertoire.

Never min bet. Min betting means betting the amount of the big blind (the smallest bet allowed). It's extremely stupid 99.99% of the time. When an opponent min bets against me, all it accomplishes is that it tells me he's bad at poker. In most cases, I treat a min bet almost like a check that costs me a couple of chips. I generally fold to min bets only if I have absolutely nothing (no pair, no draw), and I'll occasionally even call with nothing. When you're learning to get good at poker, don't min bet. Ever.

Of course, these suggested bet sizes are just general guidelines; you should certainly adapt them to the particular table you're at. If players are willing to call huge bets with weak hands, by all means throw out huge value bets.

There's one more advanced idea to consider as well. I've been assuming that everyone's stacks are pretty deep. Small stack sizes will often affect your bet sizing. Don't even begin to worry about this until you're comfortable with the previous points, and you've completely cured yourself of any horrible betting tendencies.

When value betting, you want to avoid leaving yourself (or your opponent, if he has fewer chips than you) with a stack of about 1.5-1.75 times the size of the pot for the next betting round. This is an awkward situation, because a reasonably sized bet in the next betting round would commit you to the pot, and is therefore often practically equivalent to an all-in. However, an all-in for 1.5-1.75 times the pot would be an overbet. Basically, this situation makes it more likely that you'll make a costly mistake. Once you're comfortable with basic betting patterns, you should keep resulting stack sizes in mind when deciding how much to bet.