Hey guys, I’ve just recently started taking studying poker more seriously, so I have a lot to learn, especially in this area of GTO play. From what I’ve gathered watching Andrew’s and some other educational videos, you want to size your bet to make the opponent indifferent about calling or folding. Meaning, if you have lots of value hands and only few bluffs you need to be betting a smaller amount in relation to the pot, that also correlates to the value/bluff ratio that you have in that given spot. From Andrew’s range construction video on AKQ game: if the hero bets 1,000 into a 3,000 pot, he wants to have 80% of value hands and 20% bluffs. This way, when the opponent calls 1,000 to win the pot of 4,000, he will lose a bet of 1,000 four times out of five (1,000*4=4,000) and will win 4,000 one time out of five (4,000*1=4,000). Meaning, he won’t be making any profit there and calling will have the same EV as folding.

Now, if the hero had the same amount of value and bluffs (80/20) and bet 500 into 3,000, then the opponent would have to call 500 to win 3,000. He would lose 500 four times out of five (500*4=2,000) and would win 3,000 one time out of five (3,000*1=3,000). Meaning he would have a profitable call (+1,000).

If the hero bet 3,000 into 3,000 and the opponent called, the opponent would lose 3,000 four times out of five (3,000*4=12,000), and win 3,000 one time out of five (3,000*1=3,000) making it a really losing call (-9,000).

The last one is an exploitation example, and if the opponents know this is what you’re doing, they can re-adjust and exploit you even more profitably. This is why if you play a GTO strategy, you want to have a lot of bluffs in your range when you bet BIG (33% of bluffs when you bet pot). And while this means that you’re not going to be exploiting anyone, they won’t be able to exploit you either.

Now, as for the ‘lots of bluffs and few value hands’, it sounds a bit strange to me, because I can’t think of a situation where you would have your range constructed in such a way where you have more bluffs than value bets. If that does happen, I assume it’s better to not bluff at all. Because if you think about it mathematically, you can never have a GTO strategy where you have more bluffs than you have value hands. For example: we know that we should bet big when we have a lot of bluffs. For argument’s sake, let’s say you bet 10,000 into a pot of 1,000. The opponent would need to call 10,000 to win 11,000. If you are playing a balanced strategy, you would have to have 47.6% of bluffs there. And the more you overbet the pot, you will still never reach 50% or more (for example, if you bet 100x the pot, you would need to have 49.75% of bluffs, and if you bet 1000x the pot, you would need to have 49.975% of bluffs and so on).

The Riceman said
Gee whizz, “just started studying poker more seriously “…?

If our two answers were people, mine would be an unwashed dead beat dad with 2 bucks in his pocket, with a drink and gambling problem and a broken leg in the emergency ward, and yours would be David Hasslehoff in his prime running down the beach surrounded by hot chicks.

Of course, the principle of indifference is key. 

Really, it is a huge subject Carlos.  

Haha, that analogy made me smile. To be honest, I basically just regurgitated what I’ve learned there, by no means does it mean that I can do that stuff in practice. When I’m playing, especially if I’m playing more tables, it just becomes too overwhelming to keep track of all the hands and my ranges at that given moment.