One of the most commonly talked-about subjects among poker learners nowadays is the concept of over-betting. I think it’s fair to say that for many players, the concept might fall into what Jared Tendler’s Adult Learning Model would classify as the region of ‘Conscious Incompetence’ – players know what it is, and they know that it’s something that higher-stakes regulars or pros use effectively, but they’re fully aware that it’s something they themselves don’t really do.
I want to shed some light on the concept that might help those of you who are at that particular level progress to the point where you’re able to use these ideas effectively. The first step is to understand the fundamentals, as with everything else, and the next step is to identify simple principles that can help you implement these ideas into your game.
The fundamentals behind the concept
Many – in fact, most – MTT players are stuck in a particular mindset when it comes to bet sizing. Someone told them a long time ago that betting roughly half the pot is ‘standard’ in MTTs, and so that’s what they do – repeatedly, almost relentlessly, on any postflop street, more or less whenever they’re going to bet any sizing at all. These players may have some flexibility within that frame of mind, but generally they’ll be betting between 30% and 70% of the pot 95% of the times they actually bet (stack sizes notwithstanding).
The problem with this is that most players are led into this mindset by an excessive focus on the hand they actually have at any given moment – they’re not focused on the entirety of their range. Learning to think in terms of ranges – not just your opponent’s, but your own as well – is a key step forward in your poker game, and it’s crucial to practice it if you want to make better decisions.
The reason why this is so important with relation to bet sizing is because of one simple principle – a given bet sizing and the range with which a player makes that bet are inextricably linked. You might look at a particular c-betting spot and have a good idea of your c-betting range, for example, but then you have to decide between 33% and 50% of pot as a sizing. Alternatively, you might decide on a sizing first, and then pick a range, but your sizing has to be dependent on the range, so which comes first? It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario.
The reality is that we need to think in terms of overall strategies. We have to consider both our sizing and our range for betting in equal terms. The good news is that there’s a fairly solid principle that’s true in many cases – the more often we’re betting (expressed as a % of hands in our range), the smaller our sizing should be, and the less often we’re betting, the bigger our sizing should be.
We can also extrapolate from this principle and use basic GTO concepts to discover that our bet sizing should also increase as our range gets more polarized – this can be proven in many river spots, and it correlates closely with the above principle, in that when we’re betting very frequently with a high percentage of our range, it’s very difficult for that range to also be polarized – we’ll rarely have a range that’s so polarized overall that we can go with a large sizing with 100% of our range. This is particularly true on earlier streets, since equities are closer together.
Locating appropriate river spots
As a result, therefore, we can identify that the best spots for bigger sizing are spots where our range is more polarized, and the best spots to identify truly polarized ranges are on the river, since at that point there are no more cards to come, and certain hands will have either 0% or 100% equity versus other ranges.
The river is by far the best street on which to utilize overbets. If we can correctly identify spots where our range is polarized, we can pick up on plenty of opportunities to put pressure on our opponents with bluffs, as well as getting massive value from strong hands. Generally a good example of a spot where our range might be polarized is a 3-barrel spot – usually we’re not going to 3-barrel with middle-strength hands, so our range will be pure bluffs and strong value most of the time.
It can be dangerous to think about overbetting into an uncapped range. If your opponent can have the nuts, or if there’s a chance some of your value-bets might get called by better, it’s advisable not to use an overbet sizing. But if your opponent’s range is capped and your value-bets win 100% of the time when you get called, and your bluffs always lose (which is going to be true anyway in most cases), then your range can be said to be perfectly polarized – correspondingly, your opponent is in a pure bluff-catching spot.
When this is the case, the optimal bet sizing is usually going to be all-in, even if that’s for 100 big blinds into a 10 big blind pot. The reason is that making a bigger sizing allows you to bluff with a bigger % of your range (since your bluffing frequency should equal the pot odds you offer your opponent, if you want to be balanced), and bluffing more often also allows you to value-bet thinner.
Your reaction to this might be “if I bet a massive amount, my opponent is never going to call – I don’t want him to fold when I’m value-betting, so shouldn’t I bet smaller?” If this is the case, remember that you’re also going to be making these bets with bluffs, so you don’t necessarily want villain to call or fold – you just want to be balanced, and let them make whichever mistake they want to make. Remember also that a value bet of 10,000 chips that gets called 11% of the time has higher EV than a bet of 1,000 chips that gets called 10% of the time (1,100 vs 1,000).
Overbetting on earlier streets
It’s tricky to find spots to overbet the flop or turn, there’s no doubt about that. In general it’s tough to find spots where ranges can be purely polarized in these spots, so that’s the main obstacle. However, there are some instances where you might consider splitting your range into two sizings against weaker opponents – a large, potentially overbet-sized range with both some very strong hands and very weak ones, and then a smaller sizing with the rest of your range. Be warned, though – you’ll most likely have to continue barrelling most turns and rivers almost always if you overbet the flop with a polarized range, and you’ll also have to protect your smaller sizing by mixing some big hands in there sometimes.
On the turn, it’s a little easier to find polarized ranges, and when stacks are shorter you may find jamming the turn for 1.3x the pot to be better than betting 0.4x the pot, for example. In addition, you’ll also find that ranges can be polarized when one player check-raises the flop and gets called – usually the check-raiser will have a more polarized range, and the caller a more bluff-catcher heavy range.
It’s not out of the question that you might find some spots to overbet for value as an exploitative adjustment against weaker players, too – if you have bottom set and you think your opponent is never folding top pair, just jam the turn, for example. You can also do some pretty crazy things on the flop in the big blind for exploitative reasons – if you flop a set on a low-card board versus an under-the-gun raise, for example, then if you think your opponent is never folding an overpair, you might as well open-jam the flop for a massive overbet. Their range will likely be about 30-35% overpairs depending on the flop, and if they call all of those, you win a monster pot 90% of the time.
Don’t get carried away
One final note about overbetting – don’t go nuts. You need to have a good understanding of both yours and your opponent’s ranges in order to implement these ideas effectively. Before you try to go all-out to push your game forward, consider taking an incremental approach and trying to walk before you run. If you implement these ideas incorrectly, they might end up doing you more harm than good.
I suggest getting hold of a GTO solver if you can – PIOSolver is very popular these days, while my preferred piece of software is Simple Postflop. The turn and river version of SP is available for free, so it’s a great tool for improving your capacity to understand turn and river spots, and identify situations where an overbet may be appropriate.
The key to all of it, however, is to step away from your perceptions regarding what’s ‘standard’. There is no ‘standard’ these days – if you’re stuck in that mentality, you’re falling behind. Time to take the next step.