McEvoy's article "Betting The Wrong Amount..."

[TheDrone]

I just read McEvoy's recent CardPlayer article Betting the Wrong Amount in No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments and I find some of it surprising given what I have read from the more experienced posters on this forum. For example, MLG recently said that he rarely makes pot-sized bets, or something to that effect.

Here are two quotes from the article that you can chew on:
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Anytime we see players overbet the pot (or underbet the pot, for that matter), their play indicates to us that they probably are inexperienced players.

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Depending on the size of the pot, I like to make a pot-sized bet. I don’t want to overbet, because occasionally I might run into a bigger hand. But, I want to make it costly enough that the marginal hands will leave. If you were to always bet the size of the pot when you thought you had the best hand on the flop and wanted to protect it, and you did no other type of betting, you probably would be right about 90 percent of the time.

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I don't believe that I have taken these quotes out of context. Anyone care to comment?

[Awesemo]

I read similar advice in his book Championship PL and NL Hold'em. This was a really poor book. I would guess that it's rarely correct to bet the size of the pot.

[SoBeDude]

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I read similar advice in his book Championship PL and NL Hold'em. This was a really poor book. I would guess that it's rarely correct to bet the size of the pot.

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I think there is a place for a pot-sized bet and I use it often.

I like the bet when I flop top pair, say, T's with AT in my hand, but there is a flush draw out there. I have a solid hand, but its very vulnerable. If the flop is T-high, there is most likely a straight draw out there as well.

In this spot, a pot-sized bet ruins the odds your opponents are getting to continue with hands such as flush and straight draws, but you're likely to still get action from hands like 2nd pair or top pair, worse kicker.

-Scott

[gumpzilla]

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I like the bet when I flop top pair, say, T's with AT in my hand, but there is a flush draw out there. I have a solid hand, but its very vulnerable. If the flop is T-high, there is most likely a straight draw out there as well.


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This is fine, but there have to be more times that you pot it than this, otherwise it seems like a fairly substantial information leak. You can put slightly less in the pot, still protect your hand, and have more flexibility to make the same play in a wide range of circumstances while risking fewer chips, making it somewhat harder to give information.

[SoBeDude]

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I like the bet when I flop top pair, say, T's with AT in my hand, but there is a flush draw out there. I have a solid hand, but its very vulnerable. If the flop is T-high, there is most likely a straight draw out there as well.


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This is fine, but there have to be more times that you pot it than this, otherwise it seems like a fairly substantial information leak. You can put slightly less in the pot, still protect your hand, and have more flexibility to make the same play in a wide range of circumstances while risking fewer chips, making it somewhat harder to give information.

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What? you don't think I can bet the pot on a stone cold bluff? or with a vulnerable overpair?

-Scott

[gumpzilla]

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What? you don't think I can bet the pot on a stone cold bluff? or with a vulnerable overpair?


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Well, sure, if you do those things then that's good, but you were providing one specific instance of where you like to bet the pot. There wasn't a suggestion from that that you bet the pot in many different circumstances.

cero's post addresses this, as well as the issue of pot committing yourself, somewhat better than I have.

[cero_z]

Hi SoBeDude,

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I like the (pot-sized) bet when I flop top pair, say, T's with AT in my hand, but there is a flush draw out there. I have a solid hand, but its very vulnerable.

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This seems to be the standard line with TPTK or an overpair in the Party Poker $1000 NL cash games. I don't like it there, and if stacks are approximately as deep (say, early in the tourney)or shallower, I don't like it in a tourney either. I can't think of a reason why betting 70% of the pot is worse, as long as we're talking about "normal" pot and stack sizes at this juncture.

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In this spot, a pot-sized bet ruins the odds your opponents are getting to continue with hands such as flush and straight draws, but you're likely to still get action from hands like 2nd pair or top pair, worse kicker.


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I don't think it does ruin their odds to draw to 8 or 9 outs, given that if they call a pot-sized bet in a tournament, you will often be pot committed, and usually pay off the rest of your stack if their draw arrives, or be forced into a costly fold when a draw (or overcard) arrives and they bluff. Furthermore, you may get action from another TP hand, but you would still get action and sufficiently limit their slim drawing odds with a smaller flop bet. Plus, if there's any time that a good opponent will get away from TP, it's when they're faced with a flop bet large enough to commit them.

Of course, the single biggest problem with that bet is that you can't just do it when you have one good pair. You must also do it when you whiff, or when you flop big sometimes, or you'll be ridiculously readable. Given that you'll miss about 2/3 of the time with AT, and rarely hit a flop you can really like, I think betting the pot risks too much for too little, as a rule.

If you think this post is long, you should see what I started with: there were examples of scenarios with stack sizes, etc. I don't want to bog the post down any further, but we can talk specifics if you're interested.

Cero

[sloth469]

He's most likely reffering to deep stack, live tourneys. This seems to be a recurring problem with authors concidering the stakes they play and not concidering the small stakes usually found in online tourneys.

[TheDrone]

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He's most likely reffering to deep stack, live tourneys.

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I wondered about this as well. If this is the case, it seems like a huge oversight to not specify it in the article. Especially considering the huge percentage of people who read this article do not play live deep stack tournaments.

[2005]

Well, I rarely say anything nice about Tom for a couple reasons. First, I don't think he's a very good player. I see him make major mistakes constantly. Second, He's a total a-hole. I'm not going to buck that trend. Who are generally considered the best tournament players in the world today? John Juanda and Daniel Negreanu, hands down. You will rarely see them make a pot sized bet. Tom is a weak-tight, ABC, super predictable player. He, IMHO is not a winning tournament player, take his advice with a grain of salt.

Gavin