Betting Strategies

[Rook80]

As someone who is new to playing NLH tournament, one of the things that I’m finding most challenging to learn is how to make a bet that will maximize the number of chips I can win vs. giving opponents the opportunity to out draw me.

I’m sure this is something everyone struggles with in tourney. I find this problem come into sharp focus when I’m short stacked and need some chips if I want to stay in the tourney much long.

I reason I bring this up is because of a hand that knocked me out of PokerStars tourney this weekend. I was playing in $3 NL Friday night tourney with about 1400+ players. We were down to about 250 players left and the blinds were at 200/400. I only had about 2100 chips and hadn’t had many strong hands to play when I get A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] UTG. I decide that I have to make a play to try and double up here or I’d be out of the tourney real soon. Based on who the table was playing, I thought and all-in bet would drive everyone out, same thing for a 3x BB bet. A BB call bet might let too many people in so I decide to raise 1x BB and go all-in after the flop. The next 3 player all call my bet and the 4th player, with 17,000 chips, goes all-in. I call and everyone else folds. At this point I feel great about what has happen. The pot is 5600 chips and I’m heads up with a pair of As. My opponent turns over 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] which is great for me. The flop comes out 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] giving me a set and my opponent a flush draw. The turn is 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] but river is 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and he wins with flush.

Although I was out, I was real happy with the way I played the hand. I accomplished exactly what I was hoping for but unfortunately got a bad draw.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the best betting strategies to maximize the number of chips you can win when you hit a big hand? Is always specific to the table your on or can general principle be applied in any setting?

[cferejohn]

When playing with observant opponents (unlike, evidently, this yahoo), a minimum raise, especially from EP, is going to be very suspicious, unless you are often min-raising with a variety of hands. However, if you are often min-raising with a variety of hands you are probably giving up too much of the equity that you could make by stealing the blinds.

I'll usually raise some standard amount (typically 3x the BB) whether I have AA, QJs, or 27o on a pure steal. Much harder for opponents to put you on a hand that way.

If your opponents aren't paying attention, min-raising here might make more sense, but you're going to find payers catching onto that move as you move up.

With less than 10x the BB, you are typically in all-in or fold territory. Playing AA a bit differently might be a good idea in this case because you so desperately need to double up (and in fact at this point would probably welcome a three-way all-in situation).

None of that was really an answer, was it? Well, I know I'd typically just push there, but I'd have been pushing often enough with the short stack that people would probably not give me credit for much of a hand and I might get that call from 77 anyway...

[Warren-PokerMD]

With 200/400 blinds here and only 2100 in chips you want to induce a call...but not a party (multi-way pot).
Limping or 1x raise induces the party...you were lucky that the 77 raised or you're up against 5 handed action.
With a short stack I push here, trying to get A-10, AJ to think I'm all in with ANY A or KQ desperation. You'll also get calls from mid to big pairs.
It certainly doesn't hurt for you to pick up just the blinds here if you don't get called, giving you a larger stack to defend the upcomming blinds with.
The problem of cousre is your stack size, if the pot comes down 4 or 5 way the 1300 remaining you have to bet the flop doesn't get out a good draw or a pair.
IMO

[cferejohn]

Depending on how close we are to the bubble, I might not mind multiple callers, actually.

To make it an extreme situation, if we were still a long way from the money, the average stack was over 10K, the blinds were about to double, and they were about to hit me, I'd be happy to get at least two callers, figuring the equity of tripling up slightly less often was better than that of doubling up slightly more often.

That said, I'm pushing 79 times out of 80 here.