3. Under-Betting The Pot
In no limit texas hold em you can bet out as much of your stack as you like in order to protet your hand. You should be using this to your advantage. Weaker inexperienced players on the other hand tend to bet small amounts such as $30 into a $500 pot. These kinds of bets offer good players fantastic pot odds to call and suck-out on the river because of the money they stand to make in relation to how much it costs to see another card. A bet of around 75% of the pot is enough to discourage players on a draw. Any bet under half the pot is normally not enough.
Tom said
Might be worth mentioning that there’s Yahoo poker now, including cash games. Maybe you guys should check it out to see what the standard of play is like (should be a fair few beginners on there I would have thought).
Vster said
I did check it out. That’s 10 minutes of my life I’m not getting back!
It is the most ugly pointless waste of time site I have ever seen. I assume the Yahoo Poker you are talking about is the one that can be found here:
http://uk.play.yahoo.com/games/login?game=Poker (yahoo login required)
The only game on offer is limit, the visuals are so nasty it’s difficult to see whats going on, I went for a game in the “advanced players room” and they were playing worse than a 5c/10c cash game!
Everyone, do yourself a favour, Yahoo Poker is rubbish. Steer well clear.
Duff said
Hi Guys – i’m not gonna comment on the yahoo poker side of things but more back to the point about betting out to protect your hand – I would always say (and so would Dan “the legend” Harrington!) that by betting out about half the pot is a nice size bet for a couple of reasons.
1. It will only give your opponent odds of 3 to 1 to call – so if they are on any draws or are looking to hit over cards they simply won;t have enough (unlike the example of betting 30 into a 500 pot where you are giving them odds of over 17 to 1 ! I could attempt to hit only 3 outs with that kind of offer! – you could be sitting there trying to “protect” your two pair of TPTK only for me to call with just a pair of deuces in the hand in an attempt to try to hit trips! – that would certainly fuel your “bad beat” stories for another night!
2. By betting around half the pot (so in this example, I bet 250 into a 500 pot) – I only need to win the pot there and then 1 in every 3 times that I try in order to break even – nice
hope that helps
cheers
Duff (SCB)