Poker Betting Strategy

• Texas Holdem Betting Guide
• 3 Card Poker Betting Strategy

Poker Betting Strategy. Basic Strategy: Tips: Position: Starting Hands: Bluffing: Betting: Money Management It's all well and good knowing when to bet and raise, but if you don't know how much money you should be betting. Poker 3 Betting. The poker strategy in this article is designed for cash game situations, specifically 100 big blind deep. If you create deeper or shallower stacks the ranges and concepts talked. The relationship between pot odds and odds of winning is one of the most important concepts in poker strategy. Pot odds are the ratio of the size of the pot to the size of the bet required to stay in the pot. For example, if a player must call $10 for a chance to win a $40 pot (not including their $10 call), their pot odds are 4-to-1. Poker 3 Betting. The poker strategy in this article is designed for cash game situations, specifically 100 big blind deep. If you create deeper or shallower stacks the ranges and concepts talked. How to Bet in Poker in 2020 - How to improve your game with a top betting strategy. Learn when to bet, when to call or bluff. Read more & improve your game.

Introduction

Betting in poker is a fundamental part of the game. It's what helps shift money around the table from one hand to the next and subsequently creates massive pots, juicy action, and big winners.

Proper etiquette and strategy behind how you choose to bet is an important part of gameplay. Adhering to proper etiquette will help make weaker players want to continue playing with you, whilst implementing a sound betting strategy will help you take money from these same players (as well as your stronger opponents from time to time, too!).

Remember: betting gives you an extra way to win the pot beyond just having the best hand at showdown; it gives room for your opponent(s) to fold and/or make mistakes against you, too. Best bustabit strategy. Therefore, if you do it correctly, it can help you consistently build up your stack or bankroll and profit well.

To assist you, the aim of this guide is to serve as a complete one-stop-shop for all the important info you'll need about the in's and out's of poker betting.

Betting in Poker: Types of Bets

'Betting' can refer to any of the actions available for you to take in a poker hand:

• Check: This is essentially a bet of $0. It passes the betting action on to the next player in the hand. This option is only available when there have not been any previous bets or raises in a betting round. It is also available to the player in the big blind during the 1st (preflop) betting round when other players have only called the big blind.
• Bet: This is the initial amount of money placed forward by any player in a postflop betting round. A bet can be made by the first player to act or by any other player after the action has checked around to them. The minimum bet size is often equivalent to that of the big blind. The maximum bet size of no-limit games, such as Match Poker, is that of one's entire stack, at any moment in time (i.e. when a player goes all-in).
• Raise: This refers to any increase made to an initial bet during a betting round. There is no cap on the size of the raise amount; however, it must be at least double the size of the previous bet.
• Re-Raise: This refers to any additional raise made after an initial raise. (To simplify things, these can also be referred to as 3bets, 4bets, 5bets, etc.) Regarding the minimum allowed size for a re-raise, it must use at least the same increment utilised between the previous bet and raise. For example, if Player A bets 10 chips, and Player B makes a raise to 30 chips total, then the difference between these two amounts is 20. This means the minimum permissible re-raise size would then be a total of 50 chips (or 20 more than the 30-chip raise). The exception to this rule is if a player wants to go all-in but doesn't have the fully required minimum size of raise or re-raise; in this instance, they are still allowed to go all-in.
• Call: This is when a player matches the previous bet, raise, or re-raise size made by another player, in order to continue playing in the hand.
• Fold: This is where a player discards their cards and is not involved any longer in the poker hand. While this option isn't technically considered a 'bet', it's still certainly an action available for players to take.

Poker Betting Rules: How To Bet In Poker

The points below include how to go about betting during a poker game. Keep in that while all these points are applicable to both live and online games, you won't need to consciously focus on some of them when playing Match Poker Online™ because of automation that the software provides you with (i.e. players can't act out-of-turn when online; bets are made by just clicking a button, instead putting physical poker chips forward; etc.).

Fundamental Betting Strategies for Beginners

When you bet (or raise), you're often hoping for a certain result and subsequent action from your opponent:

• If you have a good hand and you bet, you would obviously like to get called by a worse hand ('value bet').
• When you have a weak hand and you bet, you are hoping that your opponents will fold a better hand ('bluff'), allowing you to scoop up the pot.
• One specific type of 'bluff' that can be done on the flop or turn is one where you're betting when you have a draw ('semi-bluff'), where you could win the pot either by betting now and having your opponent folding to your bet or by improving to a better hand on a future street (i.e. a flush or a straight).

All of these 3 main types of bets will be elaborated upon in this section.

Value Bets

Texas Holdem Betting Guide

You should make a value bet if you think that you will be called by a worse hand 50% of the time or more. However, that said, there are two exceptions to this rule:

1. For tournaments, due to wanting to always preserve your tournament life and chip stack, it can be advisable to perhaps only bet when you'll get called by a worse hand 60% of the time or more. This is because it's much worse to be wrong and lose your tournament chips than it is to push small equity advantages and gain only a few more chips than you would have otherwise.
2. To balance / strengthen your checking range, it's advisable not to bet with every single strong hand in your range that you think will get called by worse 50% of the time or more. Furthermore, by checking, you can additionally allow your opponent to bluff. It also allows you to potentially extract more money if your plan is to check-raise! (Again, just make sure when you raise, that the hands your opponent might call you with will be worse over 50% of the time than the hand you decided to raise with.)

Bluffing

Bluffing is an important part of poker because it always keeps your opponents guessing as to whether or not you have a good hand. If you only bet with your strong hands, you'd become quite exploitable and easy to play against.

In Texas Hold 'Em poker, all hand equities have been realised by the river, meaning that players by this point know exactly how strong their best 5-card poker hand is (based on the poker hand rankings charts). They are also likely to be able to deduce from previous betting action in a hand whether or not they might be ahead or behind their opponents by this point, in terms of hand strength.

It's not advisable to bluff with every weak hand on the river, especially if many draws missed; doing this would likely entail that you'd be bluffing too much. Instead, the number of bluff combinations will depend on how many hands you choose to value bet with and the size of bet you choose to use. (More on this later.)

In general, good hand candidates to select for your bluffs might fall under one (or both) of the following trait

• An extremely weak hand that has very little chance of winning at showdown (i.e. the weakest missed draws)
• A hand that contains good blockers (cards that mean your opponent can't have nutted or super strong hands). An example of bluffing with a good blocker could include holding the Ace of the suit that also has a 3-flush on the board, meaning your opponent can't have the nut flush because you have that card!

Another strategic point regarding bluffing is that you want to make sure your previous betting actions and sizings all are the same ones you would've used if you actually have the value hand that you're trying to represent. (I.e. 'Does your story make sense?')

Semi-Bluffing

Semi-bluffs are inclusive of the hands on the flop or turn that are considered draws and/or have potential to improve to an even bigger hand on a future street. While you should aim to play a good portion of these draws aggressively, doing this with all of your draw combinations will almost certainly have you bluffing at an incorrect frequency. Some draw hands that you might opt to check with are hands that have some showdown value currently (because you could already be beating some of your opponents' hands that wouldn't call a bet anyway).

As a general rule of thumb, you should aim to bluff or semi-bluff at the following frequencies throughout a poker hand:

• FLOP: 2 to 2.5 semi-bluffs for every 1 value hand
• TURN: 1 semi-bluff for every 1 value hand
• RIVER: 1 bluff for every 2 value hands

NOTE: The exact river ratio that should be used from a game-theory optimal (GTO) standpoint would be able to be calculated perfectly depending on what bet size is used.

Betting the Flop, Turn, and River in Poker: The 4 Hand Categories

Poker hands should not be thought of as absolute values (i.e. the cards you're actually holding and how strong your hand is), but rather as a part of a more complex and diverse poker hand range, which refers to all the possible hand combinations you could be feasibly holding in that specific situation.

While there are easily accessible online charts and poker solvers that players can use to help build their preflop ranges (see our GTO preflop ranges) are a lot more variables that come into play once the flop and community cards are dealt, which means what course of betting action you should take for your specific hand is not always so cut-and-dry.

That's where the following 4 hand categories can be used, which helps players simplify their post-flop gameplan:

1. Strong Hands
2. Medium-Strength Hands
3. Semi-Bluffs
4. Trash

The rules for how to proceed from there are to bet with hands that fall under the 1st or 3rd category, and check those hands in the 2nd or 4th category (with the intention of calling most of those in the 2nd category when facing a bet, and folding to aggression for those hands in the 4th category). Yes, there will always be exceptions to these rules and these categories shouldn't be used in every instance, but as a general guideline to help you determine what betting action to take, these categories will certainly help out novice players.

How Much To Bet In Poker: Bet Sizing Guidelines

In conjunction with selecting what hands you want to bet with, you also want to consider what bet sizing you will want to use. The optimal sizing of bet that you can make in poker is one that maximises your expected value (EV); in other words, the one that will net you the most winnings in the long run.

In this section, we'll take a look at some generalised bet sizing concepts, along with those concepts specifically for value bets and bluffs, too.

SIZING OF BETS

Here are some general, important understandings to be made about bet sizing:

• Should the size of your bets be conducive to the strength of your hand? In general, your size of bets shouldn't always correlate to the strength of your hand (meaning you'd bet big with your good hands and smaller with your weaker hands); this would make you easy to play against. Instead, you have to think about how your entire hand range and the hands you would choose to be betting with interact with the board and your opponents' ranges.
• What makes bet sizes big or small? Bet sizes (as well as stack sizes) should always be viewed in terms of 'big blinds' and not deal with the actual amount of dollars or currency that is used to make that bet. As for what makes a bet large or small, this is determined by how big your bet is in relation to the current size of the pot.
• What does the size of the bet usually mean? Larger-sized bets often suggest a polarised hand range, meaning that player will either have a very strong hand or a bluff. The smaller a bet is, the wider range of value hands a player should bet with and the fewer number of bluffs they should have. If you notice your opponent deviating from this principal, it will be important to adapt appropriately in order to counteract this.
• How will your opponents respond to different bet sizes?Because (in theory) when you use a smaller bet sizing, you are able to bet with more hand combinations than if you used a larger-sized bet, good opponents will counter appropriately by having a wide continuing range as well. By a similar note, if you bet large, then these same players only continue in the hand with a smaller, narrower range. Sometimes, you can use this concept exploitatively to your advantage by keeping an opponent's range intentionally wide on earlier streets (by betting small), only to pound them with big bet sizes and aggression on future streets, where they'll usually be so weak and simply have to fold such a big part of their range because they simply can't continue versus a large sizing.
• What if my opponents do not react differently to bets of varying sizes? Realise that some weaker opponents have inelastic ranges, which means they're going to call and fold the same hands regardless of whether they're facing a large or small bet. Against these opponents, you cannot manipulate their continuing ranges like other players, but you can certainly use this knowledge to exploit them by betting smaller with your bluffs and larger with your value hands.
• River Bet Sizing: Theoretically speaking, with regards to bet sizing on the river, you should be bluffing with the same frequency your opponent should be calling with, based on pot odds. So if you bet ½-pot, your opponent would be getting 3-to-1 on a call, meaning when he calls, he only has to win more than 25% of the time in order to show a long-term profit. To appropriately counter this, your river betting range should consist of 25% bluffs and 75% value hands when you're using a ½-pot bet.

VALUE BETTING

When you bet for value, you usually want to choose a bet size that has the highest expected value, which means the highest profit margins over the long term.

This means that perhaps against players who call too frequently, you'll want to bet a larger and wider hand range in order to maximise your winnings. For your unknown or more standard opponents, though, it doesn't always mean you're going to want to choose the largest-possible size of bet.

Imagine this: you have the best possible hand on the river and you want to make a bet. If you shove all-in for $250, you think that your opponent will call only 10% of the time. (Perhaps it's a large overbet.) However, if you bet for $100, you think he might now call you 50% of the time. The EV of the larger bet is $250 x 10% = +$25 while the EV of the smaller bet is $100 x 50% = +$50. Therefore, while in specific instances (10% of the time), you will win more money by betting large, over the long-term, more money will be gained in this instance by betting small and getting called by a higher percentage of the time.

BLUFFING

There are 4 core concepts to take into account when deciding upon bet sizing for bluffs and whether or not to follow-through with it:

• You should bet the smallest amount as possible that will still achieve the desired result of getting your opponent to fold (exploitative strategy). In some instances, your opponent will be ready to fold his hand to any size of bet, so if you think this is the case, use a small bet to get him to fold so that you can scoop up the pot yourself.
• The smaller your bet size, the fewer number of bluffs you should include into your betting range (and the greater number of value hands you should include); the bigger your bet size is, the more bluffs you can include into your betting range relative to the number of value hands you chose.
• Don't try bluffing opponents who call down with weak holdings far more frequently than they should. To get them to fold (which can sometimes be quite difficult or impossible), it often involves you having to risk far too much money than is worth for the frequency they would actually fold their hand.
• To calculate how often a bluff needs to work to succeed in order for you to be profitable, the formula to use is: Your bet / (Pot Size + your bet). In other words, if you want to use a 33% pot bet, you'd need your opponent to fold about ($33 / ($100 + $33)) = 25% of the time or more in order for your bluff to be automatically profitable.

Two Betting Philosophies: GTO vs. Exploitative

When studying poker, players should be looking to develop and improve their Game Theory Optimal (GTO) play, which essentially refers to a balanced, unexploitable style of poker. By playing this strategy, players aim to play perfectly themselves and only profit from the mistakes their opponents are making.

Now while developing this as a standard, baseline strategy is important, the actual strategy that will be used in an incredibly high number of the actual games you play in (even in many higher stakes games) will be an exploitative one, which refers to countering the weaker tendencies you see in your opponents' strategies in order to make a greater profit yourself. This is because most other players are NOT playing a GTO style of play themselves and almost all players will have some sort of trait that is exploitable in their play.

Here are some common adjustments to make against some players with certain exploitable tendencies:

Against 'calling stations' – i.e. players who seem to call every time anyone raises:

• Avoid bluffing, either at all or as often as you might normally bluff.
• Value bet a wider hand range when you bet for value.
• Bet bigger against them with your stronger value hands.

Against straightforward opponents:

• 'Continuation bet the flop at a high frequency to take down a high number of uncontested pots when they don't flop anything special.

Against fish and overall weaker players:

• 3bet them preflop at a higher frequency in order to isolate and get them heads-up for post-flop play.
• Take extra care of paying attention to these players' weaknesses and leaks, as they are the ones where your long-term profits may come from.

Summary: Betting Helps You Win In Poker

Not only is betting a fundamental part of poker that causes chips to shift constantly from player to player; doing it will help give you an extra way to win your hands other than just at showdown (i.e. every time your opponents choose to fold to your bet).

That said, there is certainly finesse to betting in poker and learning how to do it well. Using betting strategies that appropriately counter weaker opponents will certainly help you rake in the long-term profits from them, but it's important also to develop a solid underlying GTO baseline so that you know what your standard betting lines for various situations are… and then how you should be deviating from them in order to play exploitatively.

All the best with the implementation of these strategies, and good luck at our tables! Nefertiti slot machine.

Poker revolves around betting. Betting in poker can serve several functions and betting patterns in poker can be very complex. This certainly holds true in no limit games in which you cannot only decide whether to bet or not, but are also free to bet whatever amount you wish to.

Beginning players often aren't aware of the reason why they bet, let alone the best amount they could bet in certain situations. A lot of beginning poker players as a result make big mistakes with their betting strategy and for that reason alone might find themselves losing their money on a structural basis. This article is meant to give you a basic understanding of when you should bet how much and what for; to teach you a basic no limit hold'em betting strategy.

Contents of this betting strategy guide:

Reasons for betting in poker

Besides betting because you feel like it or because it gives you a nice round figure in your chip stack there are several other reasons for betting in poker. The most common reasons for betting are the following:

• Betting to get value for your good hands
• Betting as a bluff

There are also several other reasons why poker players tend to bet, but which are more or less a form of one of the two reasons mentioned above:

3 Card Poker Betting Strategy

• Betting for protection
• Betting for information
• Betting to gain the initiative
• Block betting

The correct amount to bet in a certain situation often depends on the reason why you are betting. This will become clear in the following section where all the above mentioned reasons for betting in poker are discussed separately.

Value betting in poker

Value betting is betting with what you think will be the best hand. If you are value betting your hand, then you hope to get called by your opponent holding a worse hand than yours.

Note that you can only make an estimation of a range of hands your opponent is likely to hold. So, to be more specific, you are value betting your hand when you think it is ahead of your opponent's range of hands. Even if you get called by a hand in the top of your opponent's range that has you beat, you are value betting.

When you want to bet for value the trick is to bet an amount that wins you the most: you don't want to bet too much and scare your opponent off, but you don't want to bet too little and miss out on the money your opponent would have called more with his or her inferior hand either. Therefore it is very important to read your opponents well; to think about the hands your opponents could have and how much they would be willing to call with those hands.

In addition you could also use your bet sizing as a tool to be deceptive to your opponent and to lure your opponent into making big mistakes. An example would be inducing a bluff raise which is further explained in the section specifically about bet sizing.

Betting as a bluff

Bluffing in poker is betting with what you think will not be the best hand at showdown. If you are bluffing then you don't want your bet to be called by your opponent.

Bluffing is basically saying to your opponent that your hand is the better one and that he or she should fold. It is very important in order to bluff successfully and to not be a big donator of chips instead that your story adds up. In addition your opponent has to pick up on this story and he or she should be capable of laying down a second best hand.

The reason that bluffing at the lower stakes is not recommended is that you are mostly dealing with opponents who are not aware of you telling a story to them and who are incapable of laying down hands. You could make the most elaborate and sophisticated bluff in the world, but if you are dealing with such opponents then this bluff will be nothing more then spew or 'fancy play syndrome'.

If you want to bluff, the trick when it comes to bet sizing is to get the job done with as little chips as possible while still keeping up the story of you having a big hand. You don't want to risk more then necessary and you need to be credible. The more you bet as a bluff, the more often your bluff has to work in order to be profitable.

You can also semi-bluff in poker. This is betting when you hold a draw like a flush or a straight draw. This kind of bluff has several advantages: you could pick up the pot right there with your semi-bluff; it disguises your draw; if you get called then you have outs and it helps you build the pot for when you do hit your draw.

Betting for protection

Betting for protection is essentially a form of value betting your hand. By betting for protection you deny your opponents a free card that could give them a better hand when they are drawing.

When you are betting with the intention to protect your made hand against draws there is a minimum amount you have to bet in order to let your opponent make a mistake when he or she decides to continue with the hand. If you bet too little, then you give your opponent the right pot odds to call and try to outdraw you. Note that you can't make your opponent fold a hand. You can only make sure that (s)he makes a mistake when continuing with the hand.

Betting to gain initiative

Betting in poker is seen as an act of aggression. It gives you momentum: other players will have to make at least a decent hand or otherwise collect the nerves to bluff their way out if they want to continue when you keep on betting. Betting to gain initiative and to exploit this initiative (as with a continuation bet) is therefore essentially a form of bluffing as you don't fully rely on the strength of your hands. Although bluffing at the low stakes poker games is not recommended, betting to gain initiative and continuation betting on the flop are very important strategies to incorporate into your game.

Betting for information

Betting for information is probably one of the vaguest reasons you could bet for, yet it is often mentioned by poker players. The problem with betting for information is that when your bet for information just gets called this often doesn't tell you a whole lot about your opponent's hand. At the same time however, the pot is getting bigger and bigger while your hand probably isn't very strong (otherwise you would have just been betting for value). Betting for information is therefore not a very good reason to bet and you might be better of to just check instead.

Block betting

Betting to block is betting when you are first to act with the intention to set the price. This is usually done with weaker hands when players aren't sure whether their hand is good or not. They don't want to call a big bet by their opponent if they check to him and therefore they bet a smallish amount themselves (and hope to not get raised). It can be a valid betting strategy as you get some value from weaker hands and possibly lose less against stronger hands.

Paying attention to bet sizing: how much to bet in poker?

A key concept when it comes to betting in poker is that you should size your bets in relation to the total pot size (just like you should view your opponent's bets relative to the size of the pot). This is very important, because the bet size relative to the pot size determines the pot odds that you give your opponents. A very common range for bet sizes is anywhere between 50-100% the size of the pot.

Another important thing to keep in mind is to not vary your bet sizing based on the strength of your hand. If you would do this, other players might notice and get a 'tell' on you. They will see that you are betting strong only with your big hands and avoid paying you off. Or they might notice that you are betting small with your weak hands or bluffs and push you off of your hands.

Bet sizing when betting for value or as a bluff

When you are purely betting for value or as a bluff then you are very free in your bet sizing. As already mentioned, the trick with valuebetting is to bet an amount that wins you the most. This does not necessarily have to be the amount that gets called the most.

As a general rule betting larger against very loose opponents who don't like to lay down their hands will be more profitable. And because at the lower stakes online cash games you will encounter a lot of those opponents it is very important that you bet strong when you are very likely or even sure to be ahead. Strong betting means that you should be betting around 75% of the pot or even more. You could sometimes consider slowing down a bit when the board is unlikely to have hit your opponent and you are holding a monster like top set or bigger yourself. This should be an exception though.

A good thinking player however might see your smaller bet as strength: it looks like you are begging for a call, so you must have a strong hand. In this case a normal or even a large bet size would probably be better. You could save the smaller bet size against this opponent as a bluff.

If you flop a really big hand then you should look for a way to get your whole stack in the middle on the river without making any huge oversized bets at any point in the hand. You would want to avoid betting too small on the flop and the turn and having to bet 1.5 times the pot on the river to get it all-in. It is important to plan your bet sizing over multiple streets of betting.

And now for some bluffing:

Of course you won't be able to calculate all those percentages in the heat of battle, just like you won't be able to calculate exact pot odds and odds of hitting your draws and winning versus a certain hand range. The above examples are meant to give you an idea what you should roughly be thinking about when determining how much to valuebet or bluff. You can save the exact calculations for when you want to analyze your plays accurately away from the poker table.

Bet sizing when betting for protection

The common bet size of 50-100% of the pot also happens to be the correct amount to bet for protection if your opponent could hold potential flush or straight draws. It is advisable to bet closer to 100% the size of the full pot in this case, certainly against opponents who like to chase their draws. This way they will be making bigger mistakes by calling, which means more profit for you in the long run. If you're unsure about why this is a correct amount to bet versus potential flush or straight draws I'd advise you to read the pot odds guide. You'll see that this bet size will deny your opponents the proper pot odds to call with draws that have up to 15 outs.

Of course your opponent will not always have the straight or the flush draw when the board offers this potential with two cards to a straight or a flush. But because you don't know when they do or when they don't have the draw, it is best to just assume they always have it. This way you will never give away free cards where you could have gotten a lot of value from a draw instead.

Pre-flop raise sizing

If you decide to play a hand and you are the first to act before the flop then you might already know by now that raising is generally preferable over limping (just calling the big blind). Raising gives you initiative and it tends to weed out the very weak starting hands. On top of that it will result in getting more value for your good hands.

The general rule of thumb here is to raise 3 or 4 times the big blind and add one big blind for every limper. So if there are two players in front of you just calling the big blind and you find a nice hand like AQ you should raise to 5 or 6 times the big blind. If you raise less, then it will be too attractive for all kinds of hands to come along and take a look at the flop. If you raise more, then you are unlikely to get any action by worse hands at all. If you are dealing with particularly loose opponents, such as at the nano and micro stakes, then raising a little bit more pre-flop could be a valid strategy.

Common mistakes in a beginner's no limit hold'em betting strategy

Below is a list of the five most common betting strategy mistakes seen at the no limit hold'em micro stakes cash games.

1. Calling too much instead of betting and raising
   Aggression, or rather controlled and selective aggression, is important in no limit hold'em. If you are not aggressive enough, which is characterized by calling a lot instead of betting and raising, you let your opponents outdraw you cheaply. You also won't get enough value for your big hands and you will generally get less information about the strength of your opponent's hands and therefore of where you stand in a hand.

2. Betting and raising too small
   If you only make minimum bets and raises then you are just inviting players to enter the pot and take a shot at cracking your monster hands. Always think of the pot odds you are offering your opponents. In order to let your opponents make mistakes when they want to draw out on you, you have to bet strong: around ¾ the size of the pot will do fine as a general rule of thumb.

3. Betting and raising too big
   This one is actually pretty funny to witness: a very tight player suddenly wakes up and comes in raising 6 or 7 times the big blind pre-flop or reraises someone else's raise by a ridiculous amount of 5 times or more. You have to be really oblivious as an opponent to not have all your alarm bells going off at the same time that you are either facing queens, kings or aces and maybe, just maybe AK. I don't know whether it is the fear to play poker after the flop and to get outdrawn or impatience of getting all the money in the pot with a great hand. I do know that this kind of betting strategy will only scare the majority of opponents off and won't result in becoming a tough and unpredictable player to play against.

4. Betting without a plan
   You should always have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish with your bets and always ask yourself if betting in fact does accomplish what you had in mind. In addition you should start to make a plan early in the hand for several scenarios later in the hand. Think about the possible reasons for betting in poker. Do you want to get value? Do you need to protect your hand against one or more possible draws? How much should you bet now and on the turn to get all-in on the river without having to bet a weird large amount? What will you do if your bet gets raised? And what if the possible draw hits? Does betting as a bluff make sense here at all considering what my opponent thinks that I could have based on the betting in previous rounds?

5. Betting for value when no worse hands will call
   This is basically an example of betting without a plan or betting without thinking about what betting will accomplish. Say you get to the river where you hold a top pair and the board shows four cards to a straight and three cards to a flush and your opponent checks to you. Okay, so your opponent might be weak because he checks, but betting wouldn't really accomplish anything here. You are unlikely to fold out better hands and worse hands are probably not going to call. So a bet will only lose you more money when you are behind and will probably win you the same amount if you are ahead. And that's not what defines a good bet.

Betting in poker - conclusion to this betting strategy guide

I hope that this article has helped you to see what you can achieve with your betting in poker. Betting is much more than just throwing chips in the pot; it can serve several important purposes. Let's conclude with an overview of some take home messages:

• Always bet for a reason. Have a plan for the rest of the hand.
• Always see bet sizes in relation to the pot size. Common bet sizes are between 50-100% of the pot. Bet closer to a 100% of the pot if you want to bet strong.
• Before the flop a raise size of 3 or 4 big blinds plus one big blind for every limper in front of you is a very good starting point.
• Don't vary your bet sizing based on the strength of your hand.
• Selective aggression and choosing the right bet size will help you to protect your hands and to get value from weaker hands.
• There is very little to no need for pure bluffing at the lower stakes if you make sure you get enough value for your strong hands. You can generally bet bigger for value against very loose opponents.
• Always try to think of how your opponent might perceive your betting pattern.

These pointers form the big picture when it comes to betting in poker. If you follow them and try to implement them in your game, then you will likely become a player to be reckoned with at the table. Don't worry about betting specific plays like check-raising, squeezing and isolating yet. These 'details' will come when you have the basic foundation right.

Further reading at First Time Poker Player:

Further reading across the internet:

• The Poker Bank - Bet Sizing in No Limit Poker
• Tight Poker - Value Betting - Advanced Strategy in Extraction
• Poker-Strategy.org - Online Poker Bluffing
• Noted Poker Authority - Betting For Value Versus Inducing A Bluff