The overbet

Recently I have been watching various poker shows and the poker player who is starring in all of them is the young Tom “Durrrr” Dwan. Already a legend on the internet, his star is rising quickly in love poker too. In these shows he is making plays and moves which are seen as unorthodox by many. One of these plays is the overbet, he frequently overbets the pot on the river either as a bluff or a valuebet. This article discusses these overbets and gives some examples.

Overbet as a bluff
Durrrr sometimes makes huge overbet bluffs when he thinks his opponent has a marginal hand and will often fold to his bet. He does so if he thinks that an overbet is the only way to win the pot. In the next two videos you can see examples of these overbets by Durrrr.

In the first example Safai has top pair top kicker and Durrrr a flush draw. I think Safai checks the river, because he wants Durrrr to bluff. Durrrr knows this and knows the only way to win this hand is to bluff. His overbet is just brutal and Safai even folds a hand like toppair topkicker.

In the second example Laak and Durrrr play a hand against each other in an relative small pot. They check until the river, where Durrrr overbets the pot, since he knows Laak has air, but he himself has worse air and he needs to bluff to win the pot.
Overbet as a valuebet
In the same session as the last example Durrrr overbets his flush against Laak, which drove Laak crazy.

Discussion overbets
It would be difficult to fully analyze these hands, since we only see a selected number of hands which are played and my bounded rationality restricts me from fully analyzing Durrrr’s game. Though I can give my thoughts on these bets.
Many poker books will tell you to bet less than the pot, for instance one half, because then this bet only will have to work 1 out of 3 to make of profitable. This is certainly true, and overbet bluffs need a higher fold percentage in order to be profitable, but if you can reach fold percentages of 80% then many overbets can be profitable.
Important for overbet bluffs is that you overbet valuebet too sometimes. If you don’t do this good opponents will pick this tendency on and will call you successfully down. Durrrr overbets sometimes his big hands too, which drives some of his opponents crazy. This is an added result of the overbet, because it is so unorthodox, it may confuse your opponents and drives them in making mistakes.
Finally, if you want to try these overbet I think you should be aware of your opponents play and you should be able to read them well. Durrrr often successfully sets up his opponents for either a overbet bluff or overbet valuebet, like in the Phil Laak example. This requires lots of experience and feeling for game flow and your opponent.
I hope you like this article!