To Bet or not to Bet

Betting and raising (which is a form of betting) are actions that beginning players do often without thinking. Sometimes I ask a beginning player: “why did you bet?” and he would say: “well, because I had a good hand.” I think that this line of reasoning is somewhat short sighted and even flawed. In this article I will discuss the various reasons for betting, such that beginning players can take up a more comprehensive betting strategy.

Betting for value

The most straightforward reason to bet is for value. You have a good hand and you want to get paid off. Still, only betting because you have a good hand is too simple. If you value bet you always have to wonder with which hands your opponent is going to pay you off. Sometimes you might conclude that no worse hands will pay you off and you’d better checking. Value betting is a complex subject, which is out of the scope of this article. A general advice though is to put your opponent on a range and then analyze which hands you beat will pay you off. Betting for value is something which you can do all streets (flop, turn and river). You may bet for instance the turn with four of a kind, when your opponent has a flush draw. Although he is drawing dead, he might pay with his flush draw and when he hits his flush he will pay you off bigger, because there is more money in the pot.

Betting to protect your hand

Situations do occur where you have a made hand and your opponent has a some kind of draw. You don’t want to give your opponent a free card, so you should bet in order to protect your hand and to force your opponent into making a mistake.

Betting for information

Also called probe betting. A bet or a raise can give your information by the reaction that your opponent takes. For instance you frontbet with top pair no kicker in a 5  way pot and the player immediately next to you raises it up. Since it is unlikely he is bluffing here (because it is a 5 way pot), you can safely assume that your top pair is not good enough. On the other hand tough opponents may bluff you if they are aware that you are probe betting.

Betting for isolation

It is a profitable strategy to isolate fish in position, such that you can exploit them. So many players will often raise in position when a fish limps to play a pot heads up against the fish. Isolation is however not only profitable against fish, but also other players who play marginally hands out of position.

Betting as a bluff

This reason is quite straightforward: you want to bluff your opponent out of the pot. Bluffing is also a complex subject which is out of the scope of this article and will be discussed in other articles. I want to address though a particular bluff: the semi bluff. This means that you are betting when you have a flush of straight draw. It is a bluff because you don’t have a made hand, but you do have outs to one.

Block betting

This often occurs on the river. I do it when I have a marginal made hand and I don’t want to call a big bet from my opponent. So I bet a relative small amount (one third or half pot), such that I can get relative cheaply to a showdown. If I get raised I can lay down my hand and this is cheaper than check calling a river pot bet by my opponent. The danger of course is that you can be bluff raises and owned.

I think the best way to develop your game is to be aware what you are doing and be self critically. I am stressing this in most of my articles. So if you bet or raise, you should do with a reason and a plan.