POT Sized BETS POST flop
We all hear about Potting and Pot sized bets, and plenty of great writing out there about pot size bets pre flop to isolate etc or get max value BUT other than that there does not seem to be much written a bout pot size bets POST flop say on the flop turn and or river.
Seems that most of the time I use a pot size bet people fold. Of course I can use this as an exploit if they are folding more than 64 ish percent of the time, however I do wonder if anyone has any other times that they find pot sized bets on the turn or river for value to be better than say a 3/4 size pot bet that gets called more often or times where you like to bet pot on the flop, and why? Seems pot bets freak a lot of villains out and they will fold SO the big question is when and what situations are best to bet pot for value, and if we are betting pot why not bigger ?
I know the question might sound a bit odd cause we hear about pot betting post flop on the flop ect so often, but how often do we see any theory on this subject directly related to this sizing, still in poker writing we often hear "I potted it on the turn and I potted in the river " , used pretty casually, there is much more written about betting 2x POT and it is clear that when an opponent is showing extreme interest in their hand that pot bet post flop is probably good on the flop or turn in some scenarios tut I find it difficult to define rules for this ALSO if we only bet pot for value it seems most players somehow intrinsically sense something is wrong even if they are not aware it is pot of 3 /4th pot and they will often fold to pot post flop EVEN when they show above average interest in their hand on the flop. I am talking about lower stakes games like 1 2 live and 25 50 online.
What kind of players do you like to pot bet in the flop?, turn or river and we are talking about POST flop and not pot size bets preflop as there is already a ton written about those ISO plays. I am a pretty new player and working hard on bet sizing so thanks in advance!!
Seems that most of the time I use a pot size bet people fold. Of course I can use this as an exploit if they are folding more than 64 ish percent of the time, however I do wonder if anyone has any other times that they find pot sized bets on the turn or river for value to be better than say a 3/4 size pot bet that gets called more often or times where you like to bet pot on the flop, and why? Seems pot bets freak a lot of villains out and they will fold SO the big question is when and what situations are best to bet pot for value, and if we are betting pot why not bigger ?
I know the question might sound a bit odd cause we hear about pot betting post flop on the flop ect so often, but how often do we see any theory on this subject directly related to this sizing, still in poker writing we often hear "I potted it on the turn and I potted in the river " , used pretty casually, there is much more written about betting 2x POT and it is clear that when an opponent is showing extreme interest in their hand that pot bet post flop is probably good on the flop or turn in some scenarios tut I find it difficult to define rules for this ALSO if we only bet pot for value it seems most players somehow intrinsically sense something is wrong even if they are not aware it is pot of 3 /4th pot and they will often fold to pot post flop EVEN when they show above average interest in their hand on the flop. I am talking about lower stakes games like 1 2 live and 25 50 online.
What kind of players do you like to pot bet in the flop?, turn or river and we are talking about POST flop and not pot size bets preflop as there is already a ton written about those ISO plays. I am a pretty new player and working hard on bet sizing so thanks in advance!!
Leave a Comment

Answers
Extra info:
You said your villains fold 64% of the time. So if we want to bluff them, we can look at the odds we are giving them if we bet. Say we bet 1/2 pot, they would have to continue 33% to avoid being exploitable. If we bet pot, they would have to continue 50% of the time. In small pots, the different between 5 and 10 dollars appears trivial. However, the difference between 50 and 100 dollars isn't the case to a lot of players. If you can get the same amount folds for $50 instead of risking $100, would you do it?
It is said that bet sizing is the hardest thing about poker. You could put yourself in great spots all day but if you don't value bet effectively, you won't crush your game.
Also I'm not 100% sure what you mean by pot sized bets pre-flop. Pre-flop is usually sized based on the blinds, not the pot. So when they said 3x, they mean 3 * (BB) not 3 * (pot).
ONE thing is becoming clear to me and that is that we need someone to be very interested in their hand, not just above average interest.
IF they guy is a NIT who I know has A A I will pot flop and raise jam on the turn or possibly check raise if the person is super into heir hand and not a LAG. Against good LAGS a pot size bet can only be done with balance, but not really going to get much value from good lags anyway,. looking mostly for fish, donks, crazy bluffers and NITS who clearly have an over pair that they will overplay.
Maybe the question is too long and detailed, but it is something that I believe a lot of players who think about bet sizing would like to know more about. I already realized that I can use exploitive play to force pot size bets to work either by value calls or exploitive pot size bluffs to get folds, funny thing is I realized it al most by accident after saying, gee everyone folds when I make pot sized bets, well kind of like obvious that pot size bets could be a good exploit, bit it is not quite that simple as ranges and min defense frequency also have to be calculated, though that is not too hard against only one player. . If I bet pot against one player then he is getting 2 to 1 so he needs 33 equity to call if he is calling at less than the min defense frequency then we are printing money. If he starts realizing I am bluffing then he will have to call pot sized bets. This much I figured out by using basic poker math, however I imagine there are other nuances and subtleties to POST flop pot sized betting that go into different realms. Maybe there is less to it, though just by asking questions I think I have come up with the answer, but there could certainly be more to it, and hopefully we can get an article or discussion on it, may be a bit pedantic, but at the same time valuable.
Teaser: towards the end of the year, this will be a topic featured heavily for our PRO subs. The current material in CORE provides the fundamentals.
I could write about 3 pages of what I have learned in juts the last couple weeks about potting it post flop, however main point and interesting to know is that people fold about 85 more to pot size bets than they do to 3 th 4 th pot size bets so obviously there are great way to use this info. and yes a lot of sites have pot size bets but on some you have to go into the settings to have a pot size bet post flop. I had to change the all in button post flop to do pot size bets
What? Where are you getting this info from?
In my experience, this isn't the case at all on the 3 sites I currently play. There are other buttons on most sites too(1/2, 3/4, custom)
That could be the topic of many books. It is a max min problem, we do a lot of those in basic calculus and then they can get far more complicated with the calculus of variations, however in poker it is more about developing a feel for the players and what they will call and fold to and also balance. I have a program that I practice with called Poker Snowie and it is very fond of pot sized bets so there must be something to it.
Yes those things are what I am referring to, I was hoping to find some rules and articles on the subject. Poker Snowie is a good multi way program I practice on and it loves pot bets at times, so have actually been learning quite a bit from it.
The site I play on has pot pre flop but then it is all in post flop so you have to do a custom button set up.
Hey Game Kat, sorry for the late reply did not see the notification. I realized that most of the pot sized bet stuff comes from my practicing on Poker Snowie , I am actually getting better at using pot bets and knowing when. One thing is for sure however, unless the person is a total call station you are MUCH better off using a 3/4 size bet however finding players will you can half pot flop then pot turn and river is great if you know they will never fold and A or IF they are on a flush draw. 75 80 percent bets are often good for charging draws but Snowie likes pot size often. Of course we have to balance this with our bluffing range when we are semi bluffing draws etc
I could write about 3 pages of what I have learned in juts the last couple weeks about potting it post flop, however main point and interesting to know is that people fold about 85 more to pot size bets than they do to 3 th 4 th pot size bets so obviously there are great way to use this info. and yes a lot of sites have pot size bets but on some you have to go into the settings to have a pot size bet post flop. I had to change the all in button post flop to do pot size bets
Snowie is useful but always remember it in NO way is the best way to play vs humans.
It's addressed in CORE and we'll be publishing more material on the topic in the Fall.
Correct, Snowie plays expecting you to have GTO ish type range, so I use Equilab and Flopzilla to look at the ranges I expect a real villain to have and mostly use snowie as a type of baseline against balanced ranges.
Also with snowie it expects a balanced bluffing range and as we know in low stakes games most players are not balanced so we play more exploitive. Snowie . If Snowie would allow us to plug ranges into it like Equilab then it would be even greater, but we can do that on our own by simply looking at the equity of expected ranges.
There are some ways you can manipulate snowie into giving a glimpse of how it will play vs wider ranges. Not perfect but at least interesting. ie you want to simulate ISO-raising a limper - create a micro-stakes scenario where you MR UTG(6m) and the BTN calls and the ranges for both players are similar to ISO a LP station limper.
There are other ways to get creative to explore how snowies :)
That is a good idea thanks, if you min raise late position low ranges will stay in more often, though with Snowie it is so rare to have more than heads up. Snowie is great but and has helped me a ton, though it has it's limits. But it is still a VERY useful tool and the only one that really deals with multiway situations to some degree.