A few things to point out before I start... This guide is only going to discuss postflop betting and certain parts may seem more relevant to cash games where stacks are deeper but most of it applies to any hand you play in any format of poker.

 

Last point before we really get started but a very important one... Don't use the post-flop betting buttons (½ pot, ¾ pot and full pot). If you're always using these buttons then it just shows you're not thinking enough about how much you're betting and why you chose that particular amount.

 

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It might sound like a long list and a lot to think about but most of these things either already are or will become second nature with practice so here are the factors you need to take into account when deciding how much to bet...

 

As a general 'default' I'd suggest all of your bets being in the range of 60-70% of the pot but the factors above may mean you should increase or decrease that figure.

 

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Our hand and our perceived range - Well the first part of this is pretty self explanatory. The second part is only relevant when you're playing a pot against an opponent that you think is actually putting you on a range. If they are then you should think about what our range looks like to the opponent. Depending on how strong/weak our perceived range is V their range, you can adapt your sizing to get the result you want.

 

The board - The board texture is one of the most important factors in choosing a bet sizing. On very dry boards we want to bet smaller than normal because flops like K27r are impossible for your opponent to have any immediate (non-backdoor) draws and it's a flop that is going to miss most ranges a lot of the time. For this reason betting smaller achieves two things:

 

1) When we are value betting, a smaller bet will get called by a wider range (so we get value more often)

 

2) When we are bluffing, it's much cheaper to do so and a smaller bet should be just as effective because it's such a hard flop for your opponent to hit. The smaller our bet, the less often it has to work to be +EV

 

Conversely on very wet flops we should bet bigger than normal. Wet flops like 89Qss or AJThh hit the range of hands that most people like to play way more than the flop mentioned above. On flops like this, people will have lots of hands like 1pr, 2pr, 1pr + FD, 1pr + straight draw, sets, nut flush draws, OESD. So again the reason we go bigger is two fold:

 

1) When we're value betting, it's SO much more likely people have a hand they want to continue with, so we wanna get more value from those hands with a bigger bet

 

2) When we're bluffing, again people have hands they want to continue with more often and we need to put more pressure on them to get them off the lower end of their ranges.

 

The opponent's range - Putting your opponent on a range allows you to have an idea of how strong/weak they are in a hand. If judging by earlier streets we can pretty much guarantee they have a strong hand that they're not gonna fold and we're sitting there with a massive hand then obv we can go really big with our sizing. Conversely if we think they have some sort of made hand but it can't stand much heat like 2nd pr/TPNK and we don't want them to fold, then we can go a little bit smaller to keep in these weaker hands.

 

Reads on the opponent - Reads on an opponent are very important and you'll only get an idea for what you can get away with by trial and error (and watching opponents when they play hands with other people), but obviously some players are a bit more on the stationy side than others. Against good players it can be important to be balanced with your sizings, against others they just simply won't notice. If they don't even notice you betting 60% pot with bluffs and 80% for value then go for it. This especially applies to microstakes cash... exploiting people's mistakes is far more important than being balanced against people that won't notice.

 

Stack/Pot Ratio - Unless stacks are vv deep when it's just not possible, we generally want to be setting ourselves up so that when we get to the river we can (although we don't necessarily have to) shove for a little under a pot sized bet. Not only does it mean we've set ourselves up to get it in by the river without overbetting but it also puts the max pressure on the opponent knowing that if he calls the turn, he is likely to be facing a bet for the rest of his stack on the river. Also, if you get into a 3bet pot with someone who only has say 40xBB and you flop very very strong then you can often go something like 30% pot, 30% pot, 30% pot and that's enough to get it in by the river while keeping his range as wide as possible... going smaller in these shallower stacked pots also allows us to run multi street bluffs and still get away. So you should be thinking right from the start 'what kind of sizings do I need to use to get it in by the river?'

 

Number of opponents - Generally, the more people there are in the pot, the bigger we should go. When we're going for value then there are just that many more ranges out there to have hit the board so higher chance of getting calls and so we get max value going bigger. Multi way pots are harder to get folds from everyone so when we're bluffing we're also using bigger sizings to put max pressure on our opponents.

 

This felt a bit rushed and I'm no Galfond so no doubt I missed stuff or didn't explain certain things very well so feel free to ask any questions in the comments box and I'll be happy to answer.