[websitemark]

I’m sure others can offer more nuanced insight, but you can use bet sizing to put opponents in tougher spots… manipulating the pot odds and their stack-to-pot ratio.

[rabman50]

In the next books study session (7/7/21 @ 7:30 EDT) we will be discussing chapter 7 of Modern Poker Theory. He talks about bet-sizing in relation to stack sizes. As Mark said, it is about making it more difficult for the villain to respond. A quote from the book – “One of the main weapons players have when facing open raises with shallow stacks is to rejam all-in, against bigger raise sizings, the Villains will get a better price on their rejams.”

[jim]

great question @MaxChaos this is something I think many recreational players like us would benefit from thinking about. Here’s my basic take on it:

When everyone at the table has well over 100 BBs you should be playing different ranges of HANDS IP and OOP than you would when everyone had around 30 BBs. So your goals for each hand played will be different, the factors you consider will be different, the pain thresholds for your foes will be different, etc – so you can use the sizing of your bets and raises to leverage your foe’s stack differently at different stack depths.

The reason most poker is based around 100 BB starting stacks is because 100 BBs can get into the pot in over the course of one hand as long as there is one pot-sized bet on every street. Let me demonstrate this with a simple example.

Let’s say Greg and I are playing poker – we just sat down with 100 BBs each and there are no antes yet. I open to 3 BBs and Greg calls IP. The blinds fold. So Greg and I each have 97 BBs back in our stack, and the pot is 3+3+1.5 from the blinds for a total of 7.5.

On the flop, I bet the amount in the pot (7.5) and Greg calls. So now the pot is 7.5+7.5+7.5 or 22.5 and we each have 89.5 BBs behind (we had 97 and we put in 7.5).

Ok so now on the turn, I bet the pot amount again, and Greg calls. So the pot is 22.5+22.5+22.5 or 67.5 and…holy cow, look at how much we have back in our stacks! It’s 67.5! What a perfect amount to be able to shove for a pot sized bet on the river!

Because players often fold to pot-sized bets postflop, poker players developed the “3-Bet” preflop to increase the size of the pot before the flop. You can see from this example how if the pot was already bigger on the flop, you could make a less-than-full-pot-sized bet and get called by weaker ranges than would call a pot sized bet, but still get your bottom chip in by the end of the hand.

So when stacks are shorter, the Stack-to-Pot ratio is smaller and you can make smaller bets or even skip a street of betting without giving up the ability to leverage the entire stack by the end of the hand. This has all sorts of side-benefits to savvy tournament players.

One benefit is that when stacks get REALLY short, you are leveraging a similar amount of fold equity with a 2x open raise than you are with a 3x open raise, but you lose fewer chips when you have to fold to a shove preflop (common when stacks get short) and you can still get it all in when you make a hand.

On a deeper table lets say everyone at the table has 58 BBs: if you 2x open you will get called by a significantly wider range than if you open to 3x.

But if everyone at the table has 18 BBs, their ranges are going to be pretty inelastic to the difference between 2x and 3x, as they will shove or fold anyway – but if you have 18 BBs and have to fold after opening, the difference between having lost 2 BBs and 3 BBs doesn’t sound like a lot but it is. If you do it one more time between the blinds going up it’s the difference between opening at 3x and having 12 BBs left, and opening at 2x and having 14 BBs left. And note that in that case, you have saved enough to have even been able to raise/fold a third time for the price of two! What if that time you would have seen a flop and doubled up?

So sorry for the long answer, but it’s a great question. I know I haven’t nailed everything here exactly perfectly either, but I think you get my drift.

The last issue is where you are a big stack but the effective stacks are shorter. So let’s say you are on a deep table – everyone to your right has 100BBs but the two players to your left only have 20 BBs each. It folds to you in the button and you choose to open-raise. Even though you have a deep stack, the maximum number of BBs any one person can put into this hand is 20. So that is the stack size you need to leverage. So you would choose to open to 2x not 3x here even though you have a deep stack. The effective stack is the one that matters.

What else can we add to this thread folks? Lot’s of great points to be made about sizing and stack depth – oh man I love poker!

[fivebyfive]

I don’t adjust my opening sizing all that much except in ICM spots. In ICM spots, I think we adjust based on the concept of leverage. Let’s say we’ve reached a final table. I have 15 bb. There are two players with less than 10 bb, the rest of the table covers me, but not by a ton.

If I decide to open instead of shove from the HJ, especially into some of the larger stacks, that should be a scary act to my opponents. When I open instead of shove, I should always use min-opens because opening any larger is a waste. It does very little for me in terms of fold equity. And if I have some hands in my range that I will fold to further aggression, I lose the minimum when I face it. But if my opponents are competent (and I am as well) that ICM min-open is scary because it should signal that my stack is ready to go in the middle (because I shouldn’t be opening all that much in this spot). This is the concept of leverage. I can make a min 2bb bet which carries the threat of, I’m really strong here and you better be ready to make it 15bb. I’m leveraging a 2bb bet and giving it something like 15bb in fold equity.

The same thing can happen with a big stack in these ICM spots. Let’s say we’re in this same spot, but now we’re in the small blind facing a min open from the HJ 15bb stack. We’re the table chip leader with 42bb. The big blind to our left has 36bb and is the only player at the table with more than 30bb. Let’s say we have JJ. I may not be all that happy about it, but I’m willing to get this in for 15bb with the HJ, but I’m not willing to get this in with big blind given the ICM implications. So if I was three betting this in a normal, non-ICM spot, I’d three bet this to something like 8/9bb. But given this dynamic, I can use a smaller three bet to say 5.5 bb. This should be enough to scare off big blind’s marginal holdings, while allowing us to potentially fold against a cold big blind 4bet. Big blind should never mess around in this spot if they’re competent. Even if we’re giving them “a good price” by betting so small, they really can’t flat much. Our small three bet is acting bigger. It is using that 15bb effective stack as leverage against the big blind. It doesn’t matter what kind of price we’re giving them because that price has signaled that it is going to go up a lot. Smaller than usual bets which signal a readiness for bigger ones. That is the concept of leverage.