Poker Math That Matters

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would want to get the money in are worse sets. The worse sets
will play themselves out for stacks more often than not
regardless of what we bet. Given your assumptions regarding
your opponent’s range, you may want to make a very small bet
to induce action from your opponent’s weaker range. Maybe
he’ll make a call with 66 if you only bet 1/4 of the pot. You may
even consider checking since there is so little value in making a
sizable bet. These actions will not build the pot in a manner that
allows you to chunk your stack in easily, but it’s the best course
of action given your opponent’s weak range on this flop.
Now let’s change our opponent and the flop. We have A♦A♥
again, but the flop is now T♣J♣6♠. The big blind is now a loose
player who likes to call with any sort of draw or pair postflop.
Preflop he would call with any broadway hands, any suited
hands and any pocket pairs. Now this flop connects well with
much of our opponent’s range. He has a lot of pairs and all sorts
of straight and flush draws. We now have a reason to begin
thinking about how we want to chunk up our stack.
A big part of bet sizing is thinking about what type of odds we’re
offering our opponent. We’re taking the idea of pot odds and
flipping it around. Now we’re the villain, and we’re betting into
the pot. When it gets to our opponent, what type of odds will he
have to call? We want villain to make a mistake, so we're
rooting for him to call when he does not have the pot odds to call
profitably. When the villain makes a mistake, we reap the
profits. The amount we profit is proportional to the size of his
mistake. I often see players make large bets and openly tell the
rest of the table "I need to get those drawing hands to fold."
They are content to win what's in the pot already. However,
that's not good thinking. We're trying to maximize our earnings.
If our opponent can call profitably, we prefer they fold. If our