No Limit Hold’em is played in a no-limit format for a reason. If you only ever use bets that are the size of the pot or smaller, you’ll be leaving a lot of money on the table in the long run.
There are quite a few opportunities where using large sizes makes perfect sense and is, in fact, the best GTO strategy to extract the most value.
In this article, we’ll look at three fairly common spots where opting for big bets makes the most sense, yet these scenarios are often overlooked by a vast majority of players out there, especially number three.
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Spot #1: Playing from the Small Blind Before the Flop
When playing from the small blind, we are out of position to the entire table, which means that, in most cases, we want to discourage action.
A great way to do this is by using larger 3-bet sizes, especially when playing deep. Most players default to three times the size of the open, but it makes sense to go 3.5x or even 4x when playing 50 big blinds or deeper.
For example, if you’re playing 100/200 in a tournament and the hijack makes it 400, if you have 80 big blinds in your stack, you can 3-bet to 1,600 from the small blind.
When playing a stack of 40 big blinds, there is actually a range of hands that we want to go all in with, marked red on the chart below (the middle section). This is the most profitable GTO way to play these hands. In other situations, at 40 big blinds deep, we can go for a 3.5x 3-bet.
As we get shallower, you’ll notice that the number of combos that we want to move all in increases. In these situations, our non-all-in 3-betting range becomes much stronger, so this is where we can make it just 3x. When your range is super strong, you don’t mind giving your opponent good pot odds.
Spot #2: Betting Big on J-T-x Flops as Preflop Aggressor
On dynamic boards, such as J-T-x, you generally want to bet large and polarized when you have the betting lead. These are boards where the current nuts is not likely to remain the nuts by the river.
On these types of boards, you also have the nut advantage as the preflop raiser, as you have all the strong hands in your range, whereas your opponent will have very few of these holdings.
When playing short-stacked, you should definitely bet big with all your strong but vulnerable hands.
It is important to note that you should be using fewer overbets when you play from the button as opposed to other positions, since your button range contains more weak poker hands.
Let’s look we look at a few examples in a solver.
On a J♠10♥5♦ board, when you are 20 big blinds deep, you should be shoving all in with almost 12% of your entire range, with hands like AJo and draws like KQ, which is something very few players do.
On a board J♠10♥6♠, there are more draws, as there is also a flush draw available. As the board gets more dynamic, we tend to use larger sizes. Here, the solver suggests moving all-in at 20 big blinds with close to 26% of your range – all of AJ, most KJ, some QJ, AK, and KQ.
Spot #3: On the River With Polarized Range
Betting big on the river allows you to profitably bluff with more hands. Your river bet size dictates the percentage of bluffs you can have in your range, as shown in the picture below, and whenever you use a large size, your range should be very polarized.
The best way to understand this is by using actual examples. I put a hand in the solver, with the board running Q♠10♥5♦6♥2♠. After a small bet on the flop and check-check on the turn, we arrive to the river.
To set things up, I input two big bet options, one being 120% of the pot and the other 4x the pot:
It is interesting to see that the poker solver uses the big bet size (120%) about a quarter of the time, but if we allow for the ultra-large sizing (4x the pot), which is all-in at 40 big blinds deep, that sizing will be used 14% of the time.
Hands that we want to do this with are quite a few top-pair combos and a lot of K-x and A-x hands, as they block some auto-calls from your opponent. Then, there are a few combos of J-x and 9x.
This is a really wild spot and one that most players aren’t aware of. Almost no one is using this huge overbet sizing as a bluff. So, in the GTO world, how bad is it, i.e., how much equity are you missing out on?
It turns out that by not having a shove river bet, you are losing 7.1bb over 100 hands, which is quite a bit of difference, and this number will certainly add up over a large sample!
To sum it up, by not utilizing a large sizing in No Limit Hold’em, you’ll be leaving a lot of money on the table. Try implementing these strategies into your game, and it will go a long way towards improving your overall win rate, guaranteed!
