Level 2 and 3 Thinking and How it Relates to Bet Sizing

[Zybomb]

I've always contended that a key difference between a good and great player involved knowing how to properly size your bets and thus extract the maximum value out of your winning hands.

Assume two equally skilled players as far as basic strategy goes. Both know how to play preflop, understand positional concepts, can bluff and semi-bluff effectively and know how to fold a hand if it appears they are beat. So whats one key difference that can make one player a significantly larger winner than the other? Bet sizes.

The title of this is Level 2 and 3 Thinking and How it Relates to Bet Sizing. By Level Two Thinking Im obviously referring to the Levels of Thinking (Level 1: What do I have etc) Level Two is "What Does My Opponent Have". Since so many players (even those at higher levels) do not go beyond level one thinking (in the sense that they can read the board and know what beats their hand, but they arent accurately putting you on a range of hands based on how the hand has played out thus far) I think this is the most important thing to master. What plays into account just as much, is analyzing your level one thinking (what do I have) to the point where you can assess how strong your hand is and what kind of hands will be able to call that you beat? The other point is to use your level three thinking (What does my opponent Think I have) particularly when you have disguised your hand well and believe your opponent to undervalue your hand.

So how does this all relate to bet sizing? You've limped in LP with KT after a few limps, and the BB has raised. The limpers call and you call. The flop comes KJ4 Everyone including the PFR checks to you and you're last to act. So you (correctly) bet here. You want to bet enough to make draws make a mistake (and there are several out there) but at the same time you also don't want to over commit yourself to this pot with top pair and medium sized kicker. So you fire about 60% of the pot and the limpers fold, but the PFR calls.

With a little hand reading skills you can likely assume that he isn't on a big hand here, since it's unlikely he'd check and call a flop like this with a strong hand. If he leads out on a blank turn, maybe we'll reevaluate.

The turn is a K and he checks again. Again we should bet. Not too much where we scare everything out, but enough to make draws be making a mistake, yet small enough where QQ or AJ might call. You bet again 55% of the pot and the PFR calls

The river blanks off with a 6 and the PFR checks once more. We should again bet here... but keep in mind our hand, we have trips with a medium kicker here. We need to bet lightly here in order to get called down by hands that beat (if we are playing our opponent rather than our cards we might choose to overbet here if we believe this will lead our opponent to believe that we have been betting a draw this time and are overbetting a blank river in hopes of stealing the pot with our missed draw -- which in turn will lead to us being called down lightly). We should now bet a small % of the pot a maximum of 50% but even as little as 33% sometimes (one of the few times I recommend ever betting less than 1/2 the pot). There aren't too many hands that we beat that can call a large river bet (and if our opponent missed his draw he obviously can't call anything), and we are confident that our hand is ahead at this time -- so we need to bet accordingly with the situation and make a bet small enough that inferior hands will be tempted to call.

In a different scenario the situation could be totally reversed. With 77 on a A J 7 T 7 board against a PFR, we might opt to bet the full pot on the river (of course depending on previous action) since there are a bizillion hands that can call a large bet that our opponent may hold and we want to get paid the maximum.

To give a full hand example assume 2 limps and a button PFR. We decide to call ith JT from the BB and both limpers call as well. The flop comes Q73 flopping us A Jack high flush. I think this is a great time to lead out for half the pot 1st to act here. First it potentially traps dead money in the pot from our limpers that act before the PFR and secondly most opponents will assume that you wouldn't lead out 1st to act had you flopped the flush. Your 1/2 sized pot bet might even be a lame attempt at picking up the pot if the PFR has missed or you could be simply betting a Queen. Both limpers fold, but the PFR calls.

The turn comes a K. This is a good card for us in the sense that it may have hit our opponent. Again, we still want to charge the K or A a price to draw (or KQ a price to fill up) but we don't want to appear that confident yet. So we fire 60% of the pot our opponent thinks and calls.

We're now at the river which blanks off 2. We are not quite sure what our opponent is putting us on, but our range now has to include tons of hands besides a flopped flush -- including whiffed draws. Since we've only lead out at all times we havent revealed exactly how strong our hand is to our opponent (leading out shows much less strength than check raising or check calling then check raising the next street etc since we can lead out a much larger range of hands) so I think its a great time to pot the river here. I think despite the dangerous board, our opponent has a decently strong hand or he would have folded the turn. I also think that he may not believe us for the flush, which should lead to him looking us up, particularly when we make such a bizarre bet (our entire actions thus far in the whole hand likely confuse him). In fact I don't believe there is a wide range of hands that will fold to a pot sized bet but will call a 1/2 pot sized bet given how the hand has played out. If our opponent is drawing with just the A obviously he isn't calling anything, but some opponents may call down as light as AKx / Ax K here.

These two examples aren't the greatest ones (in fact there may be issues with my thinking on one or both of them) but these are just two hands that I've recently played in the past few days so they are fresh in my mind.

Evaluate your hands strength and determine how wide a range of hands below yours might call a bet and how big of a bet would they call. Use level two thinking to put your opponents on hands and then determine your bet amount. Use level three thinking to figure out what hands opponents are giving you, and thus readjust your original range of hands that will call to include this new information. Two players can win the same hands, yet one can come out a loser the other a winner simply because one player has sized his bets properly. At all times (obviously when value betting, not bluffing/blocker betting etc), you want to bet the absolute most you believe your opponent will call -- don't simply underbet your monsters. Each time you bet as little as $1 less than this maximum, you are leaving money on the tables, and this can add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars in as little as 1 session --- imagine for a year or your poker lifetime.


I hope this article that I've written helps at least someone and that it hasn't taken up too much time of those on or past this level of play.

[Talking Poker]

Good article. I'm surprised not a single person commented.

One thing I'd like to counter though:

Don't forget the cost of OVERBETTING by that same $1. If your opponent would call a maximum $50 value bet on the river and you bet $49, yes, that cost you $1, and yes, that adds up over time. But if you bet $51 and your opponent folds, THAT cost you $50! Whoa.... It doesn't take a genius to realize that bet sizing mistake adds up a LOT faster than the $1 mistakes you were describing.

And now one thing I'd like to add:

I definitely agree that bet sizing is extremely important... but I think it's especially important on earlier streets so you can build a pot that allows you to get paid off a HIGHER maximim than it would have been if you were underbetting (assume strong flopped hand like the flush derscribed above). Take those 50% and 60% of pot bets you mentioned. If you could have made those 67-75% bets and still gotten the same calls, you'd be setting yourself to win a MUCH larger pot by the time you value bet the river.

[New Guy]

Great article Zy. Really well written. I agree with all of what you say there.You really need to think in more than level 1 and really work hard to master levels 2 &3. Thanks alot for this gem!

[Zybomb]

Absolutely -- in the KT example, I think overbetting is generally a big mistake and can cost you a river bet from your opponent. This is why assessing your hand's strength is important in order to determine what hands you beat are going to call and how much they would call. Naturally as you said this mistake adds up A LOT quicker than the other

[Wes]

Interesting, since I would think making a large river bet would make a thinking player more likely to call than if you bet that smallish amount. If he was a thinking player, he would assume that with such a small bet that it is unlikely for you to be bluffing considering he will be getting good odds and a large bet would be what he would assume you would bluff with. Against lesser thinkers I think betting small is better because they'll just think of pot odds and mindlessly call.

Or maybe he would assume a bigger bet would be a value bet because he is a level ahead of you. Mind games are fun.