I'll put this question in the form of a proposition. Whenever you play 3-6 NLH on my site I will rake a dollar less from your pot if you agree to only use the min, 1/2, 3/4, pot or all in buttons. nothing in between. Would you do it?

yes

yes

I'm like 99% inclined to say yes, but I do enjoy the flexibility offered by super precise bet sizes. I'll admit I have a somewhat-OCD need to bet certain amounts when playing, simply because I like the way certain bets appear, and especially that I *dislike* other amounts.

For instance, I hate the way a raise to 160 looks at 30/60 blinds -- the single 100 chip next to my 60 chips matching the big blind -- and I do believe that certain "ugly" bets can cause opponents to react in unpredictable ways. Thus I try to avoid such sizing lest I level myself into an unnecessary play.

Nevertheless, the impact of reduced rake seems too good to pass up. With rake capped at $3, and many pots being raked for less, this cuts out greater than one-third of the rake. Heck, even if you agreed to merely cap the rake $1 lower, this would still be significant enough on my winrate that I'd be hard-pressed to say no. Many players at low to mid stakes pay more in rake than they earn at the tables, meaning they'd win more than twice as much in a rake-free setting. This only serves to underscore the significance of rake.

Yes. When I play on my phone this is what I do anyway. Other bets are too much hassle on a phone.

no overbetting when deep is a little meh, is this on a per hand basis or do you have to follow the rules constantly?

Regardless it's a pretty trivial yes imo

HSNL showing they know the value of a dollar

a loonie? half a toonie?

Would take in a heartbeat.

No, I like fold and call buttons.

ban OP pls

That rake reduction would be a massive increase in winrate for everyone. No amount of sizing tweaks in between the sizes you offered could possibly overcome that.

edit: some very rough numbers. For my last 30k hands at 3/6 I won 805 of them when 6 players were dealt in. 'Rake on Winning Hands' stat shows 2078 in total rake. Assuming that stat is accurate then rake averaged 2.56/hand so most hands that see a flop reach the $3 rake cap (which we should intuitively assume). If most hands reach the rake cap then most hand get the full dollar discount. But lets just say I only save on average 50c per hand I win (which are the only hands where rake affects our winnings) then I make an extra 402.5 over the last 30k hands or a 1.34bb/100 increase in winrate. I would be somewhat surprised if betting 85% instead of 75% or full pot could make this much of a difference.

Just realized I filtered for 6 players dealt in for some reason but did bb/100 over the entire 30k hands. The actual winrate increase would probably be double what I put above. 3819 in rake for 1836 hands won. Slightly less rake per hand so say we get 40% back on the hands we win instead of 50% then its 2.45bb/100

stakes obviously matter, at 3/6 its probably close.

In my games I wouldnt do it.

no.
I'll make up that extra dollar rake by betting the max an opponent will call - and the proposed buttons don't provide enough creativity.

My average win rate is 6BB/100 hands, so extra >1BB due to discounted rake has to be more important than the extra bet sizing options.

Definite yes(assuming fold button can still be used). Could get pretty annoying preflop and would have to get rid of overbets though.

I play 3/6 and would definitely accept this offer.

In the absence of such a site, I've decided that every time I'm value betting I'm going to think of my usual betsize and then add on $1. You have all been warned.

If only PS understood this.
I've been complaining for more than 5 years I can't make the betsizes I want;

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...e-mtts-470168/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...ps-ftp-926411/

Being able to make precise bets is a huge advantage for many reasons.



As for the proposition: the higher your winrate the less you'll like it.

I think the discounted rake is a no brainer here. YES!

Would you say it's moreso because of the inabilty to choose different sizes between min and full pot, or the inability to overbet/ bet 2x/3x pot?

I'd do it if I could use only five different bet sizes, but they wouldn't be the ones you gave. How about if I could pick the five sizes?

Snap

Love this question. It's a distant cousin in some senses to an idea I've heard floated before, but that I don't necessarily agree with, that poker sites IMPROVED fish's games when they added 1/2-pot / 3/4-pot / pot buttons, since those helped fish (who, the argument goes, were clueless when it came to bet-sizing) to play more..."correctly".)

Guess I'm in the minority here, but my visceral reaction would be NO, and moreover, I'm not even really sure it's close.

David: what do you think the answer is, and why?

There is, btw, I think one huge variable that has not been brought up yet, and that's playing style. I've always been kind of impressed at how different two winning players' EV / Showdown winnings graphs can look. For instance, consider these two graphs (that I just pulled off of Google Images) for 2 winnings players:

#1


#2


FWIW, the graphs each show a player winning between 15 and 19 cents / hand played, though I have no idea what stakes they play but that's irrelevant for this discussion. The point is that they can look so dramatically different. (My own chart looks much more like #1 above: I lose massive amounts in non-showdown pots, and win massive amounts in showdown pots, which makes sense, I suppose. I play very straight-forward (some would say boring) poker, trying to make my opponents make fundamental mistakes. I don't get carried away with fancy play syndrome.

Many 2+2'ers, however, seem somehow more impressed with graph #2, "marveling" that a player can be profitable in showdown AND non-showdown pots. He's seen as having a more complete / well-rounded game than player #1, completely ignoring the question of which player is more profitable.

Got a little sidetracked with the above, but the point is that I think the answer to this question is largely dependent on playing style. I answered NO because I feel like bet sizing is critical to my style of play (which, as described above looks much more like graph #1). Knowing that I can get a fish to come along with 2 naked overcards for, say, a 30% pot bet is important. Obviously that's just one scenario that I can exploit in only very few instances, but you get the idea. A winning Lagtard who sustains the same winrate, but does so via a steady diet of unchecked aggression, 3-barrel bluffs and so on may not derive as much of his winrate as do I from exploiting opponents via bet-sizing.

CLIFF'S: I think playing style is an important factor in answering this question, but which hasn't really been discussed yet. I think the answer could be quite different for a 37/31 aggrotard than it is for a 24/19 TAG with the same winrate.