I've observed a couple grinder types at my local casino, and it surprises me how small their continuation bets are. They're often not betting percentages of the pot, but their bets are just big enough to force out extra opponents to get into a heads up situation. They seem to take down a lot of modest-sized pots, without a lot of crazy fluctuation in their stack sizes. I assume their modest cbets are due to pot control, a concept I'm not quite clear about.

I'm struggling with this question: How do you exercise pot control while at the same time trying to deny your opponent the proper odds to call?

I ran into a bad situation at the local casino, during a $1/2 NL game. I lost my entire stack of $200 in one hand. The wounds are still fresh on this one.

I get dealt: KA

Big Mustache Guy announces he has a great hand and raises preflop for $5 (2.5x BB). A couple people fold and then I re-raise with KA unsuited to $10. More people fold and one other guy calls. Mustache says, "Oh good. Yes, I want you to raise. It means more money for me." He calls for $5 more.

Pot size: $30

Flop comes: K 2 3

The dudes check. It's a somewhat coordinated board, so I bet out for $20. The other guy calls and Mustache calls.

Pot size: $90

Turn: T

Both opponents check: I bet out $20. This is my effort to exercise pot control. (I think it was a mistake, though. Maybe I should have made a pot-sized bet or at least 50% of the pot). Other guy calls and Mustache calls:

Pot size: $150

River: 8

I did something stupid here. I bet out the rest of my stack, about $140. The next guy folds. I made that bet because I didn't want to check and then get put to a difficult decision by the Mustache if he decided to push all in. Instead, I wanted to push all in and put the Mustache to a tough decision. I guess it wasn't so difficult for him. Mustache flipped over pocket 8s, showing a set that he made on the river. He obviously put me on a hand like KA early on, and called accordingly. My question is not about my stupid river bet, but about my bet on the turn.

I feel that the bet on the turn was too small: $20. I put the Mustache originally on a King with a weak kicker. This was a bad read on my part. And I put the other guy on a flush draw. To create the wrong pot odds for a flush draw, I would need to bet about 50% of the pot on the turn, about $45. Or, with two callers on my tail, I could make a healthy pot-sized bet of $90. But by that time I would have committed about half my stack on nothing more than top pair top kicker, with two people remaining in the hand.

I lost my entire stack in one hand with only top pair, top kicker. I read somewhere that this is a rookie mistake, to commit (and lose) your entire stack to TPTK. What is the proper way to play this hand, while exercising pot control? I'm struggling with this concept.

I came across this quote from an online article about pot control:
"If you play online poker tournaments, you will often see some players rapidly reaching a very big stack size. Until they make a big mistake like committing all their chips with TPTK, the capital error of pot control, collapsing and getting eliminated before the bubble."

I know I'm playing a cash game and not a tournament, but I assume the principle still applies.

Another online article about pot control says this:
"Now of course, this strategy means that you are leaving yourself open to giving away free cards which enable your opponent to make a bigger hand. But keeping the pot small and losing it to a suckout on the river is far more preferable than building a massive pot and finding that you were beaten all ends up too late."

At the casino where I play, the stacks are not humongously deep. The buy-in for $1/2 NL at my casino is $60 and stacks typically hover between $60 and $200. So trying to protect my hand against draws can easily pot commit either myself or my opponent.

You've made a lot of incorrect assumptions. You made a lot of mistakes. That's why you are in the situation you are in.

First off: your raise sizing. If pot control is what you are after, then your option is to just not raise. By min-raising you are not really accomplishing anything. If you do want to raise 3x his bet at least, so $15 here.

As is, you are called in three places. The way you described the hand is inaccurate as on some streets you are in position, in others you are not. Let's just assume that you are not in position. Betting so small on the turn doesn't exercise pot control (especially when you shove the river!) it just let's people draw for practically free.

That river shove is just horrible: what worse hands are you going to get called by? Villain wasn't calling to try and river a set, that's ridiculous. He was probably calling because your girlie bets looked like air and he may have thought he was good here.

If you want to keep the pots small then don't raise pre-flop. Pots grow exponentially in nL Hold'em so actions early on are going to have a big effect on pot size on later streets. That being said, don't keep the pots small with your premium holdings! Then embrace the variance and bigger winnings.

Yeah, I hate the girlie bet on the turn. I realize that was a big mistake. The whole pot control thing was stupid. I think I'm going to abandon the whole idea for now and revisit later. I like the idea of raising to $15 preflop. it probably would have knocked out the other guy and Mustache would have still called, leaving me in a heads up situation. Thanks for the feedback, Rundeep.

So instead you give them an almost free card and when the flush gets there on the river you commit your whole stack with tptk and two people remaining in the hand? I hope you see the contradiction here.

Bet more on turn.

Yes - river shove was dumb. I plead temporary insanity. And turn bet was weak. Wish I could play the hand over again. Appreciate the feedback, Quadas.

Yeah, bet on the turn was not good at all. I would have done $50, possibly $60. There's a couple other things I didn't like: Pre-flop re-raise should have been a couple bucks more. I also don't really like the all-in on the river. Do to the table talk before the flop, I might have just checked it and tried to get out cheap.

Also, what country was this in? Something about it didn't sound like it was American players.

My river shove was horrible. I can't defend it. I like the idea of betting $50-60 on the turn. This was in America, but the Mustache guy spoke with an accent. My lessons learned so far: 1) Preflop raise was too small. 2) Turn bet was weak. 3) River shove was lame. I'm chalking all this up to poker tuition

You're really all over the place here so I'll just make some random points.

- Pot control applies to WA/WB situations (way ahead/way behind) situations. That is, situations where you either have villain crushed or villain crushes you and there are no draws or weaker hands that are likely to call you (so betting is pointless because you only get called by better hands; ie; the river in this hand). This is not a WA/WB situation (flop & turn). There are a bunch of weaker hands (any K, any pocket pair that doesn't believe you have a K) and draws (obv) that will call you. You need to both get value and protect your hand.

- Tournament strategy often does not apply to cash games. Be careful when cherry picking strategy and tactics.

- Stacking off with TPTK is often not a bad play, particularly in live games vs stations.

- Turning your hand into a bluff (shoving when no worse hands will call you) when you have good showdown value is generally a really bad play.

- IMO $15 is still too small a preflop 3bet in a loose live game - Raising only $10 gives everyone great odds to setmine.

Thanks, CMAR. With your explanation, I think I'm starting to understand the pot control concept a bit more. So the concept comes into play when you're unsure of where you stand against an opponent: You're either way ahead, or way behind. The pot-controlled bet unables you to keep the pot small if you're unsure of where you stand. I think I saw a situation come up when a grinder was holding something like 3,5 and his opponent had something like 3,4 and the flop was 337. They both made trips but neither was sure if the other had a better kicker. I noticed the continuation bets were small. In my case, I had a pretty good idea that I was ahead, at least on the flop. So I guess that's not a WA/WB situation.

RE: "Stacking off with TPTK". I'm a newbie and I'm not familiar with this concept. Does this mean shoving all-in on the flop? So let's say the flop comes and the pot is $30 or whatever. Would stacking off mean shoving the rest of my stack into the pot at that point?

Make it $25 into $30 on the flop. That makes it incorrect for villains to call with flush draws, let alone underpairs.
The turn adds some more draws (mainly gutshots). Half pot gets value from these, and means villain is definitely making a mistake by calling with a 2-outer, while it also keeps the pot at a manageable size that doesn't commit you to shoving/calling the river.
The river is pretty ugly as the flush comes in. I think you can check-fold there, or perhaps make a small blocking bet (third of pot) to see if you can get a cheap showdown. If villain raises the river he always has you beat.

Thanks, Arty. I like the idea of the check-fold or the 1/3 pot-sized blocking bet on the river. I guess my pride or stupidity (or both) got in the way when I shoved all-in. The 50% pot-sized bet on the turn also would have been much more effective than my wimpy bet. Thanks for the feedback.

The bet on the turn is just awful.