Do you guys know of any good articles or videos in the RIO essential database that go in depth on bet sizing? I play mostly zone so it needs to be more theory centric as opposed to exploitative. At this point in my career I have a pretty basic 2/3-3/4 on wet textures and 1/3-1/2 on dry textures. I think in some cases I leave money on the table by not having a good thought process in my selection of a size.

I do the opposite. The more the board favors my opponent, the smaller my betsize. The more the board favors my range, the bigger I bet.

I think the old wet/dry division is too imprecise for tough modern games. Sizing and frequency is influenced more by range advantage, fold equity, and how "dynamic" the board is, by which I mean how much the texture of the board can change on the turn/river, such that some/many weak hands on the flop might become very strong on the turn. (As opposed to a 'static' board like A92r, where top pair on the flop will still be top pair on the turn, and turning the nuts is only possible for a few unlikely combos).

e.g. If hero is on the button vs a BB caller on AJ6r, he might choose to c-bet 2x pot at a fairly low frequency, even though there are few draws and the board is quite "dry". It's hard for villain to continue on that board, because his range is relatively weaker, while hero has all the sets and two pairs, and lots of Broadway draws. Hero could also choose to bet 1/2p on the same board, but bet at a very high frequency, so that his made hands get called by worse more often, and a turn barrel will leverage a lot of fold equity (after getting value on the flop).

On a 764tt, however, the BB won't be folding so often (he has so many sets, pairs, draws, overcards), and his range for continuing vs a big bet is much stronger than the BTN's betting range. The turn will often radically change the relative strength of many combos. Therefore, the BTN should probably bet at a lower frequency and for a smaller size on this "dynamic" board that connects well with the BB's flatting range, even though it's a "wet" board.

I don't know of any RIO articles or videos about this kind of thing, sorry. (I've never been a member)

You are certainly on your posting A game lately. I hope karma is returning the favor at the tables

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I'm downswinging like a whale as usual, but thanks!

Why do wet boards favour the opponent and dry boards favour your range? There was no description in the OP of position, but the assumption I suppose is that hero RFI and villain cold calls and hero cbets and we are 100bb effective. Is it your argument that in this situation wet textures always favour the caller and dry textures favour the PFR?

I prefer to use the term dynamic instead of wet and the term static instead of dry. Board texture is subjective depending on the positions and the ranges involved. What is a dynamic board in certain situations may be a static board with different positions. I believe the difference is dependent on the preflop caller's continuing frequency, which will in turn influence the preflop raiser's bluffing range construction. If the board favors the preflop raiser to the point that low equity bluffs become profitable, then the board is static by definition. If the board hits enough of the preflop caller's range to the point that low equity bluffs will not be profitable for the preflop raiser, then the board is dynamic by definition.

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I agree that you should bet a lower frequency, but with a higher sizing, because you actually need to deny more against his range. Our betting range, especially if we don't bet as often should still have a massive advantage on this board.

Also dynamic and static is basically the same as wet and dry. People just overcomplicate that matter.

I don't think your logic adds up. You'd have to bet quite big to get me to fold hands like 75s, 65s, 54s, A8, 98, T8, T9, pair+flushdraws, or even naked flushdraws. Your range for betting so big as to make me fold these hands will have to be so tight to the effect that my weak draws will actually gain ev because of your high checking frequency, I would think. Now because of all this checking, I'm gonna hit many top pairs, two pairs, trips, straights and flushes all for free. I think this is a bad thing for the in position player.

So your attempt to deny equity by betting big:

has allowed me to gain ev.

Modern poker literature, particularly of the 2+2 variety, uses the terms dynamic and static. We're just keeping up with the times.

It's actually not that tight of a range. I just have way more checks on this texture, than say T22r where i can basically cbet my whole range.

Of course im polarizing good hands like 2nd pair or better, good draws with trashy stuff like overcards+bdfd or gutters. It's not like im never bluffing in this spot. My checking range should of course not be that big that i allow you to draw for free.

In that case, this will cease to be true:

I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive. For example his bluff draws could be better than your draws and/or block your bluff catchers.

I admit the example flop doesn't necessarily demonstrate this very well and the instances that my examples are true happen less frequently than the instances where they aren't true.

Fwiw I agree with you on the sizing though. I wouldn't necessarily best incredibly large here to deny equity if this texture favored my opponent's range.

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I just compared a 40% open range from the btn with a typically BB calling range. His 3b range is oftentimes polarized, so i left out some SC and suited aces. Tried to change it so a linear 3b range, which did not change much.
Both ranges are almost like 50/50 otf. Just saying.

It's not like cbetting big brings any kind of disadvantage for the button. If the BB has indeed so many draws it's actually very important to deny against them.
The amount of strong value hands both players have on this board should be quite equal, but btn has more overpairs and more Ax.

Did you calculate your cbetting frequency?

I think this is most definitely a reason to bet smaller. Your opponent has invested 20% of the money preflop and has 50% equity.

Hmm this is interesting. I was going to write a post about agreeing with Bob for various reasons but found my arguments don't necessarily support his argument and might in fact support yours.

Are you splitting your range here and using multiple bet sizes with different ranges or are you betting one range for a large size and checking everything else? Obviously free not to answer if you don't wish to reveal any information about your play.

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In theory i should do one bet sizing on these kind of boards. But the games i am right now playing i go 75% with good hands and good draws and make it like 60% with 2nd/3rd pairs and weak draws. As long as i dont have much history with a good player this is totally fine.

Thanks for sharing.

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Doesn't this make the button more vulnerable to check-raises and barrels though? The turn is going to bring many cards that you hate seeing if you have an overpair facing continued aggression (after a check-raise by the BB).

I don't have a solver, but Snowie is suggesting that BTN should bet 1/4 pot with 51% of its range on 764tt. If I force it to use a PSB, the c-betting frequency goes down to 39%, and it bets 88+ at less than 15% frequency. (With the flush blocker/backdoor, it checks back 99+ 100% of the time if a pot-sized bet is chosen).

Is it possible there are multiple bet sizes yielding the same ev if both players are playing optimally? So rather than trying to figure out the optimal bet sizing on the flop, we pick a bet size and construct our range accordingly? Or is there a theorem that proves otherwise?

Caveat: I am not an expert.

As far as I know equillibria in poker are not unqiue as in there are potentially multiple equilibrium possible. If that is true then my guess is that there may be different equilibria where bet sizing varies on the same board but I would think multiple bet sizes on the same board with different ranges would be a part of a single strategy but I could be wrong as I am not familiar with the current research and results from commercial solvers.

I think it makes more sense to use the information of our range interaction with the board than to try to arbitrarily pick a bet sizing and divide up our range.

It's an interesting thought that on the same board with the same ranges we can choose from multiple bet sizes and add or reduce bluffs accordingly.

I'm interested in the process.

1. Decide on value range.
2. Decide on showdown range.
3. Find our best bluffs.
4. Choose a bet sizing that caters for the correct ratio of value to bluffs in such a way to make our opponent indifferent to continuing.

Very interesting post

I think if you give a solver 3 reasonable bet-sizes to choose from, it will tend to build optimal ranges for all sizes (unless one of them is terrible), and some combos will appear in all three bet-size groups (and some in only two, or just the one, or none), but where a combo appears in all groups (at various frequencies) it will have the same EV in each. Some hands definitely 'prefer' a particular size, however, since that provides the highest EV for that hand.
e.g. In a short-stacked BvB scenario (e.g. in a tourney), it may be equally profitable to limp, minraise or jam with aces, but it's almost certainly better to open jam 22 than take another line, because 22 doesn't flop well. (It makes no sense to minraise with 22 if shoving has a higher EV). Therefore, in that spot you'd utilize a strategy that includes range-splitting, with some hands 'preferring' a particular line/sizing.
For deep-stacked games (i.e. cash), I don't think altering your flop sizing massively alters the EV of particular combos, but there appears to be some small gain in EV (for individual hands, and also your whole range) by choosing different sizes for different parts of your range. It's very hard for humans to do this accurately, however. (It's hard enough to balance one range, let alone three or four). It's easier to just think "On this kind of board, my range does well by betting big, so that's what I'll do".
(FWIW, Snowie doesn't utilize range-splitting. Although it can estimate the EV of various bet-size choices, in a given spot it just picks the "best" one for its entire range - i.e. the size that produces the highest average EV for the range - even if some combos could make more profit by picking another size.)
I think this is a decent (and very human) approximation of good play, although I don't really like the "indifference" concept. Villain will always have some combos that are better than breakeven when facing a bet. You just want to make it hard for him to make much profit by continuing, while giving yourself the chance to maximise your profit as often as possible. Sometimes this means you bet small, because you want to get lots of (thin) value (or deny equity cheaply, or set a cheap price on your draws), and sometimes you bet big, because you want to get fat value with your monsters, but mostly want/expect villain to fold when you're bluffing.

Both of Matt Janda's books have a lot of discussion and examples of post-flop bet-sizing, so I'd recommend reading them.

Sorry Arty but I'm inclined to disagree here. Seems like putting the cart before the horse to me.

I think it should look like this:

1) look at the board and decide on a betsize, or a range of betsizes to build within.

2) decide on which hands have the highest ev as value bets with such a sizing.

3) decide on which hands have the highest ev as bluffs with such a sizing.

4) look at all the leftover hands and determine if such a checking range is too vulnerable or too strong. If it's too vulnerable, value check more and or bluff more. If it's too strong, value check less and or bluff less.

Note that the effective stack will affect value betting and bluffing ranges. The deeper the stack, the more liability comes with your value bets and the more you can bluff. The more shallow the stack, the more you can value bet and the more your bluffs will be called.