If I was sitting in a text book game with text book players, or if I was new to the table without any reads, I would agree with your 3x+callers amount. Based on the extremely loose calls pre from SB and V2, it had to be more to get heads up, as experience proved.

I am trying to get HU, yes? Or have I misread the advice I've read on this site and elsewhere? If I'm getting any of that wrong, I'm listening and want to be corrected.

Was the amount based on hand strength? Absolutely not.

It's funny how people interpret things. It might be my poor writing. My first choice was to get HU and if not, scoop pre.

I love talking about the hands I bring here. Analyze away, but leave the trolling behind.

A fair point is that my post flop bet was too small even though it worked exactly as I planned in the moment. My reading of J Little is that he would favor my 25% sizing in HU action. Somewhere between 50 - 75% of the pot is probably a more correct long term strategy based on 3 opponents and a wet board. If anyone would care to comment on that, I'm interested.

Or if you think there is some angle on this hand I have not considered, please fire away.

I know you wanna "Scoop" but you're making some horrible mistakes such as your bet sizing. Even though it "worked exactly as you planned" this statement shows an even much bigger leak in your game. It's not only about this hand. You can bet five bucks and if everyone folds does that mean you made the right bet as planned?

That really is not an intelligent question. Assuming the game is 5/5 or less so that it is a legal bet, it could be a wonderful outcome if you straddled UTG and got a walk while you held 72. If I'm acting UTG with AA and hoping to build a pot, always betting small when I have it and large when I don't, it is a bad plan with a bad outcome.

As you learn more about poker, you'll find out that action decisions and bet sizing are usually situational decisions. The important thing is that you're asking questions and looking to improve your game.

Gee, that was fun. But if we can leave the snark behind, I do have a question that is applicable to this thread and I am trying to improve my game by asking people with more experience than my own.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In 8Max low limit live cash play, is it smart to vary the size of your 3B based on your read of the table? If you have lots of calling stations where a 3B sized to 3x+callers is routinely met with 3 or more callers and there are four or more potential villains still to act, do you increase the size of the 3B? IOW, is my objective to find the sweet spot amount that will get me HU?

I am under the impression that you do vary the size and I am trying to get HU. There are responses in this thread that seem to imply I should stick to the standard 3B size but it's possible I've misinterpreted those responses.

I would genuinely appreciate serious input here.

Our goal should be a strategy that makes us the most money. “Get it HU” is an arbitrary goal.

Like you make a big raise and people call it OOP with crap. That’s great. V1 made a big mistake by calling the 3 bet for 15% of the effective stack, that would’ve resulted in him getting stacked 9 times out of 10 given the flop. And V2 has whatever.

Changing bet sizes to exploit people is a great play. Changing bet sizes to arbitrarily engineer outcomes isn’t.


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no. I was trying to point out that when people are telling you your bet sizing was too small, and you say "but it worked", it is a tell that you have more to learn than originally portrayed in your post. Being "results oriented" is going to hurt your game, even though you're happy your decision "worked". Just because something worked once, doesn't mean you should always do it. You shouldn't be results oriented. It's not often at all that we flop sets, so when we do, we need to get money in the pot (esp a volnerable mutliway flop), not slow play and try to be sneaky hoping and praying someone else puts the money in for us.

Here is another example, an UTG raiser should have a strong range. Do you agree? Why do you think it's an automatic raise with JJ, an upper med PP? I know you can't imagine flatting, but sometimes it's the right thing to do.

Of course there are times when flatting or even folding JJ pre is the right thing to do. As an example, my best bud loves poker and is absolutely terrible. He plays 2/5 with a $200 buy in, plays fit or fold, and if he open bets pre, it's QQ+. JJ can be an easy fold to his type because I know I'm beat and his stack size doesn't give me sufficient pot odds to set mine.

You committed a logic error called faulty generalization when you took a specific example and assumed it applies to all examples. You made the same error when you assumed my small bet sizing in this specific hand might be applicable to "all" flopped sets. But don't worry, we all suffer from logic errors. I know you could find plenty of mine in my various threads. I make enough errors in poker that you don't need to manufacture false problems just to find something to criticize.

In this specific example, as I stated previously, V1 opens to $20. He's new to the table and I have no info on him. V2 is loose, passive and pays off raises to see flops, then folds.

A fair crit would be that I can't tell you anything about V1. I don't know if he had VPIP once in the 10 minutes he was at the table. A better, more focused player would be able to tell you that. But you've got the circumstances as I perceived them at the time.

My game varies by the table and at times I can play over tight, and at times I know I play over loose, as many fine folk have repeatedly told me. In this specific example, I'm on the button with a top 5 hand, you don't see a 3B as the right thing to do? You don't think a call or fold is playing over tight?

thanks but I don't think that answers my question and I think you are wrong. I think every action I take at the poker table should have a reason and goal in mind (trying to engineer an outcome), like building a pot, controlling the size of the pot, taking down the pot, making the best EV decision I can on the fly, etc. If I'm misinterpreting you, please set me right.

Regardless, obviously my reasoning is wrong at times or I wouldn't be here trying to improve my game. But I do try to have a reason for betting and sizing each and every time.

If you are saying trying to get HU is not a worthy goal, please expand upon that focusing on pre action. I believed I was probably ahead of the other players and my perhaps erroneous belief is that I make more long term with JJ vs one player than I do vs two or three players. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know how to do the EV calculations to prove that one way or the other.

I probably go $90 pre, but defer to more experienced live players ITT about bet sizing.

Flop there's no way I'm betting so small when we have the effective nuts, we're in a 4 way pot, with bad players who can easily have hit this flop - top pairs/straight draws/flush draws etc. I probably go something like $275 to leave a reasonable chunk for the turn push.