I usually keep my sizing pf and 3bet pf pretty constant regardless of hand strength - usually 3x + 1x per caller when squeezing IP or 3.5/4x + 1x OOP

Now I am wondering if I should consider sizing down my 3bet sizing to induce looser calls (even lighter 4b?) action with range of hands which don't need too much protection on flops and I am happy to gii pre regardless, eg KK, AA

Of course this is unbalanced, but considering the general player is not adjusting and the frequency of 3b is not often I don't think this is a huge issue as long I get enough of my stack in pre with a 3bet ( denying set mining odds)

Some recent examples - All on same loose/active table. What should my sizing be for each hand? Assume TAG image

Hand 1: utg 20, 1 call, KK OTB 300eff??


Hand 2: Limp AA utg, utg+2 10, 4 callers back to me, Hero??
400eff vs utg+2, 500eff vs others


Hand 3: utg 15, utg+2 30, btn calls, sb calls, Hero w/AA in BB 700eff?

I'd say balance pretty much a non-issue for the reasons you have.

However, if you can limp re-raise to 60 and get 2 callers, it seems like you're getting plenty of action.

Obviously, you want to get the maximum money in you can with these hands, so bet whatever you think will achieve this. One possible adjustment is to size down a little the more people are in the pot. That's so that the absolute dollar amount is not so discouraging to potential callers.

I think a lot of your Vs are going to be thinking more about the amount of money it is to call, and less about pot size and number of players.

When it's likely to go heads up then sizing down a little when you don't mind action is OK. Multiway it's only a good idea when effective stacks are low enough that a raise blocks out all drawing hands anyways. When your bets are pushing the pot commitment line balance isn't a concern.

Hand 1: This is a situation where you can size down a little. There are not a lot of people in the hand or a lot of potential action after. With only 300 effective you don't need to raise big to deny odds. $60 here is fine. Against a single opponent even $50 might be OK if your worried about the raiser folding.

Hand 2: When you angle to limp/raise you need to raise big and kill any odds because your hand is obvious. Also, with that many callers you need to raise enough that even after a call your opponents can't get reasonable odds. $60 is the smallest you should go in this situation.

Hand 3: The play here is weird and knowing villains will change things. Anything $100+ kills any odds, go as big as you think gets a call. After the5 bet it's a guess as to what works best on this villain.

Hand 2, the 3bet was a little small, I would have went $80. other than that it all seems standard to me.

H1 - $65
H2 - $70
H3 - $125

Without more specific info, that’s where i’m At.

Just extrapolating on this, how do we determine that best sizing once it goes very multiway (exceeding pot commitment) ? Is it just a read on the villain for the max he will call pre with?

Eg a wide opener raises 15, 5 callers, Hero IP - 300eff
Now for a example range of {TT, JJ, QQ, AQ, AK} is this a 3bet to $120 (15*8) where I don't mind taking it down pre, and if not I can jam most flops comfortably
But for {KK, AA} is this a 3bet to $95 because I think villain can incorrectly call wider with a smaller sizing, and will overfold to big raises pf?

For me the whole nx + m makes *zero* sense. Does it have any relevant mathematical background at all?

This whole game revolves around IO. So if I'm committing myself, I don't like giving decent IO. I take a very conservative route and target setminers, so basically I like giving 8:1 IO preflop. This is admittedly very conservative, as I won't always be up against just setminers, plus they won't always stack me when flopping a set (I'll suck out by the river, they won't get much out of my KK- on Axx flops, etc.). But at least the 3bet sizing is somewhat mathematically based and seems to make sense, for me. If you want to tweak the IO of what you're giving your opponents, fine.

So, for example, in the first hand I would have 3bet to about $60 (as it will be asking the raiser to call $40 to win my $300 + $20, which is about 8:1). The second guy will be getting slightly better than that if the first guy calls, but I'm ok with that risk. If there were more callers of the initial raise I'll have to bump it up a bit more to get to that 8:1 plus realize I don't necessarily want to go 5ways.

H2, using the same reasoning, I'd go about $80. Again, offers my target of about 8:1, while at the same time I don't feel I need to do much more as I doubt the whole field will be calling a raise of this size $$$ wise.

H3 hitting the 8:1 mark against the initial 3better would be about $130. But this hand also has a super weird dynamic where there there is a 3better (a minish one at that) plus 2 coldcallers, so there are obviously some pretty big hands in play, so I might be cool with pumping it up a little more.

GcluelessIOnoobG

there are some general mathematical rules but with 4 players calling in hand 2, i have no clue what that would be

60 or 65 in hand 1 is very standard, we have position so fat value is our best friend

hand 2 i just really have no idea, there has to be math for this but it's so infrequent, i wouldn't want to go too high here because we will be out of position and there is usually a cascade of calls or a cascade of folds, probably just go ahead and call tbh or bump it small while pot controlling a lot of flops, i never limp with AA tho so im out on a limb here. I imagine the skill level of the table would effect my decision. If they are all bad players i think going 40 and letting it be big and MW is fun

hand 3 we just have to go big here because we have a ton of steals in our range or should. I go 150 here to deny all the odds

The mininum against a single opponent is fairly easy to work out. To deny villains set mining odds you need to insure their preflop odds on a call are 10-1 or worse. So if it's $300 effective then you need to raise at least $30.

You also need to consider how suspicious your raise looks. When your not bumping against effective stacks typically 3 times the previous bet is a good size and making too small a raise tends to give away your hand. You will often want to make a raise bigger then the minimum so it looks more like a normal raise. Making too big a raise in limped pots can also be a problem but in that case it's usually better to go ahead and make the big raise to deny odds.

If there is already a lot of money in the pot then add that to the effective stack because that is also money that can be won calling. This is mostly a concern multiway when there can be a lot in the pot.

The thing multiway is that you need to consider what happens after 1 or more calls. That money goes into the pot, giving every villain after the first better and better odds. So multiway you need to add some factor on top to insure you don't get a bunch of callers.

A lot of it is just feel. Heads up you can look at what sort of sizing that villain has called in the past and if it's bigger then what you need to bet then go with that. You also need to make sure your bet sizing isn't too obvious.

In this sort of case you don't need a big sizing to deny them odds. Another $40 is enough to deny odds to the first caller. But sizing it down to $60 would look too suspicious. I would probably go $100 with anything I wanted to raise with. There is no reason to go bigger because your bet obviously leaves you committed on all but the worst flops.

At low stakes it's mostly practical, based on what works.

If your opponents are playing a reasonable game you can work it out mathematically based on your range to show what bet sizing you need to apply the right amount of pressure. Which mostly works out to 3X for tight players and 2.5X for loose ones. Add in a little per limper to counter the extra pot odds. Then adjust for position, which should be smaller in EP where your range is stronger and larger in LP where you have more bluffs.

However, that sort of consideration is secondary at low stakes to what works against your opponents way too wide calling ranges. You have played enough low stakes to know the above gets chucked out the window for much larger raises and very different logic on sizing.

I think im okay with hand 1 sizing, hand 2 im probably going to at least 80 here and then for hand 3 I think im going to 150 or so

@ Quads

But all that nx + m stuff totally ignores stack size, which renders it pretty useless if you think (like I do) that IO should be the main consideration.

GimoG

true

I think average stack size, average BI amount and average pot size dictate a lot more in terms of bet sizing, strategy and win rates then is often discussed.

So which of the hand results do you consider sub-optimal?

H1: almost 15BB rake-free risk-free.

H2. HU in a 3! pot with AA with a ton of dead money.

H3. Fist pump massive +EV jam against his entire range.

The only slight adjustment might be H2, where you can size up to ~$75-80 or so to make post flop easier to stack off.

If you're finding yourself getting too many folds when you have premium hands, the solution is to find more hands to squeeze with, not to change your raise size.

It's so much easier to construct a 3 ranges (raise, flat, fold) than it is to create 4 ranges (raise big, raise small, flat, fold). You're gonna totally find yourself leveling yourself about whether your opponent knew you were raising bigger so that means you're weaker so you should call his jam with AQ when you know you should fold.

Man, I can't even remember the last time I was in a spot to 3-bet AA/KK, let alone 3 of them.

I generally tailor my 3-bet size to the table dynamics. If players are Lagging it up and seeing lots of flops, I'll size up for value. At a "standard" table they get standard sizes. Against a nit I might size down a tad to lure them in.

The question I usually ask myself is usually "what's the largest size I think I can get some action with" and go with that. It usually tends to be player dependent.

this

our hands actually don't matter in these spots, our sizing has optimums but it's not always easy to figure them out when there are a mix of stack sizes

the general rule is a bit more out of position, to compensate for ev post flop but 3x ip and 3.5x oop is just a general rule and doesn't account for stack sizes, size of the rake, positions of players in the hand

not possible to pinpoint the exact math in real time at the table tho so it's more art then science

And as for denying the odds by betting to give worse odds than 8:1, what happens if you are deeper than 100bb? That would be too big of a rise, right?

When you're deeper, you just have to play a strategy that doesn't go broke with overpairs postflop. It also means you need to have more speculative hands in your ranges to make sure you can have a good hand on 865 boards so that you're not constantly blown off your AA.

Yeah, deeper things become much more non-straightforward.

If there's a bunch of dead money in the pot (such as an EP raise followed by a whole bunch of callers) we actually don't care quite as much about blowing everyone out with a ridiculous raise size (taking down huge dead money rake free preflop is never a horrendous result, especially if no one is giving stacks away postflop).

However, if it's more going to be a HU / 3way case or something then it becomes a lot more interesting if stacks are deep and only a ridiculous raise sets up a 8:1 IO spot. When deep it might be more important to disguise our hand. If you have an aggro 3betty image then your hand is already disguised (although if you have an aggro 3betty image at a shorterstacked table it's likely you were lighting money on fire to setup this image). If you have a tight image (which you may have thanks to being at mostly shorterstacked tables) then you may want to consider just flatting the raise to disguise your hand (and just play a mediocre pot postflop, noting that sometimes you'll be given an opportunity to flat/reraise preflop).

GcluelessdeepstackednoobG

That is probably correct for the games you play in. From what I have seen you play in not particularly deep 1/2 games. Opening raises are likely the only ones not constrained by stack size, and opening sizes are more driven by what table will call then any mathematical model at 1/2.

In the 2/5 games I normally play even 4 bets might not be limited by stack sizes. Max buy in is 200BB and opening raises tend smaller so it doesn't run into the cap as quickly.