This doesn't make any sense. The villains can't make money by putting in more money preflop so they can draw at a better price postflop.

I don't really like squeezing less with our nuts and more when we're light (or vise versa). I would rather have one basic polarized squeeze formula that can be slightly adjusted for position and number of callers (not our hand) otherwise people will start to pick up on it as a betting tell.

(yes, I know what people are going to say "this is llsnl we don't need to balance our play because no one is noticing" well actually it only takes one or two good players to notice and to outplay us later).

The bolded is absolute garbage, for 2 reasons:

1) If the pot is $330 and you have $385 behind, just jam the flop. Who cares what a "normal" bet is?

2) It doesn't matter if someone is getting correct odds to draw when you gave them incorrect odds to flop that draw. The majority of the time they'll whiff the flop entirely or they'll flop a pair that is way behind you.

This actually sounds quite a bit like scared money to me. You seem convinced that if your opponents aren't making mistakes on every street, you must have done something wrong. In fact, by sizing your bet large enough, you're ensuring that they can play perfectly postflop and yet still be unprofitable for the entire hand due to the size of their preflop mistake.

(EDIT: Looks like I was beaten to this by the earlier replies.)

I've found that when you make your raises a good round number, Villians are slightly more likely to feel that it is a bluff, because if it was for value, you would have thought about it a little more. Of course, this is generally true as you generally DO think a little more with a genuine hand. If the V's you describe are these types of V's, I would insta raise to $100. Reverse psychology. Now if they thought on a whole different level, I would try for a reverse, reverse move. Conversely if they are level 1 thinkers, they will interpret the insta raise as a truly strong hand. So it depends on the Villian, but I think $100 is in the ballpark.

Are you saying that they both folded to the $125?

The title of this thread was so spot on. I think we have a range of $80-$125 itt, which shows the difficulty of figuring out what the optimal size is.
My gut instinct was $90. After reading the thread I still think that or maybe $95 is best.

anything over 95 is bad, you do not want either of them to fold

So are you saying they will call 95 but will fold to 110?

I am just saying we need a really specific flop to shove, get called AND be ahead or a big favorite. It's gotta be V holding AK on a K-high flop or KK/QQ on a good J or Q-high board...agree?

Otherwise, it's rare that players call a 375$ Jam otf with "nothing"

So how often do we shove and get called by worse. I imagine the majority of the time we are able to shove most flops and take It down right then and there...I don't really hate that. Picking up 50bb without seeing a turn.

I just feel my 3! Is always too big and I need to fix it. It seems as though most are in the 100$ range, confirming my suspicion.

Results: hero raises to 125$, white older V asks how much behind, then shoves. Asian lag folds and hero calls...LDO

Threads like this are exactly why I once started a thread about people overusing the phrase "results oriented".

Here is a hand where you got almost the exact result you wanted. You got all-in preflop with AA for your entire stack. The only way this could have been better is if the other guy had also gotten it in.

And yet, here you are, complaining that you think you sized your bet too big to get action? That is wrong, and the results confirm that it is wrong!

I have no idea why you think you played this hand wrong or why you are second-guessing yourself. Really, you are overthinking it. You're worried about sizing your bet too big when your large sizing induced a jam? Really? Really really?

Furthermore, it seems like you are being way too big a perfectionist about this hand (and coming from me that says a lot). In a 3-way pot, most of the time no one's going to hit anyway. And if someone is willing to fold a pair after they hit one, it means that their preflop call is almost 100% dead money!

Stop trying to focus only on setting up future mistakes and instead realize that it's also fine to induce one big mistake (a horrible preflop call) and then fully exploit that (by putting the rest of your money in on the flop and daring them to make an even bigger mistake).

Nice post Vern.

It's not really a question that has a universal answer. The ideal 3 bet sizing is going to be based on the situation, the villains, what their moods are, what your image is, etc. All we can do is suggest a default sizing which is going to be inadequate in most instances. If people in your games are calling $125 or shoving over it, then that seems pretty ideal to me.

Play around with your sizing in future session and see what happens.

Seriously dude, poker is a simple game. You're making it way too complicated

Agreed, 100 is the right bet here, because sliding that standard stack of red chips across the felt always suggests a bluff. If you took 1-2 chips off, it would more strongly suggest a precisely calibrated value bet.

I am saying that the value you gain by making the 3bet larger will be more than offset by the value you lose from an increase in % of time they fold.