I’m trying to understand something . I play in a relatively low stakes, full ring game of NL against a group of friends. We’ve played together for the last couple of years. Almost no one uses a pot sized or higher bet on the river. My primitive understanding is that pot or larger size bets are polarized and would generally Signal a bluff or a very strong hand. I have tried using these sometimes with strong hands and they don’t get paid off. In this game, I assume that means I should be bluffing with these sizes on my weak hands or missed draws. However, I fear that I am losing value if I bet that large with my made hands since my opponents are probably over folding. Would appreciate any insight you might be able to offer about Polarized bet sizes. My assumption is that I can bet smaller with made hands as long as my opponents are not picking up on my plays and adjusting. I have not seen a lot of adjustment so far, thus I don’t think they will start calling more frequently when they face a large bet on the river. They seem to keep calling when I keep the bet 3/4 of the pot or smaller with strong hands. Thoughts?


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More bluffs then.

Seems like you have the answer to your own question. If pot sized is getting through on the river more often, increase the range of hands you try with.

If they are overfolding to overbets then you adjust by putting more bluffs in that line. Either they forfeit a bunch of equity overfolding, or they adjust and call lighter.

If you want to get really out of line you could overbet your bluffs and use 75% for your value, but this creates huge exposures in your strategy that that can be exploited.

Try this excersize: Calculate the optimal bluff/value ratio for a 150% river shove. You have a perfectly polarized range, villain has a bluff-catcher. Most casual players will be surprised just how often you should be bluffing there.