Hey all, so I used to play a lot of poker around 6-8 years ago. I've been completely out of the community and just started playing again.

One thing that seems to have changed is bet sizing. PF it all looks the same, but as soon as the flop hits players here seem to like 20-30% potsized bets. This used to be 66%, the least. Then on the turn we want to bet big again?

Am I correct in seeing this trend? I'm just really confused by it all. Why would we want to give opponents 1/5 odds on flops? What's the reasoning behind the sizing on both the flop and turn?

Thanks a lot.

It's true that small flop sizes have come into fashion. It's partly because people have access to solvers that have "proved" it's part of the correct strategy in many spots, partly because there aren't as many droolers around any more that will call big bets with very weak hands, and partly because it's the fashion and people tend to copy the styles of their heroes or peers.
The theory is pretty complicated, but it's basically because you want action with your best hands when you have a range advantage as the pre-flop agressor (so don't want to bet big and make villain fold), and you want to be able to "get away with" cheap bluffs. You rarely want to play big pots unless you have the nuts, because big bets mean villain only continues with big hands. Smallball is more often the best strategy for your entire range, because then you can get thin value with more combos, and don't end up committed to stacking off with one pair.

As a quick example, if you raise UTG and get called by the BB and the flop comes AK2, if you bet big, villain folds hands like 99 that are close to drawing dead vs your Ax (never mind the sets). If you bet small, he kind of has to call with some underpairs, so your top pairs get at least one street of (small) value, and that's obviously better than the zero streets of value you get if you bomb it.
3-bet pots often play out with a small c-bet, since the 3-bettor has many overpairs in his range, while the caller's range will be much weaker. It's hard to get action with AA and a big bet on K95 if most of villain's range is made of gutshots and pairs lower than top pair, but a small bet "forces" him to call with those hands.

All that said, in some spots you have so many good bluffing combos as well as strong hands, while villain is more capped, that a large bet might be appropriate, since that will make villain fold many hands that are beating your bluffs. It all really depends upon how villain plays his range when faced by different betsizes.

Good post ^, one of the better ones I've read in BQ in a while imo.

To expand that to turn big bets, after we get value from weaker draws, low pairs, etc. on the flop, it's often a bit tough to get a second street of value from them unless we bet super small. Plus, we already folded out a bunch of our opponent's pure misses with our small flop bet, so their range will be stronger on the turn. Against the stronger range and with it being tough to get that much more value with a hand like second pair, we instead often use a large barreling strategy with a very polar range which allows us to get max value when we do get called by the decent hands in our opponent's range. Turns out it's nicer to pot strong top pair for value than to bet hands like weak top pair and a bunch of second pair for half pot, and also allows us to check plenty of hands ott that can call a river probe or bet on the river when checked to. Further, while we fold out a bunch of trash with a small flop bet, with the pure trash already folded it's not particularly attractive to bluff small as we won't have that much fold equity. But betting big allows us to put a lot of pressure on villain's hands like gutshot+over(s), second pair, bottom pairs that will call flop all the time.

The game doesn't work like this in every single spot, but it is a pretty common pattern you'll see if you look at solvers and what decent regs are doing.

Thanks guys, great responses!

i like playing against players who do this because on dry boards it prices me in for my bottom pair (using one whole) card to improve.

you call and bink one of your 5 outs. He then bets 66% of the pot on the turn close to 100% of the time and then on the river you just donk bet a third of the pot and he is committed to call with most of his range.

I mean, this is fine but it's not really anything special. It's just normal.

Yeah this probably isn't good. You're valuecutting yourself imo.

you can opt for a check raise but this will only be successful about 1/4 to half the time so either way the chip volume result will avg out in a similar way.

Isn't this a blanket statement that holds little value?

It Depends on the opponent is probably a bit more accurate...right?

It's more about the fact that it doesn't usually make sense to lead river after someone double barrels you from a range perspective.

This is also a blanket statement that doesn't really hold value -- it's only more accurate because it doesn't actually say much.

Duncelanas i’ll try and explain the method in the madness.

Hitting bottom pair on a dry board using one of your whole cards leaves you with a 5 out draw for your pair to improve to two pair or trips. 5 outs is 8-1. He gives us a 1/3 flop cbet which is 4-1 so if we call we need 4 more units of value when we hit our money card. On the turn he gives us 3.5 units of value so on the river we are still short .5. If we donk a small bet that gets called almost everytime we are always home. If we check and he always checks then he wins the long term game. Given the fact that he probably won’t always check then yeah the check-raise will be profitable but in the long term it’s an either or decision imo and yes the river donk does make sense because he’ll be pot committed and also sometimes he’ll assume it’s a thin value bet and try and raise it. For these reasons that’s why I believe it makes sense.

As Duncelanas said, donking the river rarely makes sense from a range perspective. When someone has been barreling, they are representing the polarized range (strong hands and draws/bluffs). It's not impossible, but it's rare for the river card to be so much better for the the player check-calling down that he should suddenly be leading out with a polarized range (i.e. you suddenly bet for value or as a bluff, and villain becomes the bluffcatcher). More commonly, you'd check again, to give villain the chance to bluff once more, or to value-bet (possibly with worse than the hand you rivered).

It's true that some river cards will mean villain will check back quite often, but these river cards are in the minority (i.e. the spot doesn't come up very frequently), and villain will still have to bet some of his total air, so you'll still get your value by checking as normal. Maybe it works for you, but check-call/check-call/donk is not a common line. It does appear occasionally in GTO sims, but in normal play it always looks fishy as hell to me. :/

It's true that some river cards will mean villain will check back quite often, but these river cards are in the minority (i.e. the spot doesn't come up very frequently), and villain will still have to bet some of his total air, so you'll still get your value by checking as normal. Maybe it works for you, but check-call/check-call/donk is not a common line. It does appear occasionally in GTO sims, but in normal play it always looks fishy as hell to me. :/[/QUOTE]

Interesting. I’ve often wondered what line would be more profitable here, the pot committed donk that sometimes gets raised or a standard check raise. You are a player of many years experience so I like how you mentioned he will check the river only in the minority of cases. I’ll experiment with both and see what works best

Probably depends on your player pool. One issue with donking hands like two pair vs a barreling villain is that you're weakening your checking range, and a decent online reg will pick up on that and can really put you in some tough river spots. But if you're playing a fish and think you get more value with a lead, it doesn't really matter what your range should be doing. You should just lead.

Weakening your checking range. True. I overlooked the importance of this. This will be pretty costly in a cash game with regs but not so much in a mtt tourney. Good point though.