HI, it is not my hand, I found it in a forum and I interested in the stab size on flop, the HERO is regular from NL100 so I think he know what he do.
Why he uses so low stab size? how I know what stab size I have to use? what is important?or what is bad in this hand in your opinion? thanks for reply

PokerStars - $1 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $95.50 (VPIP: 16.32, PFR: 10.65, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 390)
SB: $180.80 (VPIP: 19.14, PFR: 16.02, 3Bet Preflop: 8.04, Hands: 265)
Hero (BB): $247.09
UTG: $338.81 (VPIP: 28.14, PFR: 21.76, 3Bet Preflop: 9.95, Hands: 537)
MP: $79.51 (VPIP: 17.02, PFR: 10.64, 3Bet Preflop: 4.76, Hands: 47)
CO: $136.74 (VPIP: 19.93, PFR: 15.80, 3Bet Preflop: 4.95, Hands: 845)

SB posts SB $0.50, Hero posts BB $1.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $1.50) Hero has T 2

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to $3.00, Hero calls $2.00

Flop: ($6.00, 2 players) T 9 5
SB checks, Hero bets $1.88, SB calls $1.88

Turn: ($9.76, 2 players) 2
SB checks, Hero bets $12.50, SB calls $12.50

River: ($34.76, 2 players) T
SB checks, Hero bets $46.00, SB calls $46.00

Hero shows T 2 (Full House, Tens full of Twos)
SB mucks 9 J (Two Pair, Tens and Nines)

just my 2c since I am not a NL cash reg ,


The idea behind this bet is saying his range is better than his villains in this spot on this board texture- and he can bet it very often with a small sizing (in general the smaller you bet the more hands you can bet in a spot, and opposite with betting big. (as you can see on the turn he over bets which to me I believe polarizes his range meaning he is saying he has the nuts or a air/draw - he continues this on the river when he improves)

Also two things here - betting smaller keeps your opponents range much wider and two is that it forces your opponent to try to defend the right # of hands or else they are going to be losing money folding too often. He can probably get wide value on the flop from 5x or 9x's here that decided to c/c as well as weaker draws / under pairs.

Small bet sizes are in important part of GTO play, and in this instance the main reason for the bet is to prevent villain from realizing his equity for free, without making the pot too big for the particular hand strength. Matt Janda's written a fair bit about bet-sizing in his latest book, but he also happened to write a free article on this very subject that was published a couple of days ago: https://www.upswingpoker.com/small-b...trategy-guide/

It's kind of amusing to me, but optimal play quite often means you chose bet-sizes based on your hand strength. e.g. Bet small when your hand isn't very strong, but then overbet when you make the nuts. Fish have been accidentally GTO for years.

BB should have gone for at least 2x pot on the river imo. (Snowie agrees).

Janda's article is excellent and should give you a really good understanding of this type of play.

In essence, though, villain's range is pretty wide. It will include probably most broadway combinations, including combinations with a 10, like A10 or K10. It will also include probably all pocket pairs, including 55, 99, JJ etc.

Hero calls quite loose, but the flop is favorable: he hits top pair. The problem is he has top pair and a super weak kicker, so could very easily be behind. He's crushed by the likes of K10, and trailing in equity to hands like JQ of spades, which are all in villain's range. So he's in a tough spot in terms of knowing whether to bet to take the pot down or to check.

If he checks, he let's a lot of hands like 44 or AQos realize their equity for free and also lets his villain know his hand is weak, opening himself up to bluffs.

If he makes a "normal" size bet, he could be building the pot for the villain's draw or simply putting chips in when behind/walking into a check raise that will put him in a tough spot.

He opts to do something in between, which is make a smaller bet. A smaller bet shows he has a hand and will potentially be hard to bluff off the pot, it also stops the villain from realizing equity for free and may force out hands like 44.

There was a hand in the One Drop where Chris Moore made a small bet into a pot with Doug Polk. In his analysis, Polk said he thought it was a weird bet and so he just raised big. Moore folded.

It made me laugh because Polk was clearly confused by the move, thought it was weak and so just responded with aggression.

I think it is revealing in the sense that actually betting small does just say you're weak in most spots. It's the same as thin value bets, where you could be left open to a big bet that will force you to reevaluate your hand and fold.

In order to be truly GTO I think you have to mix it up a bit and bet small with sets and other big hands.

Yeah, that's the thing. Your range might work well with small bets, but you still need some strong hands in the 'small bet' group or it's really easy to exploit.

I've been doing a lot of 35% pot bets at 5NLz. It's kind of funny seeing my "c-bet success rate" go right down (there's so little fold equity), but it's a really cheap way of seeing the turn if you have some sort of draw or weak one pair. In essence it works like the old "blockbet" that is mostly used on the river, but is also possible on the flop or turn. Most villains can't resist raising the flop if they have you crushed, so you gain some fairly useful information about their ranges too, and if they don't raise you know they are fairly capped, so you can bet bigger on later streets.

I have read all your comments and I understood that is not right:
AND there where I bet small with weak hand there I have to bets small with monster too OR bets small with monster sometimes?

If you use small bets when you are weak and big bets when you are strong you give info about your hands all the time and its not make sense...

just as well nobody is advising that then...

more like...bet small and/or check with mid range hands, bet big with nuts & bluffs

...or just learn how to take the most EV line in any given spot, using all the weapons at your disposal.

If villain know I bet small with weak hands he can raises and barrel off all hands, it will be so exploitable or?

why?

Because SB appears to be very capped when he raises pre then check-calls two streets. Hero in the BB has polarized his range by betting flop and overbetting the turn. He should go big for max value on the river (in case villain has a ten or a slowplayed underboat), and by betting big he can put a lot of total airballs into his range, making villain want to cry with hands like 9x/5x or 88/77.
Just put yourself in SB's shoes holding J9. When you see that overbet on the turn, you say "Oh Christ. Please don't bomb the river."
Since the last thing he wants you to do is bomb the river, you should bomb the river.

This is probably the most useful post I've read on this site in awhile

Hi, what is the best hand for balance in the spot?

Which spot - the one in your OP or Janda's article - and with which size?

If you bet small, then you should expect to get called very often, so your range shouldn't contain many bluffs. A "small betting" range will be heavily weighted towards (thin) value. (In some cases, you shouldn't have any pure bluffs at all when you bet small. It's just that some of your thin value hands can get called by better, as well as worse).
If you bet big, then you have more fold equity. You can bet several combos of bluffs if you go big. Typically when you make a large bet with a polarized range, your bluffs will be with hands that have blockers to the potential calling range and/or are literally the worst hands you get to the river with. (i.e. they have the lowest amount of showdown value). It's not always obvious which combos make for the "best" bluffs, and GTO play usually requires a lot of mixing. e.g. Bluff with 4th pair X% of the time, but also with 7 high Y% of the time, but not with ace high.

Janda on board A97 - J cbets hands like A-Q with small bet size. But I now know that he is weak on the structure with the bet size and I can raise and shove river ATC against to his weak range. It doesnt make sense. Or I don't understand something?

If you want to bet small with some mid-strength hands in your range, you also need to "protect" that range (from bluff-raises) by also using a small size with some nutted combos.
i.e. on that flushy A97J board, you could also bet small with KQss, KTss, QTss, 99, 77, AJ if you also want to sometimes bet small with AQ with the Qs. You could/should also check with some of the flushes and sets, if you're sometimes check-calling Ax, KJ, or JTs (in wrong suit).
The main thing to notice about the spot is that when the flush gets there, it's really hard to get called by many weak hands if you bomb it (with your flushes and sets, for example) but you have a lot of top pairs, two pairs and pair+draws that can get value/protection if they bet small... so you should choose a small size for the bulk of your betting range. You could split your range and make a big bet at low frequency with a polarized range of nuts and draws to the nuts, but it's a lot easier to just say "A small size is best for my range, so I'll bet 1/4pot with flushes, sets, 2prs, TP+draw, draws and some random air". It's hard/impossible for villain to bluff-raise if your range contains lots of strong hands, because he could get 3-bet jammed on. When you only have AQ with Q flush draw, a small bet is fine (although checking is also fine), as you can still call a raise and won't get stacked. When you have 99, you won't get stacked if the river is terrible, but you can get some value from villain's Ax combos and single-spades, but you can still get stacks in if you make a boat.
Small sizes tend to work well in spots where you're OOP and/or the stack to pot ratio is low. (e.g. in 3-bet pots). The small bets work well when you don't want villain taking completely free cards, but you also don't necessarily want to play for stacks, at least not immediately. They work a bit like blocking bets. You can bet small while you have a pair+draw (or a set), and then bet big if you improve, or check-fold (losing the minimum) if the turn/river are really bad for you.

It follows that if I cbet small than I have almost no bluff. is it not wrong that I dont have x/c range? It is preety explo situation for villain. Doesn't mind we bluff so little?

No, it doesn't matter much. As long as your range is balanced according to the size you choose, there's not a lot a villain can do about it in the long run.
i.e. If you bet small and villain thinks "He's always so value-heavy, so I should fold at a high frequency" and starts folding all the time, you can then alter your strategy and start putting more bluffs into your range. (It's great to be able to get away with cheap bluffs against someone that folds too often). Since your bet size is small, villain has to call quite light to stop you exploiting him with bluffs. And when he calls the small bet with a weak/wide range, you get a little bit of value and then bomb the next street and make him wish he'd folded in the first place. #EasyGame

well, if I bet small on flop then I have to overbet all turns with polarized range?
how to play turn with merged range? thank you so much

You don't have to do anything. Overbetting is just one option which particularly applies when the turn card is better for your range and villain's range is weak. It's often the case that when villain doesn't raise your small flop bet his range is pretty weak (since he'd usually raise with strong hands to try and make the pot bigger), which means you can size up on the turn.
If your range contains a variety of strengths on the turn, then you'll have some combos that barrel for value, some that barrel as a bluff, and some that give up after the small flop bluff failed to work.

So I earn in simillar spot on villain's folds not villain's calls. Why is the option better? Thank you so much

ok I understand. It's just one of the options.

Hi
I have one more problem. What do you think about small bet OOP? because we have to protecting from a lot of overcards. Why is here better check? thanks

Poker Stars, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

Hero (SB): $10.40 (104 bb)
BB: $10.27 (102.7 bb)
UTG: $10.49 (104.9 bb)
MP: $11.85 (118.5 bb)
CO: $24.54 (245.4 bb)
BTN: $4.30 (43 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with T 3
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.27, BB calls $0.17

Flop: ($0.54) 2 T 5 (2 players)
Hero ??

Personally, I bet big here because I don't want action (so although I bet big, it's not a value bet) I just want to end the pot.

Actually, this spot is a good example of why I think Janda's latest thoughts on betting are not just re-wordings of old school thinking.

It's also a hand where there is no need to plan ahead (more Janda ). You are going to get a huuggee % of folds with a pot sized bet (or o/b if that's your gig) since villain will have a ton of air in his range and if he calls, just play the turn as you see it.

I am a huge fan of small flop bets, but not in every spot. I'm an even bigger fan of deciding what you want to accomplish and choosing the best bet size accordingly. Because your hand is massively vulnerable (as you correctly surmise) all you really want to do is end it.

edit, also think about what a small bet represents here. Ranges are very, very wide, so it will be hard to represent polar strength (because you have waaay more air, than nuts.). Therefore you will get floated a ton and once you are oop on the turn, your chances of winning are diminishing fast.

I'm sure snowie will disagree

T3s should probably fold pre in SB, but I'd sometimes limp-fold it like a boss.
Opening to 2.7x seems bad, because a competent player is going to defend extremely often vs that size, and T3s is a **** hand.

As played, think about how often you're likely to get floated on that board, and also consider how much (or little) of your range is likely to bet 3 streets OOP. I guess if you go small (half pot or less) you'll usually triple with TT/55/22, T5s, JJ+ and AT/KT on safe runouts, and also bet some fives and twos for protection/semi-bluff, balanced by FDs and overcards, so you can probably put most Tx combos into a betting range (for protection) if you go small. (You should still check some top pairs, to protect your checking range). If you wanted to bet big, you need to be much more polar, and your weak tens do better as checks, since they don't want to play big pots OOP on a board that can quickly get ugly.
I mean, bet-sizing is pretty straightforward really. If you think a big sizing is best for your range, go very polar ("nuts" and good draws) so you have a low c-bet frequency, but if you pick a small size, you can bet at a higher frequency and include more of your mid-strength hands and more draws. Sometimes you want to deny equity cheaply while also keeping the pot-size under control, or want to set a bargain price for your draws.
To put it another way, just ask yourself "Do I want to bet this flop at a high frequency or a low frequency with my range?". If you want to bet at a high frequency, use a small size. If you want to bet a lower frequency, use a large size, and check a lot of potential bluff-catchers. I'm a big fan of small sizes OOP, but if I had to use PSBs, I'd check-call all Tx combos worse than JT on that board. If you potted it with T3s and get called, how do you feel when the turn is a diamond or any card higher than a ten? You'll usually have to check-fold, when you could well have the best hand. I don't want to put a pot-sized bet in very often if there's a decent chance I'm going to check-fold later on. Also consider how you'd react to a raise. If you half-pot it and villain raises, you can continue, although you're not loving it. If you pot it and get raised, you hate life and are wishing you'd never bet so big in the first place.