Hi,

I see this strategy being employed a lot recently and I also see talk of players not adjusting correctly.

This article from Upswing (https://upswingpoker.com/small-vs-big-bets/) explains well how to employ it as the aggressor, but as the opponent facing it, what is the correct adjustment?


Any thoughts or resources on this topic?

The reason people don't adjust correctly is because people can't visualize their range when playing. There's no real correct adjustment in comparison to other times we face bets. We have to defend x% of the time to stop our opponent from profiting immediately but we'll defend less when oop and when it's a card that hits our opponent's range and we'll defend more (or donk) when the card favors our range. It's up to you (or a solver) to determine how wide/tight to call based on those factors but the most important factor's having a grip on what your range looks like in a certain spot and where your hand fits in that range.

edit: disclaimer: those are my own thoughts and just based on intuition because i've never used a solver for NL.

Seems like good thoughts for the issue. I am still working on getting better at ranges and how they interact. Trying to figure out bluffs, valuebets, calls and folds from the range is hard in-game.

Against someone who is over-using this tactic (seems to be a lot of players), what is a good defense?

One of the benefits of the big T-bet is that it is costly to XR it with (semi)bluffs. I dont donkbet turns when OOP, but is it a decent strategy a % of the time?

In a GTO sense, I answered that question in my post above. It depends on position, board ott, and your hand. I think the most important thing you can do is just not go overboard with trash because you think your opponent's doing this. Try to always keep your range in mind and if you should defend the hand you have based on factors I put here and in my first post.

It is and really just takes experience. Play many hands and you'll get it.

I'm not sure if it's a decent % of the time but it's certainly viable some % of the time.

Great answers, thanks!

(the going overboard with trash comment is spot on)

flops and turns are played independently
i.e. we don't purposely bet flop small just to bet turn big a bit more often
it just so happens that overbetting turn on some textures is higher ev because it better leverages our range/nut and positional advantage, when spr allows for another big river bet
on some flops, as well as turns/rivers, we make more money if v is forced to put money in with more of his range, less money but a lot more often, so on average he contributes more

last but not least, this is no limit, not pot limit like ppl used to play for so long. somebody has to take advantage of the threat of very large bets and the bigger you can bet (while staying reasonably balanced), the more both your value as well as bluffs will earn.

Do you have a good example of a board where we move beneficially from a small flopbet to a big overbet with our range OTT? (of what you just explained)

also
I think a lot of players do just this to put pressure on the opponents weaker hands. (I have also been watching a coaching videos, where the player anticipates the overbet because of the board texture, I am looking to get a firmer grasp on when this is appropriate and not)

dont think there are boards we range bet small on flop and range overbet on turn, that would make us maniacal surely?

best board i can think where we would continue with a large sizing on the turn frequently would be perhaps:

A72r - flop range bet (small)

This flop is so disconnected and so good for a pre-flop aggressors range say vs BB calling range that there are few turn cards we want to put the brakes on.

in reality however (i play micros 25nl) - once villain has called flop of A72r, they are often incorrectly overfolding their range and arrive at the turn with too much Ax in their range. my adjustment is then to selectively double barrel. difference between theory and reality is pretty huge in these instances.

the way you adjust is by solving it and knowing what type of hands are a call on that spot. it's not too hard to apply but most people just haven't studied that spot enough to know what to do, or they have studied it but still assume it's value heavy in pool

I wrote a short post about flop sizing in another thread. It looks roughly like this but it's not always correct.

And when it comes to facing turn bets it's just like ionutd said. We "need" to defend x% of our range. It's not always the exact MDF frequency but it's close if there isn't a incredibly huge asymmetry between ranges afaik.

If villain bets pot you need to defend ~50% of range. If villain bets 1.5x pot you defend ~35% of range. You will notice that ~35% or range means you will have to fold some top pairs even when there is no flush or straight out there. You will also notice that vs a pot bet you will have to defend all top pairs usually. These defense percentages are not exact because it depends on the texture, position and ranges.

the problem is that no one knows what 50 or 35% of your range actually is, so imo just remembering what type of hands are a call from looking at solves is the best way to go

Yep. If you don't have a solver you can play around in equilab or similar to see a rough estimate of what top 35% or 50% is in the "hand class" viewer or whatever :-) Requires you to be able to visualize what ranges look like OTT though, but shouldn't be impossible to get somewhat close.

yeah flopzilla pro also has a super handy feature for quick range vs range equities on given textures - find it useful to input multiple scenarios until something catches my eye as either surprising or new to me, then looking at it in PIO a little more closely.
caught you on the tables few days ago Ship, hope the games treating you well!

Great explanations guys! Thanks!

My take away here is that it really boils down to having a firm grasp of ranges in-game and approximating percentages of the range to defend profitably. I need tp put in a lot more work on this.
I will also look into flopzilla. Solvers are too expensive for my micro stakes hobby grind.

GTO+ is like $80.

Nice! Thanks!