Getting Started: Basic Betting Concepts - Bet-Sizing

Knowing when to bet in no-limit hold'em cash games is obviously important. With strong hands you often want to bet, and with weak ones you might need to bet sometimes, too, as a bluff. But knowing how much to bet is important as well. While every betting situation is different, there are certain general ideas about bet-sizing that are worth knowing about when making your bets and trying to figure out the significance of others' bets, too.

Betting before the flop

Every cash game table has its own "character" you might say, with ideas about "standard" opening raises before the flop changing according to the styles of the players gathered around it. You'll often find, though, that at most cash tables players tend to be influenced by each other enough to "agree" (implicitly) on what constitutes a "normal" range of opening raises.

In a lot of $0.02/$0.04 games online, you'll find most players opening with raises that are around 3-4 times the big blind -- that is, opening with a raise to $0.12 or $0.16. Sometimes players will open with bigger raises from earlier position (say, 4-6x the BB), hoping to increase the likelihood of not having to face multiple opponents playing with position on them.

Some players also like to open for more with their strongest hands. And you'll even sometimes witness wild all-in shoves as opening raises, too, often by players more interested in straight-up gambling than playing thoughtful poker.

In any case, know that a typical preflop opening raise is usually going to fall somewhere close to that 3-4x the BB range. Reraises will then be anywhere from 2-3 times the opening raise on up to an all-in shove over the top, depending on how deep the stacks are.

Let's say you're in a $0.02/$0.04 game and pick up a nice hand like Ac-Kc in late position. If it folds to you, you might open with a raise to $0.12 or $0.16. If someone raises before you -- say to $0.16 -- you might then reraise to $0.42 or $0.48 with your premium starting hand.

In any case, note that the size of the opening raise is generally measured by how it relates to the size of the big blind (e.g., "3x" or "4x"). The size of the reraise is usually considered relative to how it compares to the initial raise.

Betting After the Flop

After the flop, bet-sizing has less to do with the size of the blinds and more to do with the size of the pot. That's because from here players are vying for what's already in the middle.

Let's continue that hand from above. Say a player opens for $0.16, then you reraise to $0.42 with your Ac-Kc from late position. It folds back around to the original raiser who calls, making the total pot $0.90 (your raise, his call, and the small and big blinds).

The flop then comes Ad-8h-3c and he checks. You have made a pair of aces and so you want to bet something. When you decide how much to bet, you should be looking at how much is in the pot and sizing your bet accordingly.

In this particular scenario, the bet you make is called a "continuation bet" since you are continuing with the initiative you took preflop with your reraise. Typical continuation bets are going to be either a little less than half the pot (at minimum) on up to about three-fourths of the pot (at maximum). That means in this case you're probably going to want to bet anywhere from $0.40 to $0.65 or so.

In fact, when it comes to post-flop betting, you might consider bets in this range (about 40%-70% of the pot) as being "normal" bets. They might mean a player is strong, or they might be outright bluffs. Whatever reason the player has for betting, bets of this size are not going to be viewed as strange, since they fall within that "normal" or typical range.

This also means that bets falling below this range (e.g., very small bets of, say, a third of the pot or less) or bets that go way above this range (getting close to the size of the pot or even exceeding it) should be viewed as atypical or out of the ordinary.

The super small bets will sometimes represent "probe bets" made by players who aren't necessarily strong but want to see how you'll react to their bet. You might consider these bets -- occasionally referred to as "feeler bets" -- as inexpensive attempts to gather information.

Meanwhile, the big bets very often represent "value bets," especially at the low limits or "micro" stakes games. People do bluff big sometimes, but more often than not a player betting the size of the pot is doing so in the hopes of getting paid nicely after making a strong hand.

As I say, every betting situation is unique and there are no hard-and-fast rules about how much you should be betting in every instance. But as you get started playing no-limit hold'em cash games, be aware of what the size of bets -- both your own and those of your opponents -- tend to signify.

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