Smaller bets in EP

At $10NL my preflop bet was 4bb whatever the cards or position, but in $25NL I've just started betting only 3bb from early position. I do this even with AA. I'm pretty sure this is +EV, at least for me.

It serves 2 purposes. It keeps the pot small, which is fantastic when you're out of position with TPTK or an overpair, and if you raise AK, there are a few callers, and you miss the flop, you have wasted 1bb less.

To put it simply, any hand is worth less in early position, so I give it a smaller bet preflop.

I don't see much difference in the number of callers. If someone is going to call 75c they'll probably call $1. I haven't noticed a difference at my tables anyway.

Any comments on this?

One of the reasons you raise with good cards is because you are likely to win the pot, so you want opponents to put more in.

But the main problem with betting so small is that if you get one caller, the pot is looking juicy for drawing hands to get in cheaply, and you can end up with 5 or 6 players in the pot and you sitting there impotently with your AK, almost certain to lose what could well have been your pot.

With high cards you want isolation, and this is even more important from EP. I bet 5xBB as my standard from UTG or UTG+1 regardless of the hand I am playing. If I take the blinds then and there, all it means is that I have negated the disadvantage of EP.

In general it's not a good idea though. With your reasoning you'll soon be minbetting and minraising too. Ofcourse if raising 3BB instead of 4BB works out for you, all the better. I want my raises to get more respect though.

And there are two sides to what I'm going to say now, but when you're OOP, it's not a bad idea to get more money in when you have the advantage (ie preflop with AK). Now you're just letting people see the flop cheaply, and when the flop comes you are disadvantaged because you are OOP.

Phil Gordon recommends this in his Little Green Book. He says he generally open-leads for less of a raise in EP, more in LP. I don't have the book handy, and I don't quite remember all the reasons he listed. One does come to mind is that it makes the hand a little easier to get away from if someone reraises a monster. I could see laying down my JJ 3xBB EP raise to a push from MP.

Problem is, then you get into the flop with more people when you are OOP, and less people when you have position. It largely depends on your postflop play though. If you have trouble getting away from hands, or don't like to cbet or whatever, then it's best to raise em lighter.

EDIT: Come to think about it, it looks to me like a playstyle difference. The Tagg players will want to raise less, the Lagg players will want to raise more.