Exploiting Fish's Understanding of Pot Odds

This mainly applies to no limit ring games. Many poker newbs, and I'm talking about the worst of the worst fish, have no understanding of how bets relate to pot size.

For example, to them, a $3 bet is a $3 bet. It doesn't matter if there is $1 in the pot or $20. They don't think in terms of 1/2 pot bet, 3/4 pot bet, pot-sized bet, over-betting the pot, etc. They just think in terms of "Its only $3" or "Holy cow he bet $20!!" (even though $40 was already in the pot).

Ok, you get the idea.

Anyways, how can this best be exploited to maximize EV??

Pump up pots bigger with hands like AK. Your bets on the flop if you miss and it's checked to you look bigger and scarier, and give you a better chance of discouraging draws.

Along with a lack of understanding of betting, the worst of the worst fish usually has a lack of understanding about odds, hand selection, poker, common sense, organized brain cells, etc. Too much poker on TV, they usually end up calling all the way to the river making the lower value betting a good way to build up pots when you have the goods. Most live for the excitement of an all-in though, and will bump you back if you raise big, especially at the micro limits. (My 67 is good enough, I got a change to hit something on the next two cards...all-in is fun!).

If you have the goods, consistent betting seems to make a fair chunk of money from multiple opponents, and huge raises against one or two is usually enough of a challenge to bait them into an ill-fated all-in call.

Technically, someone making unreasonable calls like this is exploiting him/herself because they're giving you value each time they make a call against the odds. But, a simple way to exploit this tendency even further is to simply bet big relative to the size of the pot if you opponent calls too frequently in these situations.

say i'm in a .25/.50 NL game, pot is $15 so already, and i'm 99% sure to win, i'll bet like $3 on the turn and river when it's pretty obvious i'll win.

But at .50/1 or higher NL games, bet 1/2 or 3/4 of the pot on the flop if you're the favorite.

I was thinking along the lines of.. You don't have to bet as much as you think you might if you're bluffing into a big pot. Or, you can overbet a small pot and still rely on people with lousy draws to call.

Good observation. Definitely applies to their betting too. At low stakes games if there's four limpers and one of them comes out betting 2x or 3x the pot on the flop, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, many players perceive a big hand as a big bet no matter what. So if they flop a set they don't make reasonable bets, they overbet and force folds.

johnnyawe:

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You don't have to bet as much as you think you might if you're bluffing into a big pot.

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this effect might be canceled out by the fish's general looseness: they want to--and do--call just about anything

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Or, you can overbet a small pot and still rely on people with lousy draws to call.

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yes, I often overbet on loose tables ($10nl) when the pot is small.
It also helps in limiting the number of callers. Lots of caller have lots of outs (schooling effect), so an overbet will hopefully just leave 1 or 2 fish with lousy pot odds.

Though I'm a newbie, but I've sat at plenty of tables where pot odds are not a part of anyone's thinking.

The benefit I usually exploit is when I'm facing a draw. When the pot is large (usually it is from too many limpers), unknowledgeable players generally bet the same amount anyway. Like their standard bet is $3 if the flop suits them. So when the pot is already $10, and you've got 8-10 outs, it allows you proper odds to make your hand and take down a much larger pot.

FOR DISCUSSION: In this case perhaps it makes sense to put in a minimum raise in late position with drawing hands (JTs). Limpers will call, and you wind up with good odds to call the $3 bet because you've built the pot? Or perhaps just stick to the Tight/Agg gameplan?

Hi Easy,

regardng J 10s pf raise:

I would think a factor would be whether you plan to also bet the flop no matter what as the PF raiser. If you don't hit, but bet 2/3 of the pot every time in the hopes of taking the pot wthout a fight, it might get expensive if you only hit your straight or flush 10% of the time and people play back at you. If you don't bet the flop after pf raising, doesn't your table image suffer and your pf raises lose meaning? Does it matter?