Poker Strategy: Choosing our bet sizes preflop - adjusting

We'll finish our mini-series of preflop bets and raise sizes today. First, we've discussed opening and isolation; in the second article, we've examined 3-bet and 4-bet pots, and in our closing part, we'll see some exploitative thoughts and adjustments to different stack depths. If you wish to understand how to improve your winrate against weaker opponents by changing your bet sizes, or you struggle with uncomfortable stack depths and don't know what to do, keep reading!

We've mentioned earlier that you should take advantage of recreational players' mistakes. We've also talked about how inelasticity is one of their traits. You may use it in your favor straightforwardly, such as lowering your sizes when you have weaker hands and sizing up when you hold something substantial. Even though recreationals likely won't understand it, be careful because regulars might catch up on you. Changing such an obvious part as the open, isolation, 3-bet and 4-bet sizes makes you exploitable, too. It's recommended to do so when you play against weak players, or it's very likely to play heads-up against the recreational player.

The game is no limit, so use it to your advantage. You can go huge if your opponent is sticky with some good-looking hand, and most of your regular opponents will be thrown off, too, as they face unusual sizes for the first time in their careers. You can expect honest reactions from the average regular, but you must notice when they start reacting to your uncommon sizes.

You accomplish various things when you go bigger with an iso or 3-bet size against a recreational. First, you immediately win more, as they put more money into the pot with a wide (and weak) range. Second, the pot grows exponentially bigger if you have an inflated amount in the middle already preflop. Compare the pattern using the same ratio of bet sizes if you iso 3,5bb from CO when UTG (an assumed recreational) limped with isolating for 5bb.

*in this scenario, actually, you are close to SPR 1, which opens room for going for stacks in a 100bb effective spot

Last, we must discuss how effective stack sizes influence our bet and raise sizes. Usually, we examine 100bb situations because they are far more common than any other configuration. However, stack depth plays a major role in constructing our ranges, including bet sizes. Simply, you cannot change a key factor and omit its consequences.

Let's start with shallower stack depths, as in online poker this is more common than playing several hundreds of bb stack plays. First, you must understand that it's unnecessary and impractical to go very detailed, blind per blind when studying shallow stacks. For example, for preflop, there won't be a massive difference between a 60bb and a 75bb effective stack and for postflop, it would be better if you think about stack-to-pot ratio rather than pure numbers in bb.

So, you should distinguish one or two shallower stack depths and apply your strategy according to which one is closer. The most common is to examine 40bb and 20bb due to their occurrence. Poker rooms often give these numbers as minimum buy-in, so recreational often choose to sit in with the minimum possible. Also, there are popular strategies among regulars for this type of play. Now, we'll discuss them together for simplicity.

The main rule you should learn is to decrease your size. You should open the minimum from UTG to BTN, and you might choose 2,5-3bb from SB. When 3-betting, also try to go for smaller sizes. There is no need to commit yourself or invest too much of your stack with your bluffs. Against 2bb opens, you can go 3x in position and 3,5x out of position. Also, you can size down blind versus blind; to a 2,5bb open, you might go 7bb and against a 3bb open, don't go bigger than 8bb. In the case of 4-betting, there is very little room to manoeuvre. The bigger your stack, the more you can implement a click-4-bet size; for example, with 50bb effective stacks, the betting pattern could look like 2bb open, 6bb 3-bet and 12-13bb/all in 4-bet. The shallower your stack gets, the more likely you are to use an all-in-only strategy.

Now, let's see the opposite: how to handle deeper stack depths! First, we need to establish the point from talking about deep games. The cutoff point is around 150bb. So, between 100-125bb effective stacks, we tend to use strategies closer to the default 100bb plays, and as we get closer to the 150bb region, we adjust to deep play. Also, we should distinguish 150 -200bb and 200bb+ games, but we'll group them together for simplification (and due to similar preflop plays).

What would be your guess if you stop for a second and try to figure out what changes a deep game brings? You've probably guessed we'll do the opposite of short stack play and size up in deep stack poker. What shocked me for the first time was that we used only slightly bigger sizes, even when we doubled the initial stacks, which seemed like a significant change. Moreover, our sizes only grow nominally due to the expected higher open sizes. The ratio seems pretty intact.

Open sizes will go up to 2,5bb from UTG to BTN and stays 3bb from the SB. This is so tiny that it probably won't cause any EV loss in real-game environments if you don't adapt at all. (Of course, EV loss could occur for exploitative reasons.) 3-bets from IP will be around 3,2-3,5x, OOP around 4,5-5x. For example, BTN opens 2,5bb, and SB will 3-bet around 11-12bb! Or when the CO opens 2,5bb, BTN will 3-bet to 8-8,5bb, respectively.

The only significant size up happens when we 4-bet. As you can expect, we must distinguish between IP and OOP 4-bets. Usually, in position, we go for 2,8-3x size (i.e. BTN opens 2,5bb – SB 3-bets to 11bb – BTN 4-bets to 30bb), while out of position, we go for a 4x 4-bet size (i.e. CO opens 2,5bb – BTN 3-bets to 8,5bb – CO 4-bets to 34bb).

Essential note! You are advised not to be static with your sizings and to use the ratios given rather than fixed numbers. But also keep in mind that your opponents might use very different sizings. When they apply tinier sizes, you'll give better odds for them to call, and when they tend to size bigger than suggested here, you might commit yourself unnecessarily to the pot if you apply a 3-4x 3-bet or 4-bet sizes. In the latter, you must avoid giving them too good odds to go all in and push your bluffs out of the picture.

In today's article, first, we've discussed how you might size up against recreationals and those who are sticky with their holdings. You must be careful with your obvious exploits, so be aware of the table setting and how many players are left behind to act. Remember the table, how big of an impact it means to your winrate when you size up, as the pot will grow exponentially bigger. Then, we saw the effect of effective stack depth on our preflop play. Usually, we tend to size down when we play shallower stacks, but there is no vast adjustment when playing deep stacks. As deep 200bb+, there is so much room postflop that there is little incentive to go big unless you can force an SPR similar to the 100bb regular games. Since your bluffing hands would harm this strategy, we suggest sticking to the abovementioned conventional sizings.

This course is very dense, with a lot of numbers and information. It is advised to review all three articles again: opening and isolating, 3-betting and 4-betting and last but not least, today's topic, adjustments, to clarify your sizes and the reasoning behind it!