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Amount to bet
In trying to improve my game, I find that when I bet a certain amount on a hand the advisor will come and say that I am betting to much or not enough. I am in the vicinity of the amount, but not what the advisor is suggesting. Is there a "formula" that I am missing? If I was to use a different advisor, is it possible that they would agree with my bet?
One thing that I thought would be helpful is that if I didn't bet enough that it would say Why it was the wrong amount. I don't seem to find the answer in the brain section.
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Great question.
One thing that would be cool would be if we could replay a saved hand, and tweak what we did. We could test different bet sizes and playing decisions in that situation to see what the outcome would be. It would also be cool if we could replay a hand and see what different advisors would recommend.
We have always referred to this as the 'retry' feature, and it is a little harder to do than it might seem. We've always wanted to have it, but there have always been other bigger needs for the site But the good news is that Gabriel is currently working on this as his big development project. So this will be our next big feature and I'm excited about it.
As we get better, it appears that APT is getting better also! It sounds like you have a couple of very key developments in progress: A significant improvement to the quality of the bots and the retry feature. Both of those features in combination will really help us to tweak our game.
Not to overwhelm the development process, but I also think that Cosmas' suggestion of incorporating the "why" of the bet amount in the Brain Section would give me a better of idea of the thought process in bet-sizing (e.g. you are betting so much that you are not giving weaker hands a chance to call with incorrect pot odds; or you are betting so little that you are making it profitable for weaker hands to call). I suspect that is one of my weaknesses, but that weakness doesn't seem to be available in the weekly training plan.
As a general rule of thumb, if you fire a bet of something between 2/3 and 3/4 of the pot every time you bet, you can't really go too far wrong. Basically your bet sizing comes down to getting your opponent to pay off more than they should based on their odds to win with the next card coming, or making the minimum bet necessary to get your opponent to fold a made hand better than yours (i.e., to bluff them out of the pot).
For example, if you have a made hand and they are on a flush or straight draw at ~5-to-1 hit it on the next card, as long as you make them pay off at least a 1/2 pot bet, they are rolling to a negative EV on that street.
While one bet size as a fraction of the pot is a good idea against most opponents, against advanced opponents it may actually be an exploitable leak. One bet size is what I do right now because you have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Right now I'm definitely a crawler.
But we should all make it our goal to eventually develop our play to the point where we use multiple fractions of the pot for different situations, with balanced ranges for each.
"While we’ll never be able to play perfectly, it’s important not to restrict ourselves to using only one bet size in a spot like many players currently are doing. A player who uses multiple bet sizes will have a significant edge against someone who does not, and it’s important we realize when overbets and small bets can make sense, and consider using these sizes."
Janda, Matthew. Applications of No-Limit Hold'em (Kindle Locations 5061-5064). Two Plus Two Publishing. Kindle Edition.
That's page 410-412 in the paper edition.
If your are using one bet size for all of your plays - c-bets with air, draws, one pair made hands, sets, etc. - IMO you are already achieving a "balanced range" because the one bet size gives nothing away in regards to the actual strength of your hand. Here I'm specifically talking more about flop and turn bets, FWIW. But, again, you have to be willing to bet your entire range - including misses - the same way for it to be balanced. If one bet size doesn't work in some situations, it probably isn't because of the one bet size, but because of the player's unwillingness to bet weak parts of their range as a bluff at all. Always checking with weak holdings and only making the same bet with strong holdings IS exploitable, but I don't consider that an application of my "one bet size" approach.
For players who insist on using multiple bet sizes, they almost always give away their hand - they'll bet 1/3 the pot on the flop if they hit second pair and are scared of their hand but know they should bet something; they'll bet pot on the flop if they hit top pair-good kicker wanting to run any draws out that might catch them on the turn, etc. By trying to size their bets, more often than not, they are simply giving out information which makes it like playing their hand face up.
The only time I'd consider using bets smaller than 1/2 the pot (small bets) or greater than the pot (overbets) would be on the river against very specific opponent profiles.
I think that the "balanced range" concept, while valid in the theoretical sense, is over-rated/over-done. Of course, it is very important in the much tougher games (which are beyond my pay grade) or in games in which you play with the same players over an extended period of time (e.g. a weekly home game). In a typical card-room game where you will play about 4-5 hours with players that you will never play with again, it probably make more sense to tailor your bet size to maximize getting calls from weaker/-EV hands and folds from the hands that have you beat. Clearly that is exploitable in the theoretical sense, but it requires an extremely observant opponent who also knows how to exploit it. If I find myself up against a table full of those, talented, observant players, I start looking for another table.
On a side note - Sometimes I find myself making bet sizes that have the effect of folding-out most of the hands that I would like my opponent to call with and leaving only those hands that have me beat - not a winning methodology.
There is certainly a component of bet sizing that depends on the opponents you are facing. I find this manifests itself in two key ways:
First, I have to adjust my basic sizing to fit what is happening at my table. Obviously, if you are constantly betting half pot and being unsuccessful at meeting your objective (getting players to call/fold in a beneficial way) then you may have to do trial and error to find the sweet spot. This is partially because of the second point below.
Second, I find that, especially at the lower stakes games, there are quite a few players who pay little to no attention to their odds, or to what you are representing with your bets. For example, if they don't understand when they are priced out, it does you no good to price them out. This is when I feel more inclined to scrap the idea of having a balanced range and just size my bets to maximize my own EV.
While I agree with points made above, my general observation is still that keeping my bet sizing between 2/3 and 3/4 of the pot tends to serve the purposes suggested. I would find it infrequent that a player who is inclined to fold to a 2/3 pot bet (but from whom I want a call) is going to call a 1/2 pot bet. Or that a player who is inclined to call a 3/4 pot bet (but whom I want to fold) is going to fold to a pot bet.
Just thinking through what you both are saying has given a deeper glimpse into this whole concept.
Notice that I said "glimpse". I am still not quite at the point where this is hard-wired into my thought process like you'all are.
Agreed. Against most opponents in low stakes games you can keep to a fixed fraction of the pot for a bet and that will be sufficient to balance your game. But against advanced opponents in higher stakes games it can cost money.
For myself it'll be quite awhile before I can think about refining my game to the point of have balanced ranges for multiple bet sizes. But it is a long term goal I'm thinking about.