Theory question: Optimal betsizing on static turn with polarized range

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Theory question: Optimal betsizing on static turn with polarized range

The turn is static and you are representing (or have) the nuts. Let's say SPR ratio is 3 so for instance $100 in the pot and effective stacks are $300. You now have two betsizing options:

a) You can bet $67 that sets up a nice pot sized bet on the river.
b) You can bet 82% into the pot ($82) which leaves you with the same size bet on the river (82%/$218).

Which do you prefer and why?

7 Comments

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CleverNick 12 years, 2 months ago
With a balanced range I prefer b)

But I am not sure what to do when my range is really nut-heavy. Lets say I BC a small XR monotone flop ip w topset and I boat up on turn) - then I dont think it is easy for villain to float a small bet as long as it is big enough to bet all in on river.
RiverOfTears 12 years, 2 months ago
I think it also depend on how invulnerable our nut hand is. Maybe with more vulnerable boats like TTT88 (we have T8) when can chosse the bigger bet. With more invulnerable like AAA88 (we have AA) we can choose the smaller bet on the turn and then have ps bet left on river?
ZenFish 12 years, 2 months ago
Another factor is the likelihood of running into the nuts when we don't have it. Knowing that Villain can't have the nuts (as in NF blocker bluff) means we'll have the option to bluff both streets more often. This matters when planning the turn/river play [insert complicated math here].
eldodo42 12 years, 2 months ago
I think that it probably depends on how our and vilain's rangs look, for two reasons: firstly, we need to know how often they have the nuts (or a very strong hand) here, and secondly, we need to know how often they have a bluffcatcher. I think that depending on these factors, the answer is sometimes a and sometimes b, and will sometimes be anything in between.

But, having said that, I'd suspect that in most cases where villain's range is rather strong, and not at all capped, then the correct answer is to bet as small as we can while still being able to make a PSB on the river (i.e. option a). The reason is that in the cases where we're bluffing and villain's range is strong, we want our bluff to be as cheap as possible (compare to the case where villain's range is capped, where we want to take option a to allow us to bluff as much as possible while still being balanced).

Also, sometimes when our range is top-heavy and we don't have enough bluffs, then we want to take option c: bet say half pot on both turn and river, fully realizing that we can't get stacks in. There's no theoretical principle saying that the line that gets stacks in is the most +EV: if our range is too strong to give villain pot odds while still betting big, then villain would be correct in just folding to our big bets. We might have made a range-building error along the way that made our range so strong here as to not have a sufficient number of bluffs.

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