Overbetting in Poker – Strategy

Should you overbet when playing poker?

PokerNews.com has Matt Berkey and Andrew Brokos sharing their insight into the strategy of overbetting in poker as part of a video that appears below.

PokerNews in the past has made mention of the top ten essentials in Hold’em, naming the overbet as an important consideration.

Depending on the situation, an over-bet can be used as a powerful bluffing tool, or as misinformation to make your opponent call you down with a losing hand.

But because of this move’s versatility it’s of critical importance to understand why you’re making that massive bet.

Over-betting as a bluff can be very appealing to beginners because you’ll win the pot a large percentage of the time. The problem is that when you get called, your enormous bet is going to cost you big.

Conversely, if you’re trying to goad someone into a light call, a big bet might just scare them away.

Keep reading to find out how to over-bet, the right way.

Prahlad Friedman, one of the first true online poker stars, was well known to implement the overbetting strategy in poker.

The strategy is typically employed exclusively with high stakes cash games and heads up matches.

Dave Woods of Poker Player examines when to utilize the strategy of overbetting:

A reg opens from the cutoff and you call in the big blind. The flop comes J-9-3 with a flush draw and you both check. This check could mean a number of things, but let’s say it often means the opponent has a medium strength hands like 9-8, 6-6 and so on. The turn is an offsuit 7. You bet 2/3 pot and he calls. It is not important what you have. When he calls it solidifies that he has showdown value but also that his range is very limited because on two separate occasions he has failed to put in more money when he had the chance. He checked back the flop and then just flat-called the turn. If he had a big hand like J-J or T-8 he must try to put some more money in the pot by now and most regs would know this. The river is an offsuit 4 so the board reads J-9-3-7-4 with a busted flush draw. Your opponent has taken a pot-controlling line that indicates showdown value but denies real strength (such as two pair or better). If you had J-9 here you would know that your opponent is weak and may feel like you should bet small to milk him out of a bit of money. In a vacuum that makes sense but it doesn’t exploit the information we have. Betting half the pot doesn’t do this. The problem comes in when we are bluffing. If you are just betting half pot you probably should not be bluffing very often because you are giving him a great price to call, when you know he has showdown value. It allows your opponent to snap off bluffs and get to showdown cheaply. Betting 2.5 times the pot however lets you bluff more and exploit the information that you now have. If you bet this much you also get more value when you do have a hand.

Let’s now watch the video featuring Matt Berkey and Andrew Brokos.  They do discuss other poker strategies besides overbetting within this 1 hour, 7 minute video.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com