But my ex said size doesn’t matter….
The latest thing that is being beaten into me is the amount that I’m betting for, since life is one big session, there are a lot of hands ahead of me, I may as well not put more money into the pot that I have to, as long as it portrays the same message as the larger bet. Stealing sizes, continuation bets, 3-bets, check-raises, all the sizes need to be calculated for the situation. What are you trying to do? For example, if your aim is to cause the villain to fold on a flop with heaps of draws in his range, you should go in hard, while your hand is best, not giving him value to draw. If you are playing against tight short-stackers in the blinds, why bet your normal stealing amount? These guys aren’t playing too fancy, fold or shove is generally the game, so bet small, giving the same odds you would give a full stack to play, minimising the cost to you.
The videos in which Ed Miller reviews selected hands played by ActionStan really highlight these points, he speaks more about bet sizing than he does about ranging, so you gotta know it’s the focal point. I recommend them, purely because they give an idea of the different situations where revisiting the betting sizes could have saved/made money. I watched a review of Skelm’s game by another player, discussing hands and such, it was good to see Skelm making mistakes that are so obvious in hindsight, and saying ‘whoops, why did I do that?’.
Just nice to know I’m not the only one prone to brain farts, and also good to know that he will immediately admit when he’s wrong, since pride has no place in the ever-improving poker game.
