One of the best ways to smell a fish is by looking at their bet sizing skills (or lack thereof). They make unnecessarily large raises when trying to get others to fold, and they also under-bet when betting for value. In short, their betting is just awful! Assuming you want to avoid poor bet sizing, here are some tips for how to do it properly.
Make Goals during Hands
Common poker advice suggests that you should have a goal in mind for every bet. Whether you’re trying to force an opponent to fold or trying to take their stack, every raise needs to be calculated. Along with this, you also need to make it your goal to bet in a way that makes you hard to read.
Bet Low when forcing Folds
Contrary to what most novice players think, you need to bet as low as possible when trying to make others fold. Now this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because it seems like you would want to make huge raises that scare and intimidate others. However, you’ve also got to realize that if a player is going to call, they are going to call no matter what size the raise is. So if you bet four times the pot and get called, you are out a lot of chips. Instead, you should only make half-pot-sized or 2/3 pot-sized raises in most cases.
Bet High for Value
Keeping with the theme of seemingly strange concepts, you should bet high when you’re going for value. The reason being is that the whole point of value betting is to take an opponent’s stack. So if you’re not getting an opponent’s stack, then you aren’t betting high enough. And as most good players would contend to, it’s better to raise high and make another player fold rather than make small raises and lose out on value over the course of your playing days.
