Does a Big Bet Mean a Big Hand?

I'm probably the only person who goes on tilt from reading about poker, but I can't help it. In the past month, I've read at least three articles or book excerpts about no-limit hold'em (NLH) in which the authors clearly assumed that you should call or raise a smaller bet more often than a larger one. They essentially imply that as the size of your opponent's bet goes up, the quality of the hand you need in order to call or raise him goes up, as well. (For the rest of this column, I will refer to these statements as the "authors' logic.")



Against certain opponents, that authors' logic is certainly true, but to issue it as a general rule is completely nonsensical. All of your opponents are different, and if you don't adjust to their individual betting patterns, calling patterns, and general tendencies, you will end up making drastically incorrect plays.



An Example
I'm in a $1-$2 blinds NLH game with Straightforward Scott. He never bluffs, and the size of his bets is proportionate to the strength of his hand. When he bets $6, he's got a semistrong hand at best, whereas when he bets $20, I know he's got the goods. Against a player like him, I obviously will contest his smaller bets more than his larger ones, so the authors' logic makes perfect sense.



But then Overaggressive Ozzie sits down in the same game, and in six of his first 10 hands, he raises to $20 preflop. Five times, he wins the blinds uncontested. One time, someone calls him and the hand goes to the river, at which point Ozzie produces Q-8 and wins with a pair of eights. I don't have to be Phil Ivey to put two and two together, and conclude that he probably did not have premium hands when he made his other raises. Therefore, I'm going to wait for something good and try to pick him off.



But am I going to wait for pocket aces or kings? I could, but why would I want to play so timidly? In a cash game, I want to take advantage of all favorable opportunities that come along. Here, I have an opponent who is making oversized preflop raises with substandard values. If I pick up a hand such as 9-9, or even A-J, and think I can get heads up with Ozzie, I'm probably going to play it, because it figures to be the best hand against his typical raising values. And I'm certainly not going to be deterred by the fact that he is raising to $20 rather than a more normal raise to $6 or $8.



Hopefully, you see my point. A $20 bet made by Scott means something completely different than a $20 bet made by Ozzie. The size of the bet means nothing. The person making the bet is what matters. I practically need the nuts to contest Scott's bet, whereas I'm looking for any relatively strong hand to go up against Ozzie.



But There's More …

Some more time goes by, with Ozzie frequently making it $20 to go preflop. Then, in one particular hand, he decides to raise to only $6. He gets multiway action to the river, at which point he shows A-A and wins a very decent pot with an unimproved pair of aces.



Does this scenario sound familiar? To many of you, it probably should. A lot of overaggressive players cannot help lowering the size of their preflop raises when they pick up monster starting hands. Fortunately for Ozzie, he frequently faces inexperienced opponents who read the shift in his bet size as a sign of weakness, when in reality they should see it as exactly the opposite. As a result, he ends up getting significant action on his monster hands, and thus he and his superaggressive brethren continue to follow the same predictable pattern of making small raises with A-A or K-K, while making larger raises with just about everything else.



Now let's look at this with regard to the authors' logic. If I'm in a game with Ozzie and pick up 10 10, am I going to feel more confident about my hand if he puts out a $20 raise or a $6 raise? Clearly, I'm going to play the hand in both cases, but I'm much more likely to reraise him when he raises to $20, and hope that I caught him being out of line. When he raises to $6, I'll know there's a much better chance that I'm up against a higher pocket pair, so I'll simply call, knowing that I'll get significant action if I get lucky and flop a set.



A much better example would be if I picked up the A Q. Against a $20 Ozzie raise, there again is a good chance that I will reraise to isolate him. Sure, A Q is a vulnerable hand, but if I've seen him raise to $20 with enough junk hands, I'll take my chances with it. On the other hand, if he comes out with his $6 raise, not only will I not reraise with the A Q, there's a good chance I will lay it down! If I'm confident that he has A-A or K-K, why get involved? There's too good a chance that I'll flop a queen and then spend a lot of money to find out what I already know.



From Bad to Worse

When we first compared $20 bets from Scott and Ozzie, we could see that the authors' logic did not always hold true, since a player like Ozzie consistently makes large bets even without big hands. But then, once we examined Ozzie's smaller raises, we saw that there are situations in which the authors' logic is in fact a complete falsehood! Against certain opponents, the smaller bet is often the one to fear more, whereas the overbet creates less of a concern.



Ozzie is not an anomaly. There are quite a few players out there like him, especially in today's poker world. When you encounter an Overaggressive Ozzie, make sure that you see him for what he really is. And don't hesitate to lay down semistrong hands when he makes his occasional smaller raise. Many players fall for his overly simplistic trap, especially if they subscribe to the authors' logic. Don't be one of them.



Matt Lessinger is the author of The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker, available everywhere. To find other articles of Matt's, check out the Online Poker News newsletter at http://www.cardplayer.com/.