Betting Psychology

There is a lot of psychology involved in poker betting. Even when the exact amount is bet in a couple of different ways, the impression conveyed can vary quite a bit. In this column, I am not going to discuss mannerisms or demeanor. Instead, I will discuss some other psychological factors that affect betting, such as the sum selected when putting an opponent all in, or the exact denomination of chips composing the wager.



When you have the larger stack and wish to put an opponent all in, there are several different ways to do it. I recently had a student of mine who, in an Internet game, saw that his opponent had $246 left (he himself had a much larger stack). He wagered $246 and put his opponent all in. When I saw this happen on Poker Tracker a couple of days later when going over a session with him, I was critical of this bet selection. Do you know why?



Betting the exact amount that a player has left lets him know that you are aware of his stack size, and lets him infer that you are not an unaware person. On the Internet, you are usually assumed to be a dummy by your opponents unless you do something that lets them know differently. In this hand, my student wanted to get called, so it would be superior to bet $250, which could mean that either you know how much he has or you are just betting. I think the $246 looks like you are betting as cheaply as possible, hoping to get called.



You also have the option of overbetting by a wide margin the amount he has left, by going all in yourself. Putting a grand or so into the pot conveys the impression of great strength. Of course, your opponent does not know if you are trying to look strong when you are not, or are betting all of your chips because you do not care how much he has left. Unless your opponent knows you, and is sophisticated about this stuff, you can use this psychological trick to appear powerful.



The number of chips you put into the pot also has a psychological impact. Betting $100 using one black chip looks like a smaller wager than a bet of $90 using three green chips and three red chips, even though it is actually $10 more. As long as your opponent is unsophisticated, you can put more chips into the pot when you would like him to fold, and fewer chips when you are looking for action.



One of the reasons I do not like change in a no-limit hold'em Internet game is the impression created when a short stack goes all in. For example, if a player goes all in for $28, he puts in four chips: a $25 chip and three $1 chips. If he can go all in for $28.39, a whole bunch more chips go into the pot, including several colors that you are not used to seeing. It looks like the guy just bet the Ponderosa – but it is only another 39 cents. That multicolor shower has a lot better chance of intimidating someone than a wager of just four chips, especially if that someone is playing in multiple games simultaneously and does not look closely. Cardrooms often use this psychology by deliberately employing structures that require a lot of chips, such as the $9-$18 limit hold'em structure. The massive number of chips produces more action in the game.



Sometimes the quantity of chips in front of a player can be greatly misleading. I remember one day when Blackey Blackburn was playing in my $25-$50 blinds pot-limit Omaha game at the Horseshoe in Las Vegas with a miniscule number of chips. He looked like a short stack who could be almost completely discounted as a factor when deciding how to play a hand. However, I noticed an odd-colored chip that he had, one that looked unfamiliar to me. When I got into a pot with him, I asked, "Blackey, what's that funny-colored chip? Is that to cap your cards with?"



He chuckled a little, and replied, "No, Bob. That's a five grand chip. They paid me with it at the sportsbook today." The man with "almost no chips" was actually playing the largest amount of money at the table! Appearances can be deceiving.



If your opponent in a live game wagers the size of the pot, what does it mean? This bet is somewhat larger than most, and the fact that the wager is exactly the pot size may mean he is the cerebral type, mathematically inclined.



However, a pot-size wager on many Internet sites may mean simply that the opponent pushed a button saying "bet pot." On the Internet, what may appear to be a carefully selected bet size can actually be a product of the graphical interface design, rather than the result of conscious studying. We do not even know if the bettor can add two and two, or wants to make a fairly large wager. I understand that in a pot-limit game, the same result may be reached by pushing the betting slider as far as you can. That's fair enough – in pot-limit. But what the heck is a button saying "bet pot" doing on the interface of a no-limit hold'em game? Well, I will tell you what it is doing. It is making the wager sizes you face in your game larger than they would otherwise be. It means that a pot-size bet does not have the normal meaning it would have in a live game, or on an Internet site that did not use this stupid button. I advise you no-limit hold'em enthusiasts to give your business to Internet sites that have some idea of how to create an attractive game for the player.



Another type of wager with no counterpart in a live game before the advent of Internet poker is the minimum-raise, whereby the wager is simply doubled. This doubling is, of course, the result of pushing a button that doubles the bet. I remember when a player who doubled the bet was always a rookie who did not know how to play no-limit. After his rash wager reopened the gate, the players in the pot would cast furtive glances at each other, wondering which of them was going to try putting in a huge reraise and take down the pot.



Nowadays, this type of raise is common. It usually indicates either a hand looking to get a cheap card by slowing down someone who was going to wager a larger amount, or a monster looking for action. My tendency is to fall for it and reraise to find out what I am up against. I hate allowing cheap cards. ♠



Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered from Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons: e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.