Card Player TV

Tony Dunst is a tournament pro who’s known online as “Bond18.” Card Player TV caught up with him during the 2010 World Series of Poker main event to discuss some common mistakes that players make when determining the size of their bets.

Card Player: In lower-stakes games, a lot of players make oversized raises with premium starting hands. Does this make their hands too transparent to their opponents?

Tony Dunst: Absolutely. I think that at the lower stakes, it is not a big mistake, because opponents aren’t aware enough to see how transparent it is; but, when you are playing with more experienced players, if your bet sizes make your hand play as if it were faceup, although you might think that you are “protecting” it, you are making the range of hands that you can have a lot more polarized, and likely transparent to the better, thinking players. I would say that you should try to make all of your bet sizes consistent, in order to be optimally deceptive.

CP: Is there any time when you should change up your bet size?

TD: I would say that if you feel that you are playing against opponents who are not advanced players, don’t think hard about what their opponent has, and are concerned only with their hand, and you feel that they have a weak or medium-strength hand, maybe an oversized bluff will be effective in making them fold. Or, if you have a very strong hand against someone who is clearly in love with a good starting hand, you might make a huge overraise, because you know that he won’t fold.