Overbetting the Pot

Overbetting the pot (betting more than the size of the pot) is a play that has become more popular in recent years, particularly with extremely lose-aggressive players like Tom Dwan and Victor Blom. It's not a play that I employ in my game particularly often, so I won't pretend to be an authority, but every now and then a situation presents itself where it's easily the most ideal play to be made. Usually this is either when bluffing a player who you don't think will have the ability to make a lighter call for a large amount of money, or you have the nuts (or close) and don't think your opponent can lay down a slightly weaker hand. An example of the latter happened for me a few days ago:

Seat 1: Dealer ($27.65 in chips)
Seat 3: Small Blind ($91.50 in chips)
Seat 4: Big Blind ($41.30 in chips)
Seat 5: UTG ($144.83 in chips)
Seat 6: Donzo ($132.10 in chips)
Small Blind: posts small blind $0.50
Big Blind: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Donzo [6c 6h]
UTG: folds
Donzo: raises $3 to $3
Dealer: folds
Small Blind: folds
Big Blind: raises $4 to $5
Donzo: calls $2
*** FLOP *** [5h 3c 4h]
Big Blind: bets $5.25
Donzo: calls $5.25

We're dealt 66 in the cutoff and raise and the big blind min-3bets us. A preflop min-3bet is almost always the sign of a weak player, as it serves only the function of taking the betting lead (which is not useless, mind you) and applies no "real" pressure on the original raiser. It's still something to watch closely, as it's sometimes a play made with a premium hand, but for only a $2 re-raise there are few regular poker players in the world who are folding. We call and the flop comes 345, an excellent flop for our hand. There are no overs to our pair and we have an OESD, so even if the villain has a big pocket pair like KK, we still have 37% equity in the hand. Furthermore, if the villain has either AA or Ax and a 2 hits, we're guaranteed to take the rest of their stack. The villain bets about half the size of the pot and we make an easy call. While raising is a valid option, the fact that this is such a low board makes it unlikely that we're getting value from worse hands, as the only hands that would call a re-raise are likely 56, 25, and A3-A5 (and of those possibly only A5).

*** TURN *** [5h 3c 4h] [2d]
Big Blind: checks
Donzo: checks

The turn is money and the villain checks. The problem with betting here is that there are also a significant number of aces in our range, so if the villain doesn't have an ace or an overpair, it's likely they're folding to a bet here. We check behind with the intention of sizing our bet or raise on the river for maximum value, if there's any to be had.

*** RIVER *** [5h 3c 4h 2d] [Ac]
Big Blind: checks

The best card in the deck hits (a non-heart ace), putting a straight on the board. The villain checks and we're left to decide how much we can get paid here by a hand that's playing the board. The current pot size is $21 and the villain has $31 left. The fact that the villain checked both the turn and the river means that he/she never, ever has a 6. More importantly, the villain knows that we know that. Consequently, there's no reason for us not to shove the river here, knowing that at worst
we're going to split the pot. It's a no-risk, high-reward play.

Donzo: bets $32

If the villain had a chance to win the pot outright (not chop), they would be calling $31 to win $52, giving them pot odds of about 37% or 1.68:1. But they're not calling to win, they're calling to split the pot, meaning that they stand to win only half of that, so they're actually calling $31 to win $26, giving them pot odds of about 54% or 0.84:1. In other words, if the villain determines that we could be bluffing here 46% of the time or more, he/she has to call. More important than the numbers (since the villain's likely not working those out at the time) is the truism that most players, amateur or professional, have an aversion to looking foolish. And folding on the river to a bluffy-looking bet when there's a straight on the board would leave most players wondering if they'd made a horrible decision, particularly with how the action has gone down. Players are far more likely to want to live with losing the money and knowing, rather than feeling incredibly stupid. As expected, the villain calls and we scoop the pot.

Big Blind: calls $31.05 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($0.95) returned to Donzo
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Donzo: shows [6c 6h] (a straight, Deuce to Six)
Big Blind: Mucks [Jh Ks] (Straight)
Donzo collected $81.10 from pot


When holding the effective nuts, it's tempting to make a small river bet to induce a call from a weaker hand, rather than "scaring off" potential calls with a large bet. But in situations like the above, when it's evident that our opponent can almost never bring him/herself to fold, an overbet may be the best way to extract max value.