The Overbet

The overbet is something I rarely use, unless I'm up against a total calling station who I know can't fold 1 pair. But against decent regular players, I almost never do it. And I think that I should start trying.

Heres the thing. Against regular players, any sort of bet that is out of the ordinary will generally arouse suspicion. Usually all bets are "correctly" sized and "correctly" made. A typical hand vs two players who have a decent understanding of the game goes down like this:

• Player 1 raises, player 2 calls.
• Player 1 bets the flop, player 2 calls.
• Player 1 checks the turn, player 2 checks behind.
• Player 1 now will either value bet the river if he has a decent hand, check and call with a weakish hand and check/fold (or bluff) if he has nothing. Player 2 will react accordingly.

And thats pretty much it. Generally all bets are smaller than the pot (usually 2/3) and unless someone hits a big hand, thats usually how it goes down. Obviously grossly oversimplified, but it is pretty much an average hand. My point is that players in this situation rarely "get out of line" and make strange bets.

An example of a strange bet would be an overbet. Generally the theory goes that overbetting is a -EV proposition because you lose the value of your hand if you scare them away, or if bluffing, you lose more than necessary if they were calling any bet. But I think it definitely has merits in todays game, and heres why.

Most regular decent players will never overplay their hands. They understand that 1 pair is generally nothing you want to stack off with. There are all sorts of moves that the regular player will use to control pot size. In fact, a lot of players will underplay their hands in my opinion, for just that reason.

Now I got this idea from watching a cardrunners video in which Aba (high stakes pro) mentions this phenomenon, and basically states the obvious solution to counter players who want to keep pots small with marginal hands - overbet bluff them. Its a weird play that not many players make. Mostly because you look really stupid when called I assume. But the thing is, they are probably not going to call you. If they are sitting there with KQ and the board is KT875 and you overbet the river, its not an easy call, especially if you've shown some aggression in the hand already. It's basically the only way to bluff a decent player as almost all good players are calling any pot sized or less river bet with top pair.

Now, you've overbet bluffed them a few times. They are starting to get suspicious and annoyed, and bam, you are called by 2nd pair. So now what? Well, if it wasn't obvious to you already, you start overbetting with strong hands. Mix it up. If you overbet consistently vs the same opponents on the river with a mixture of bluffs and strong hands, then you are going to be extremely hard to play against and not to mention really annoying. And if you want to get really tricky, start overbetting your hands that are semi-strong but not nearly the nuts. Like, if you have AQ on a QJ842 board. Overbetting your pair here, against the right opponent who will call you down light (with a worse queen, jack or maybe even TT-99) can get you way more action than you deserve. But you definitely need some history for that one.

It seems like its all about frequency. If you overbet the river with only strong hands, you'll basically never get action from a strong player. If you only overbet with weak hands, you'll always get called. So having the right mix of hands is key. It would seem that the best ratio would be somewhere around 66%/33% bluff/value bet. Heres a crude example:

On the river you have AdKd and the board is 2d4d7cTs3c. From the way the betting has gone, you suspect your opponent has a 1 pair type hand, in the range of 66-QQ but not a set. You checked the turn and your opponent checked behind. You know that your opponent now suspects that you might have exactly what you have, nothing, and will probably call a river bet. Its overbet time. The pot has exactly $100 in it and you bet $200. You need to win in this situation more than 2/3 times to make this a profitable bet. If he calls you at that exact frequency (1 in 3) then you both break even in the long run.

The only way he will call you 1 in 3 times with just one pair here is completely based on the frequency in which you are bluffing in his eyes. If he's seen you do this a lot as a bluff, he'll call, and if he's seen the goods, he'll fold. It's usually that basic, even if he is a good player. A lot of the times this situation gets into a paper/rock/scissors match where each player basically knows what the other is up to and just has to decide what the bet means this time. Since there will obviously be less times for you to value bet here with a strong hand due to the simple fact that really good hands aren't that common, you are almost forced to bluff more often. But bluffing more than 2 out of 3 times here is a losing proposition as they will become more apt to call, and you will lose out in the long run.

But most of the time, you are playing against players you've never played against before. And while they generally have the same skill sets as other players, they haven't seen you make these types of plays before. They will initially be thrown off and probably fold to the first one. So you can almost put that in the bank right away. From then on in its a game of cat and mouse. Hopefully you can outhink your opponent.

And even though I may come off as some sort of poker genius, I assure you I am not. I've rarely tried this in practice and have only started to think about it, with most of my thoughts coming to me while I was writing this post. It might even be the worst and gayest play in the history of poker, but I doubt it. I'll just have some fun trying it out for realzies.