Position-Aware Bet Sizing

One of the important aspects of being positional aware at the poker table is sizing your bets depending on where you sit at the table, the same your opening range needs to vary accordingly. The earlier your position, the tighter you should open and the inverse is obviously also true.

When it comes to sizing your opening raises, I've read different - and contradicting - theories in different literature, which fall into three different categories.

1. Always bet the same amount
2. Bet more the earlier your position
3. Bet less the earlier your position

The second option is what I have always implicitly used and, to be honest, I don't know why. I guess the reasoning is that you have more players to act behind you, so your raise should be bigger to discourage calls from weak holdings. I also understand the merits of betting the same amount no matter what, as to disguise your hand, considering you bet the same be it with a premium hand or a more marginal holding.

However, I was just reading Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and I fell in love with the way he thinks about sizing your bets when opening the pot. He basically says that the earlier you act, the less you should raise, for a few different reasons:

• Committing fewer chips to the pot when out of position. Being OOP after the flop makes it difficult to play and so you want to control the pot a bit more.
• A smaller raise encourages opponents to play against you when you have a premium hand. Which, by the way, is what you will have when opening from early position, anyway.
• Bigger raises from late position put real pressure on the remaining players to fold and make it harder for the blinds to re-raise. When in late position, your opening range is wider, so you want to discourage most callers, while giving value to your more speculative hands.
• When raising in position, there is more money in the pot. If you have position, you're in better shape to take the pot, so you want it to be bigger when you're in that situation.

Phil advocates the following chart of bet sizing, relative to the BB:

Early: 2.5x - 3.0x
Middle: 3.0x - 3.5x
Late: 3.5x - 4.0x
SB: 3.0x

I can't wait to try this in my next tournaments and see for myself if it's an EV+ strategy.