Recently, I have been experimenting with a weapon that most players in small stakes tournaments overlook, the overbet. This is a play that I personally have neglected for way too long. It makes perfect sense to use it in soft games because the primary mistake that these players make is that they love to call. This means that the overbet can get you more value in the right spots when you have the best hand and may be absolutely necessary to induce folds in other spots when you don’t. The key to this play is choosing the best spots where you are more likely to get the desired outcome. Here are the times when it has worked for me.
Overbetting for Value
The best spots to overbet for value are spots where you expect your normal big bet size to almost always get called and you have a hand that can beat most top pair combos. These usually occur preflop or on the flop.
If you’re betting for value on a board that hits a passive players range, you expect him to call. An example of this would be if you opened AA from early position, got called by a passive player in middle position, and the flop came something like JT5 with a flush draw. Most players would bet anywhere from a third to two thirds pot and expect to get called by hands like Jx, Tx, KQ, and 98s. Would you be surprised if this passive player called you with these hands if you instead bet four thirds? No. In fact, many of us have tried this with a hand like AK hoping to get a fold from weak pairs to no avail. Use this tendency of your opponent to get more value out of your big hands.
The same thing applies on less dynamic flops in multi-way pots which are common in small stakes tournaments. For example, let’s instead say that your AA gets called by four players and the flop is T63. You can probably still start with an overbet because these players are often incapable of folding top pair and there is a reasonable chance that someone has a Ten when there are that many people in the pot. If they don’t, you probably weren’t going to win a big pot anyway.
Preflop overbets are discussed so infrequently that many may not understand what I mean. Like postflop, I just mean any bet that is more than the size of the pot. For example, let’s say a tight player opens from early position, gets three-bet by another tight player, and stacks are 200 big blinds deep. If I get dealt Aces as the third player in the pot, I’d just go all-in even though this gives my opponents way worse than 2 to 1 odds on a call like a pot sized bet would. This does not matter in soft small stakes tournaments because these players will still call with hands like AK or QQ. Sometimes, loose players will put you on AK and call with even worse pairs.
This is also a good idea when facing aggression postflop in these games. Recently, I played a hand where I opened JJ and was called by an extremely loose player on the button. I made an overbet on a JTT flop that contained a flush draw. My opponent made a small raise indicating he had better than top pair or a strong draw. I made an overbet jam for 300 big blinds and he instantly called me with T2o. Now that’s an extreme case, but it’s not hard to find players in these games who will call off there with hands like QTo or the nut flush draw. Becoming more comfortable with overbetting is the best way to maximally exploit these players.
Overbetting as a Bluff
The best spots to overbet as a bluff are spots where you expect your normal big bet size to almost always get called and you have a reasonably strong draw. These usually occur on the turn or river.
For example, let’s say a loose player opens from middle position, you defend the big blind with a hand like QJo, and the flop comes AT5 with a flush draw. Your opponent decides to check back. Most players in these games c-bet too often on Ace-high boards with top pair plus and with their bluffs. When they check back, their most likely holding is a one pair hand below the Ace like JJ-KK or Tx. They check back with the intention of calling your turn bet. If the turn is a card like an 8 that gives you a good draw, this is a good time to consider an overbet bluff to give them second thoughts about calling you.
With one card to come, your double gutter has about 16% equity. This does not seem like a lot, but consider that an overbet of 120% of the pot needs to work as a complete bluff about 55% of the time to breakeven. Since you’ll usually have the best hand when you make a straight, you can deduct that 16% equity from the 55% fold equity you need, so your bluff actually only needs to work 39% of the time. It needs to work even less often if there is a good chance that a Queen or Jack gives you the best hand as well. If they do decide to call and the flush draw comes in, you can often make another overbet on the river to rep it since it is squarely in your range and not theirs given that they declined to bet the flop. These flush cards are so much better for your range than your opponents that you can often count them as outs as well. If so, that’s roughly another 20% equity you can deduct from the 39% fold equity needed. With two flush draws on board, you may not need any fold equity for your turn bluff to breakeven. This is because one of the flushes or your straight will come in on the river the majority of the time. Additionally, any implied odds you have from hitting your straight just add icing to the cake.
Good exploitive poker is about understanding the tendencies of your opponents and using that information against them. In small stakes tournaments, most players call too often on the early streets and fold too often on the later streets when it’s clear that they do not have much of a hand and it looks like you do as you threaten their tournament lives with large bets. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by making good use of overbets. Consider adding this play to improve your results in these games.
