One day while playing online it dawned on me just how much the typical poker player doesn’t grasp the basic concepts of betting and raising, especially when it comes to how many chips to put out there. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played against someone who makes a fourth street or river bet that only equals 20% of the pot or less. The same can be said for players that make minimum raises pre-flop in order to try and protect powerful hole cards like big pocket pairs and A-K.

Making wrong bets and raises carries two major problems. The first is that you are not going to get the desired effect you want out of your action. Betting a overly small amount into a large pot is not the same as making a value bet. For example, if there are $525 chips in the pot and the play is heads up and I’m on a flush draw and my opponent bets out $25, there is just no way I’m letting my hand go. My opponent’s bet does not require me to make any kind of decision, it doesn’t make me pay a lot to see an extra card nor does it make me want to lay my hand down.

The second issue is that making bad bets and raises will automatically identify yourself as a weak player to the others at the table. No experienced player would minimum raise in early position with pocket aces unless he was feeling very adventurous. Likewise, making weak plays like is going to encourage aggressive players to come over the top of you (re-raise) constantly. In the same situation I listed above where there was $525 in the pot and my heads-up opponent bet out $25, I would strongly consider a large re-raise figuring that they just don’t know how much to bluff at the pot in order to get me to fold.

You can look up entire volumes of info online as to how much to bet, but the basic principles are to raise about three times the big blind pre-flop, as this will scare away any trash hands, most suited connectors and leave opponents with hands like K-Q or medium pocket pairs. On the flop, you should bet half the pot if you want your opponent to call you (such as if you flopped a set and there’s no suited cards on the board), and bet the whole pot if you want to induce a fold.

This is a very robotic method of playing poker, but the strategy is sound and will benefit you a lot more than it’ll hurt you.
Source: PokerBlog.com