The Subtle Art of Reading Bet-Sizing Tells

A poker player analyzing another players bet sizing tells

Making Mental Notes At The Irish Open 2012

It was the Spring of 2012 and I was starting to dabble a bit more away from the virtual felt. I had a bit of live poker experience, maybe a hundred or so tournaments played, but I was predominantly a 40-tabling online player. I had made my living grinding multi-table SNGs for over five years, during which time I mostly lived in the US.

I didn’t have a real-life poker crew yet. The majority of my poker friends were online crushers from all over the globe. I had, however, made the acquaintance of ultra-runner turned poker-pro Dara O’Kearney, with whom I had just taken a trip to Estoril in Portugal to play the European Masters Of Poker. Dara was sponsored by a skin of the tour’s online partner and he kindly offered to share his room with me.

I carved my way through the €1100 EMOP Main Event field and, on Day 3, found myself on the final table. With four left, I opened pocket Jacks in the Cut-Off off a stack of 22 big blinds and snapped the shove of a fresh-faced Joni Jouhkimainen who stuck me in with pocket Eights from the big blind. The ensuing showdown was for 60% of the chips in play. Alas, an 8 fell on the turn and I hit the rail outside the podium finishes.

I had never entered a tournament with a price tag over €1500 but buoyed by that result, I decided to play the Irish Poker Open Main Event the following week. The €3200 buy-in felt like a proper step up and on the day, that feeling was accentuated by the presence of poker luminaries like Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Dan Harrington and Freddy Deeb. I was, however, fortunate to find myself on what looked like one of the softer starting tables.

I went about my business, small-balling away, chipping up without too much resistance and, importantly, paying attention to my opponents, most of whom were playing too tight and too passively, some of whom seemed to be giving off very obvious bet-sizing tells.

One particular player was an older gentleman about who I was starting to take very specific mental notes. He was alternating between 2.5x and 3.5x open-sizes. On the occasions when these hands went to showdown, all of the 2.5x opens were marginal (broadway convos and suited connectors) while all the 3.5x opens were premium (AQ+ and Tens+).

Bet-Sizing

A big no-no when you are playing poker is modifying your opening bet size based on your hand strength. There are different versions of it depending on a player’s mindset and strategy but one version goes like this:

Limp means small pair, hoping to set-mine for the minimum.
Min-raise means middling suited connectors, hoping to speculate cheaply.
2.5x means broadways and decent ace-X, not looking to build too big pot with a marginal holding.
3x more means premium, Hellmuth’s top 10 hands.
4x means specifically pocket jacks because the player hates that hands, doesn’t feel comfortable navigating post flop with it, has historically lost chunks with it and, so, just wants to win the blinds and ante uncontested.

Now, just to be clear, there are times when you should change your bet-sizings. For example, you should probably increase your open amount when the big blind is shorter to charge him more in a spot where he can more easily realise his equity. You could also deviate to a bigger size versus a weak player in the big blind who is more inelastic with their calling range.

There are good reasons to deploy different sizes when 3-betting and in post-flop scenarios too. Choosing a larger size out of position is wise and factoring in the stack-to-pot ratio is especially important. C-betting should be small (~15-35%) on dry, static board textures and larger (50-80%) on wetter, more dynamic textures.

Sometimes, there will be a mix of betting constructions. In order to be unpredictable, optimal play will sometimes demand that a player consider frequencies. The key thing, though, whether pre-flop or post-flop, is that you play your range in a particular way. Tempting as it may be to utter the phrase “my hand wants to do X”, devising a strategy around that very specific situation is tantamount to turning your hand over or at least giving an observant opponent the ability to range you far too accurately.

Bet-Sizes are a Reflection of Strength

As a poker player, part of the job is adhering to the basics, understanding game theory to the best of your abilities as a solid baseline and executing under pressure. Another part is recognising patterns in your opponent’s play that suggest leaks and being able to build counter-strategies which maximally exploit those leaks.

Bet-sizes can reveal a lot and finding a reliable bet-sizing tell is like unlocking the cheat-code to a game. There is one basic premise when it comes to analysing this area of poker: Bet-sizes are a reflection of strength. While some players are predictable because they invert this idea, most less sophisticated players will bet small with weaker hands and big with stronger.

At the risk of being reductionist, they are manifesting their unconscious desire to control the size of the pot, but in doing so, they are giving away their level of commitment to the hand. Understanding a player’s psychology and motivations will often illuminate a lot about their game and pre-flop bet-sizing is usually the first thing that can be decoded.

A player is comfortable making a big bet because they are not afraid of further action and they want to extract value. They have a strong hand and they want to get paid off. A player puts out a small bet because they are unsure of where they are. It is a probe bet, meekly asking the question “Am I good?” It’s also an attempt to set a comfortable price, keeping the pot manageable with a marginal holding.

Interpreting these bets can give you a huge edge versus the competition. Turning theoretical calls into above-the-rim folds can save you a lot of money. Finding bluff-raises when you smell weakness can win you a lot. It might initially feel strange to step out and away from game theory to attack a weak opponent but it is absolutely vital in the dog-eat-dog world of poker.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

So anyway, there I was at my first Irish Poker Open, a young buck with the wind at his back, an internet poker kid exploring the real world, a gamesmith at the height of his powers, armed with good fundamentals and a good understanding of how to deviate, a mind-sportsman in the zone against nits and an aul’ lad who was telegraphing his hand strength. What could possibly go wrong?

With the blinds at 200/400 with an old-fashioned 50 ante per player, the older gentleman raised to 1000 in the hijack. I pounced, 3-betting my Jack-Seven offsuit to 2900 on the button. The action folded back to my opponent who quickly put in the 4-bet to 8800. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.

“What the f**king f**k?”, I thought to myself. I was a so certain of my read. 2.5x was meant to be a sign of weakness. “Could he still be weak and just making a move?”, I asked myself. I glanced at his visage and all I saw was a block of granite.

It turned out the older gentleman was George McKeever and little did I know how out-gunned I really was. Not only was George experienced, not only had he played a wee tournament called the WSOP Main Event, but he had cashed it in 1987, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2008 and 2010. He came 7th in 1999, the year Noel Furlong took it down, one of four Irishmen in the last 14 and three to make the final table.

After much inner turmoil and self-flagellating, I folded my hand under protest, aware that I had either been out-manoeuvred or that my reads just weren’t as sharp as I had believed them to be. To confirm the latter, George showed me a hand that he wasn’t supposed to have - Ace-King. As he pulled in the pot with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye, he said:

“You thought you had a bet-sizing tell there, didn’t you?”

Wrecked.

David is a professional poker player, writer and commentator. He has written over 750 blogs and articles on poker; including news, opinion and strategy. He is the producer and host of the 3-time GPI Global Poker Award winning podcast ‘The Chip Race.’ In 2025, he was nominated for the GPI Global Poker Award for journalism. David was a brand ambassador for Unibet Poker from 2017 until 2025. He is currently a brand ambassador for WPT Global.