How bet size affects decision for same number of players

Question

I am new to poker, as you can tell by my question.

I was wondering whether(and how) the bet size should affect my decision on calling a hand(lets say pre-flop) if the number of players that will call is the same in both cases.

So lets say I am at the button...5 people call the blind and I have a hand worth calling 5 players..so I call. In which case the fact that one player raised(lets say 5 big blinds, not close to all-in) and the other 4 still called him, could make me fold?

If there is no difference in the way I should act in these 2 scenarios...question is answered. In case there is...How should I think to find out if its worth calling or not?

Answer 1

You check out pokerstats.app, they offer bet sizing data per player with filters like position, number of bets, etc. Either use it to check out the bet sizing of winning players, or perhaps to study your own play.

Answer 2

There is two things you should keep in mind here:

• Odds (both implied and pot odds)
• how many players are involved

As an example, lets say you are in the early stages of a tournament (>50 BB) and 4 players limp before you and you look down at 6s7s and you are on the button.

If you call (and no one raises) you will be getting at least 5.5:1 if the small blind folds and 6:1 if the small blind calls. If you are unfamiliar, that means that you are putting 1 BB into a pot of 7 BB if you are getting 6:1. This means that your suited connector only has to make a hand >%14.3 of the time for this call to be profitable in the long run.

If there are 7 players total involved on the flop, there is a much better chance that the hand will get to showdown and more bets will be placed in future streets. You can be confident that when you do make a strong hand with your suited connector, you will be able to get some value out of at least one of the other 6 players you are involved in the hand with. Because it is the early stages of the tournament, the other players have large stacks and will be able to build a large pot with you when they have a hand (hopefully weaker than yours but strong enough to call your bets).

This is the idea behind implied odds, if the players in the pot have big stacks and you make a really good hand, they will be able to pay you a lot on future streets with their top-pair or 2-pair type holdings (greatly depends on the player what kind of hand they will pay you off with). The more players that are in the pot, the more likely it is that one of them will have one of these holdings that will pay you off.

With that out of the way lets now approach this with different bet sizes. lets say all players are 50BB deep and UTG raises to 5bb like your example and 4 players call. This does not affect your pot odds (if we assume again that bb and sb call like above), you are still getting 6:1 and you can still win 50BB from each player that doesnt fold if you smash the flop. Biggest difference now is that you may not be able to realize the equity of draws because the size of the pot is much larger. with 35BB in the pot, players will be incentivized to try to steal the pot preflop or get it all in if they connect with the flop (they only have a little more than a pot sized bet left in their stack). This reduces your implied odds because compared to your initial investment, you will be winning less from each player. You are paying more to win the same amount from each player that sticks around.

Hopefully this was helpful, let me know if anything is inaccurate/unclear