When to Overbet and Overbet Shove in Poker

In this poker strategy article, poker coach John Bradley explains you when to overbet and when to overbet shove in poker.

Overbetting (betting larger than the size of the pot), is a powerful move in poker, and one that can be utilised to maximize profits from good hands, as well as bluff out your opponents’ marginal holdings.

Effective tool in the arsenal

A reasonable strategy, in poker, can be employed with no overbetting, but adding it into your game, will increase your winrate and make you substantially tougher to play against.

Overbetting is, in essence, employed when your range of hands has some form of an advantage over your opponents’. You can then leverage this by betting larger than the pot with a number of value hands, and a portion of bluffs as well.

Reasons why you may have an advantage, and should overbet, include:

• Your opponent is capped: Almost any passive line from most opponents leads to some amount of a capped range

• You have range advantage: For example, if you raise UTG and the BB calls, on most flops you will have a range advantage

• You have nut advantage: For example, if you raise preflop and are called by the BB, and the flop is AK2, where you can have AA, KK, AK but your opponent cannot.

Additionally, you can also overbet:

• For value on the river: population dislikes folding strong top pair or better, no matter what size you make it

• As a continuation bluff: population overfolds this spot

• As a double barrel bluff after betting the flop small: population overfolds this spot, in part because they are capped from the flop action

• When SPR is low: a good way to protect your equity and deny your opponents’ equity

Additionally, if you know your opponent (or the population as a whole) overfolds versus two different sizes by the same amount, the larger size bet will yield the most EV.

For example, if you know that population folds 35% to a half pot bet (2% overfold), and 52% to a pot size bet (2% overfold), you are not indifferent as to which size to bet. You will make more money, in the long run, by using the larger betsize.

So, hopefully this has encouraged you to consider the overbet more often. Next, I will showcase examples of some good spots.

Maximum Value

In this hand, I 3bet an early position opener, and the Big Blind cold called the 3bet. He then called roughly half pot sizings on flop and turn.

His range is very weighted towards hands like JJ, TT, 99, 77, AQs etc preflop, and also now on the river.

Population dislikes folding overpairs in general, and is fairly inelastic to bet size. If they want to call, they will often call no matter the size you make it.

Pressuring a capped range

In this spot, I izo raise the small blind limp, and the opponent calls a small flop bet.

The opponent will very rarely have AQ, AK, KK, JJ or TT here preflop, and their best possible hands (Q9, KJ etc) would very often raise the flop.

Therefore, it is a great spot to overbet as a bluff, especially with the gutshot.

Leveraging a low SPR

Here, I made a light 3bet preflop, and have an SPR of 1.5 on the flop.

The overbet here, is a great way to:

• Leverage the low SPR

• Realize all the equity of T7

• Fold out hands which have a lot of equity/are ahead: KQ/KT/QT/T8/Ace high/small pair

• Leverage the preflop range advantage, and nut advantage (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 99)

Population Overfolds

In this spot, I opened preflop and was called by the big blind.

This is a great spot for an overbet because:

• Population overfolds this spot

• Range advantage and nut advantage (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT)

• Hand is J-high and can fold out many better hands

• Lots of backdoor draws, with clubs and straight draws

Overbet Conclusion

The overbet is a powerful move that you would be wise to incorporate as much as possible in your play.

Consider finding some of the spots discussed in this article, so you can frustrate your opponents and maximize your winrate.

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