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Understanding the explanation will also give clues to spotting when a player is by bluffing.

A mistake too many weak players make is to overbet when they decide to bluff. An overbet is usually a bet considerably bigger than the size of the pot. Suppose you are playing in a 2/4 No Limit Game, and after the river card the pot size is $50. A bet of $100 dollars by a player would be an overbet. Another common example of the overbet, is when a player chooses to go allin preflop, when not short stacked, and when no bets have been made so far.

What is the Problem with Overbetting?

Essentially, each time someone chooses to overbet, they risk wasting money. So often I have thought why has this player bet a large amount, when a smaller bet would have sufficed. So continuing the first example above, what has a player bluffing achieved by betting $100, that a bet of, say, $50 or even $25 would not have achieved?

As this player is bluffing, he is hoping to convince the others he has a stronger hand, or if they have doubts, make it too expensive and so too risky to call. Studying the three scenarios, the bets of $25. $50 and $100 would give the potential caller pot odds of 3 to 1, 2 to 1, and 5 to 2. Therefore he would be right to call if he believed his chance of winning was better than 25%, 33% and 40% respectively.

The difference between the figures are not that large, even less so when you consider how unusual it is to assign an exact percentage chance to your hand after the river card. Instead you normally think along the lines of, "I'm probably winning this hand", meaning over 50%, or I'm a long shot, ie perhaps one in five, or I have a decent chance, which probably puts your odds somewhere in the middle. It is very hard to be exact enough to distinguish between these different percentages.

So being unable to calculate exact probabilities, an opponent will usually decide whether to call based on rudimentary analysis of the bet. If it is a small amount, a tiny fraction of the pot, they will call if they think they have any chance at all of being ahead. (On another note, this is why it is silly when a player decides to bet a couple of big blinds into a large pot as a bluff. You are justified to call with almost any hand, and when you do so you think what was the point of that bluff.)

On the other hand, once the bet is of reasonable size and above, a player will only consider calling if he thinks there is a serious chance of him being ahead. Bur usually in this analysis, it would not matter to the opponent if the bet was half the size of the pot, pot sized or double it, all these would be seen as non trivial bets, and his criteria for calling would be the same.

Thus, when making a bluff, do not bet ridiculously high, as once your bet reaches a certain size, making it bigger will not make it any less likely your opponent calls, but only mean you lose more when he calls your bluff.

This is the same advice for those people who make huge preflop allins, into unraised pots. A lot of people in the chat box, correctly note "What is the Point". When a bet is this large, the only person who will consider calling must have one of the very best hands. For example, no matter how large your bet, you are never going to scare off the person holding AA, and so probably lose all your money the first time you are called.

In fact, sometimes an overbet can have the opposite effect. Generally players holding the best hand will want to be called to make maximum profit. Good players, when seeing an oversized bet will think,"if he had a strong hand, he would bet an amount he thought might get called", and so actually be more likely to call this very large bet, and more often than not it turns out this bet was just one out of frustration and desperation to win the pot.

Warning: Bearing in mind this last paragraph, some players do use the overbet to their advantage as a "double bluff". If you think your opponent will see a massively large bet as weakness, (if he thinks, why so large a bet, if he holds the best hand he would hope for a call...) then you could make a large bet when you actually do hold a strong hand, and hope your opponent uses this line of reasoning to pay you off tidily. In addition, this tactic is unknowingly used by weak players. A beginner might make the mistake of betting very strongly when he has the nuts, because he doesn't think through that you need to get called to make the most profit, and rather bets in a simple fashion according to his hand strength.

Therefore you cannot always associate an oversized bet with weakness, however this does not contradict the main emphasis of the article that you should not overbet when bluffing. Once a bet is above a certain size, making it larger makes minimal change to whether an opponent will call, and only means you risk losing more.