The Role of Half-Pot Bets in Modern Poker Strategy

Half-pot bets were commonly used and had several useful properties, such as being intimidating enough to make opponents fold but not so large as to scare them away when checking.

GTO solvers have shifted the poker world towards smaller bets and overbets, with half-pot bets now being used less frequently. However, half-pot bets are still used in certain situations, such as on flops with flush draws and at least two broadway cards.

On flops like KQJ, UTG (Under the Gun) player often uses a half-pot bet to balance their strategy, avoiding both very small and very large bets. When UTG bets half-pot, the BB (Big Blind) folds many weak hands but can still call with some strong hands, making the half-pot bet a reasonable compromise.

In 3-bet pots, the dominant size of the continuation bet is small, with overbets being rare.