Lesson 2 - how much to bet on each board
This is pretty complicated stuff and probably you can find books written only about this, but I will do the shorter version 
So, general rule is - bet big on drawy boards, bet small on dry boards. I'm pretty sure most of you have heard this somewhere. It's easy to answer to the question why should we bet big on drawy boards, but why should we bet small on dry ones ? I will answer to this later, now lets see what betting big and small accomplishes.
When we bet big, we force our opponent fold more, so he's going to call down with a stronger range. For that reason our valubetting range should be pretty strong. Most important thing - bigger we bet, more we can bluff. When we're betting small, our value range usually isn't that strong, but we have less bluffs in our range. Also villain is going to call much wider. Remember this isn't always true, because sometimes it makes sense to bet small with a super strong range, but it almost never makes sense to bet big with a weak range. Now lets go back to our question.
Assume we open UTG, BU calls and the flop comes 974r. When we start betting big here, our villain will fold very very often (not only on the flop, but on all streets combined). So his river calling range will be super strong, something like overpairs+. For that reason our range should be even stronger to valuebet. When we bet smaller, our villain is going to call wider and he's definitely calling the river with a top pair or sometimes even worse. This way we also lose less money when villain has slowplayed something and it's super easy on this board. This actually is the most important reason. Betting big is bad when villain can have the nuts very often !!!!
When the board is super wet, something like 9 :spade:8 :spade:J 
we wanna start betting big, something close to the pot. I wouldn't recommend overbetting the flop, you can do that on the turn sometimes, but overbetting the river is pretty common nowadays. We're betting big here because our villain is never folding any reasonable draw on the flop and very rarely on the turn. It's super hard for him to slowplay something, so our overpair will be the nuts on the river when draws misses. Overbet on the river in similar cases is my standard bet and I think people miss value not doing that. When the draw hits, we're most likely going to bet again if we had it. This time we don't wanna bet big because it's unlikely villain is calling with a weak hand. Also he can have a better hand if our draw wasn't to the nuts. Now some hands :
$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($100) 100bb
HERO (UTG+1) ($404.61) 405bb
CO ($178) 178bb
BTN ($47.28) 47bb
SB ($201.56) 202bb
BB ($283.18) 283bb
Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 6 players) HERO is UTG+1 7♣ 7♥
1 fold, HERO raises to $2.65, 2 folds, SB calls $2.15, 1 fold
Flop: A♠ 7♦ 2♠ ($6.30, 2 players)
SB checks, HERO bets $4.51, SB calls $4.51
Turn: 3♦ ($15.32, 2 players)
SB checks, HERO bets $13.16, SB calls $13.16
River: K♥ ($41.64, 2 players)
SB checks, HERO bets $59.65, SB folds
Final Pot: $41.64
HERO wins $99.42 (net +$19.45)
SB lost $20.32
Here the flop isn't that scary, so I'm making my standard 3/4 pot bet. The turn brings 2nd fd, so we're going to bet close to the pot. Villain can easily have many Axdd hands, we kinda wanna get max value and it's unlikely he's folding any Ax as well. River is super std overbet because he can have only some 1pair hands and missed draws. He's never folding Ax IMO, so we wanna bet as big as possible.
$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($51) 51bb
HERO (UTG+1) ($258.49) 258bb
CO ($283.74) 284bb
BTN ($134.29) 134bb
SB ($150.76) 151bb
BB ($169.12) 169bb
Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 6 players) HERO is UTG+1 A♥ A♠
1 fold, HERO raises to $2.65, 1 fold, BTN calls $2.65, 1 fold, BB calls $1.65
Flop: 8♣ 5♠ J♥ ($8.45, 3 players)
BB checks, HERO bets $4.84, BTN folds, BB calls $4.84
Turn: 4♦ ($18.13, 2 players)
BB checks, HERO bets $10.39, BB calls $10.39
River: 10:club: ($38.91, 2 players)
BB checks, HERO bets $22.30, BB calls $22.30
In this hand we're betting smallish all streets because we want villain to call down with some weak hands. He can have only weak hands or the nuts. He can easily slowplay the set or maybe hit 2pair on the river, so betting big doesn't accomplish much, he's folding his Jx more often and we're going to lose much more when he has the nuts.
$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($77.31) 77bb
UTG+1 ($178.74) 179bb
CO ($100) 100bb
HERO (BTN) ($390.03) 390bb
SB ($114.62) 115bb
BB ($102.21) 102bb
Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 6 players) HERO is BTN J♦ 9♦
UTG raises to $2.50, 2 folds, HERO calls $2.50, 1 fold, BB calls $1.50
Flop: 5♥ 9♠ K♠ ($8, 3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets $3.50, HERO calls $3.50, BB folds
Turn: 3♠ ($15, 2 players)
UTG checks, HERO checks
River: 9♣ ($15, 2 players)
UTG checks, HERO bets $8.59, UTG folds
Final Pot: $15
HERO wins $22.91 (net +$8.32)
BB lost $2.50
UTG lost $6
And this hand shows when we have a pretty strong range, but we're still betting small (comparing to our villains range, not absolute hand strength). Most likely our villain can have something like KQ at best here, he's betting any better on the turn or river. Usually we will have 9x and some good Kx for a valuebet that beats all our villains hands. Problem with betting big here - we can't have many bluffs, but we need them for our villain to call. FD got there, we're betting most of our floats on the turn, basically checking back only hands with a showdown value. If our villain knows that, he shouldn't be calling very often here and he's not calling a big bet ever IMO. So we're betting smallish and hope for him to make a call with some weak hands.
That's it for this time, please leave some feedback and I'm waiting for your ideas about a topic for the next time.
