Cbet Alternative w/ Air

[Robb]

I've been thinking about cbets oop against aggressive villains. http://weaktight.com/444069, for example. I decided to do the math. I figured to work out the math here to let noobies see how the analysis works and FTR regs critique.

Situation: Hero PFR's for 3.5 bb's, gets 1 caller, flops air (8.5 bb pot). Opp has very aggressive flop stats. Hero check/raises.

Question: How often does Hero need a fold to make this +EV?

Assume a 6 bb flop bet from villain and a 15bb raise from Hero. When villain rr's, Hero folds and loses 15bb. When villain calls the c/r, Hero tries to not commit any more chips. He's likely behind, and probably loses 15bb. When villain folds, Hero wins 14.5 bb's. There's a chance villain could check behind, in which case Hero has to play a dog of a hand against what is likely a dog of a hand oop. So that costs a couple bb's.

That math is easy enough - Hero only needs a fold about half the time for it to be +EV if he could guarantee he would never commit more chips after the check/raise attempt failed to end the hand.

But call it two-thirds to have some margin for error. Hero will certainly lose a bit more than he wins when he commits extra chips after a check behind or bet/call from villain (position + no hand).

But from a game theory perspective, it's not enough for an action to be +EV. It must be higher EV than all other +EV actions. Well, the only other alternative is for Hero to cbet (or check/fold every time he misses a flop oop). Against aggressive villains, the auto-cbet will induce a fold when Hero is ahead and get a call/raise only when villain is ahead. The cbet encourages/rewards good play from villain. It does have the advantage of being less expensive, but it's probably only +EV because players are so bad at 10nl.

So my final analysis is this. If I can check/raise successfully about 2 out of 3 times, I'm ++EV even if I commit a few chips after being called every now and then.

The villains don't really pay attention at my level. If they ever did start paying attention, I would need to mix things up by playing some 2 pair/set hands this way for balance.

So, I'm liking this. I've tried it about 20 times in the last two weeks, and I've been successful on 16 or 17 of them. If I can pick spots that successfully, then I've got a nice alternative for when I have aggressive players to my left. I use this with small pp's and 2-3 overs and when I have 2 overs. The key is a super-aggressive villain. In the HH link above, villain's flop aggression factor was 16 (bets/raises 16 times more often than he calls). So I'm pretty certain he'll rr/shove when he's ahead, and fold weak one pair hands and worse.

Sorry if this wasn't very clear. I'm tired. I played my 500 hands, did my studying, and posted this. So I'm off to get some sleep. Hopefully it makes enough sense for someone to benefit. I did.

[swiggidy]

1) If there's a hyper aggressive player on your left, find a new table
2) Flop texture has everything to do with this.

[Robb]

1) If there's a hyper aggressive player on your left, find a new table
2) Flop texture has everything to do with this.

#2 That's something I failed to mention. Generally, two unpaired cards hit the flop about 1/3 of the time. So 2/3's of the time you can count on villain to miss. But there are certain boards where he's even less likely to have hit the flop (I was tired and didn't mention this - thought of it as I was dozin' off to dreamland.)

Suppose villain has flatted preflop in the situation above with the following three flops.

1 - K 9 2 rainbow
2 - 8 8 4 rainbow
3 - 7 6 9 suited

Flops 1 & 2 are hard to connect with, even though #2 does have cards in his flatting range. Flop #3 could be a disaster check/raise.

#1 I can see your point, if villain is aggressive and GOOD. If he's aggro-horrible (aggrorible?), why move tables? Especially if you've got tons of HH's against him and he plays cards predictably?

[Monty3038]

Robb, you know I'm not the most experienced player, but I put of lot of faith in what I got out of HOH and believe that c-bet is a valuable information gathering tool.

Your c-bet is likely to induce a fold if he missed the flop. If you get a call, what did that tell you? It told you he caught a piece of it or feels his air has your air beat... or that he totally thinks you are bluffing (which you are). If you have a good table image, he has to think you hit something... even if not top pair, at least a pair. If he has nothing, he's dumping the hand.

If your c-bet gets called, he likely has something... at least a pair or a flush draw IMO usually... if he raises your c-bet, I wait out the timer for a while and then fold. He should get the impression you had a pair but felt his pair beat you.

Regs might argue with me on this one, but so far it has worked for me...

[kmind]

Alright a few initial reactions:
Swigg - good quick post because what you said heavily skews villains tendency to b/f.

Robb - Good initial post and even better second post. About the initial post - This kind of deals with the monkey bet when checked to. It's all about ranges. So, by checking we do induce aggro monkeys (and depending on how aggro they are) to bet a LARGE portion of their range creating a HIGH air% and creates a lot of folds effectively. I think this basically is just thinking one step of your opponent though. Which is obviously good, but should be standard. What you can start to do (though I'd advocate just c/r for now) is floating and picking off double barrel bluffs which gains even more EV but is probably too rare at 10nl. I also would advocate more draws in your c/r range as opposed to small PP which has far less equity but regardless I think it's fine.

Monty - good initial thoughts vs. MOST players but this is against aggressive players who like to make moves. Against these types of people, you have to account for air being in their range when they raise and sometimes when they call (to float). You can't just keep folding cbets against someone with a very wide raising range. This should create more checks either meaning reraising, calling and sometimes even just c/f the flop. Each line heavily depends on villain's tendencies and what we hold.

After giving it some thoughts... this is beaten by really straight-forward play
Bet if you have a good hand, check behind when you don't
your check/raise will almost never be successful in that case

so it should be an adaptation against some specific villains
if you were to play like that against me, I'd probably go "wtf" the first time you do it and I wouldn't auto-bet the flop when you check to me the next time

[Robb]

the c-bet is a valuable information gathering tool.

Betting to learn you need to fold is fine. That's what the check-raise does. Cbetting air EVERY TIME oop just helps opponents play more correctly. Maybe the occasional check/raise can be a cost-saving way of getting the same information?

[Robb]

it should be an adaptation against some specific villains

I thought I made it clear I need a solid read on a villain to do this, say, 200 hands and a combination of flop stats suggestion ultra agro behavior.

if you were to play like that against me, I'd probably go "wtf" the first time you do it and I wouldn't auto-bet the flop when you check to me the next time

Then it worked.

I've used this maybe 20 times in the last 8k hands I've played. It's not a regular action, just a change-of-pace to keep from helping my opponents play too correctly against my cbets.

[Robb]

kmind - thanks - high quality post, I read it all and will definitely use it.

[swiggidy]

To be clear, I agree with your OP. Just wanted to point out there were other factors that needed to be considered.

So yeah, if he's a decent 35/25 with 10% 3bet. It's only minimally exploitable to play with him on your left.

It's hard to explain (just like I didn't) but board texture has a lot to do with this play like you said. If people don't c/r 689s flops then it's likely ok. Personally I rarely use this play without a read, but that's just me.

[spoonitnow]

This is fine as long as you don't do it too much and have balance with made hands as well.

[Monty3038]

Monty - good initial thoughts vs. MOST players but this is against aggressive players who like to make moves. Against these types of people, you have to account for air being in their range when they raise and sometimes when they call (to float). You can't just keep folding cbets against someone with a very wide raising range. This should create more checks either meaning reraising, calling and sometimes even just c/f the flop. Each line heavily depends on villain's tendencies and what we hold.

yES, I agree that villian's tendencies are a major factor but it is often difficult for me (so far) to adjust sometimes to this type of aggression. I found the other evening this was true... after c-betting with air twice I was faced down three times with c-bets by a pair of aggressive players... having to fold my air each time. I did adjust but maybe a bit late to it, stopping c-betting unless I had something worth playing while they were in the hand.