Beyond 100% continuation bettng strategy

[DJJunkPauds]

<edit>

This thread has got pretty hard to get through, it seems. So for those of you who have come to this looking just for the answers, and not the questions, here's a summary of the various conclusions.

(all of this assumes heads up, 2bet pots, in position)

1. If your opponent will call and you'll be in the lead of his range when he does, cbet for value (value betting).

2. If you're behind your opponents range, you can c-bet as a bluff, or a semi-bluff. He needs to be folding a good amount of the time.

(One of these first two concepts apllies in 80% of the cbet situations you'll come across, and applying them 100% of the time is still profitable. Everything beyond here is an exception to the rule)

3. If your opponent's range connected well with the flop, it's a bad time for a bluff. In this circumstance, the flop is called "wet". Most commonly, a wet flop is drawry one - a flop which has several possible draws - but not always. Any flop that hit your opponents range hard is wet to you.

4. Any flop that is wet to your opponent - it hit your perceived range hard - is good flop to bluff at. Ace high flops are the most frequent case of this.

5. Any flop (or situation in poker) that is good for bluffing, requires a tighter value betting range. The more likely someone is to fold, the stronger (narrower) their range is when they don't (generally).

6. Conversely, the less likely a fold is, the higher the value of a marginal hand.

7. Against players who fold to turn barrels a lot, it is even more profitable to cbet with air.

8. Many opponents auto-check the flop to the PFR, but will only check again on the turn when they're weak. Against such players, waiting for the turn to cbet your air can be a good strategy. It does, however, give your opponent a free card.

9. If you have a fairly strong hand, but not a monster, and feel that you'll be ahead only if the pot stays small-medium, you can exercise pot control, and check the flop, whith the intention of building the pot on latter streets. This is a less good idea if your opponent's calling range is likely to narrow on latter streets (tendency, high number of scare cards for him), and a better idea if the opposite is true. There are other pot control lines that do not involve a flop check.

10. If you have a medium amount of showdown equity against your opps range (like 45%-55%), but would be far behind (like 0%-25%) if you cbet and got called, and you feel very confident in your ability to make accurate reads on the next two streets, and you have position, you may want to try and take a hand to showdown. The idea being that the small amount of profit you make from cbetting to get a fold is less than your equity percentage of the current pot size, and that the only time you'll be made to fold is when you would have lost at showdown anyway. There is also a chance that you'll bluff catch against opponents you have a good read on, and so make even more money.

11. If you have a hard to crack monster (quads, top full), it's very likely your opponent is going to fold, and there are few cards which could come along to scare him, but most of the hands he could improve to are still behind you, it can be a good play to refrain from c-betting as a slow play. This is a very rare situation. The difference between never slowplaying, and slow playing too much is very fine.


Any more for the list?


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So, this somewhat ties in with my recent post about turning ones hand into a bluff, but is broader than that.

Most of us started playing tight-passive, when we decided we wanted to win at poker, and pretty soon learned to play some sort of nitty tag strategy. A big part of that is learning that "Yeah, just go ahead and c-bet 100% of those flops. Just go nuts". That certainly turns a profit, but then we expand beyond that and learn to slow it down when the flop hits villains' ranges super hard; we slow it down on wet flops.

The thing is, I still think I'm cbetting too much. My cbet stat is about 90%, and what I'm interested in is other spots where I maximize by checking the flop, beyond the times where I feel there's no money to be made from bluffing. "Checking for value", if you will, and not necessarily because to bet would "turn my hand into a bluff". Perhaps for pot control, and perhaps for reasons I don't yet understand. Wanting to understand those reasons is the motivation behind this post.

(let's assume heads up flops, just to keep things simple)

So, here are all the reasons why I don't cbet: villain has a ridiculously low fold to cbet %, and I have low showdown value. Villain's range hit hard (3 to a straight, or 2 straight draws, and a flush draw, are the most common instances of this). I have a monster, and villains range completely missed, aka "slow playing" (not often). Pot control; say I flop a pair of aces with a king kicker on a dry flop against a fairly tight opponent, I have a medium strength hand, and feel I can only get 2 streets of value and still be ahead. I don't like checking rivers, especially out of position, so I'll check the flop, and fire turn, and river. It's not the only pot control line, but it is one reason why I check a flop.

What are some other spots where I might want to check it?

I was watching one of the poker videos on FTR some time ago (and I've gone back through a lot of them looking for this hand, and can't find it), and someone flops AJ over cards, on a raggedy dryish flop, and they opt to check behind, citing wanting to get to showdown. "Getting to showdown". I've thought a lot about that, and can't seem to quite get it into my game, or fully understand it. I understand deciding to get to showdown on the river. You're pretty close to it, and often can simply check behind, or check call a small bet to do so, but on the flop, you're an awful long way from home and dry. Deciding to play for showdown on the flop, and checking, means your opponent has at least two more betting rounds to bluff you, or catch.

Is it that if you check your over cards (or whatever), you do so feeling confident that your opponent will make it clear if you're behind, and thus can make a good fold?

I just want to move beyond "hey, if I just bet, I'll at least be making money like that, and that can't be bad".

Perhaps someone with a little more experience can throw out some generalities about refraining from cbetting for reasons other than it not being a profitable bluff situtation, or when rarely decide to slow play. I know I mentioned pot control already, but even this is an area that I'd benefit from discussing.

Sorry for the tl;dr

[littleogre]

I c-bet 75 percent flops which may not be perfect but it is +ev. The 2 basic rules for c-betting are number of players in the pot and board texture. In other words you probably don't want to c-bet with air if the flop is JcTc8d and 3 other people saw the flop. Someone is gonna have a hand or a draw and they ain't gong anywhere.

[DJJunkPauds]

I c-bet 75 percent flops which may not be perfect but it is +ev. The 2 basic rules for c-betting are number of players in the pot and board texture. In other words you probably don't want to c-bet with air if the flop is JcTc8d and 3 other people saw the flop. Someone is gonna have a hand or a draw and they ain't gong anywhere.

Quite true. It's just that I'd like to move beyond that basic strategy.

[Vi-Zer0Skill]

i'll give you an example of when i check Ax hands on the flop, with the intention of trying to take Ace high to showdown on the river. it's necessary that you be in position to arrange to take a hand to showdown from the flop, so this move only really works in the cutoff or button positions.

example: 6 handed table, i'm on the button with A7s and a loose passive player limps in front of me. I raise 5x, and everyone folds but the donk who calls. let's say this player has 50/10 stats, and limp/calls around 66% of the time or more after limping. the flop comes 56Jr and the donk checks to me.

my A7s is stronger than the range of hands he limp/calls with preflop.


51.034% { A7s }
48.966% { 55+, A2s+, K4s+, Q6s+, J7s+, T8s+, 98s, A5o+, K8o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }

clearly i wouldn't be continuation betting Ace high for value on the flop except against the most insanely loose call station donks. and because my opponent plays passively, i don't expect him to bet unless he connects with the flop in some way. after all, I showed a lot strength preflop with my large 5x raise! (seems to be the typical donk thought process) So since my hand is ahead of his range and i have a clear plan about how to respond to aggression (fold unimproved) i check the flop with the intention of checking the hand down.

If my opponent was loose but an aggressive donk, i might also check behind on this flop. however i'd expect this player to fire at this pot as a bluff with an exploitable frequency, so when i check my A7s it's with the intention of catching the donk bluffing. I turn my ace high into a 'bluff catcher'.

hope that helps.

[DJJunkPauds]

hope that helps.

It sure does, and this is exactly the kind of answer I was looking for, but I still have questions.

First of all, let me break this down in to basic morsels. You should check to attempt to get your hand to showdown if the following is true:

1. We read villain well enough to be very confident about what his actions on later streets will mean for our equity (ie, we'll know if he's bluffing, we'll know if he's not)
2. We're ahead.
3. We'll be behind if we bet and get called.

Broadly correct? Are there more for the list?

Here's what jars with me, and I posted about this the other day, but didn't get an answer: aren't we just giving free cards to all of his range that is behind us? I haven't missed the fact that we're also taking free cards against the part of his range that is beating us, but does one out way the other? If so, why? If those two consideration balance each other out, does it even come in to it? Is this aspect of taking/giving free cards at all relevent, or am I on the wrong track with this?

[DJJunkPauds]

That's a pretty weird range you're giving villain there, by the way, and when I put the hand into Stove, it comes up as ahead of A7s, but I'm sure that's all beside the point.

[DJJunkPauds]

EDIT: You may as well ignore all this. It's twisted and wrong. Just skip to my next post.


Okay, so I went away and thought about this a bit more.

I'll illustrate this with a different hand; one that is a little simpler and more clear cut. I understand it's quite unrealistic, and contrived.

Hero is folded to on the button, holding AKo, and raises. SB folds, BB calls.

Flop is Qc 5d 2s.

The BB checks with 100% of his range.

51.013% { AKo }
48.987% { JJ-22, AQs-A2s, KTs+, QTs+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, AQo-ATo, KJo+ }

If Hero cbets the BB will fold 100% of the hands that hero is ahead of, and call with 100% of the hands that hero is behind. He will never raise.

If hero checks behind, hero is 100% certain the BB will bet the turn if he makes/already has a hand better than hero's. Hero knows the same is true for the river. Hero knows the BB will never bluff. Knowing that the BB will check fold later streets where he doesn't have a hand, hero plans to check behind the turn if he improves, in order to bet the river. Hero has no intention of barreling as a bluff, or anything like that. (I understand this is all very contrived, but bare with me).

So lets split the BB's range up into sections. The hands that we beat, and the hands that we don't.

1. Hands that have us beat: JJ-22,AQs,A5s,A2s,KQs,QTs+,65s,54s,AQo,KQo

About half his range.

He will not fold to a cbet, and he will not raise. All of these hands beat us, many crush us.

Best course of action: Check behind, hope to catch, and keep the pot small, in case we catch and are still behind.

2. The hands that we beat, but don't dominate: J9s+,T8s+,97s+,86s+,76s

Much less than a quarter of his range.

He folds all of these if we bet. Each of these hands has clean outs, and will only put more money in the pot when they have us beat. The only implied odds we have are if running cards come off. We catch an ace or a king on the turn, and check behind, then he spikes a pair on the river, bets, and we raise, and get called. Hell of a lot of ifs and maybes. Far more likely that he outdraws us when he puts more money in.

Best course of action: kill the hand off. Cbet. There's negative expectation in seeing another card.

3. The hands that we beat, and dominate: AJs-A6s,A4s-A3s,KJs-KTs,AJo-ATo,KJo

More than a quarter of his range.

He folds all of these hands if we bet. Each of these hands has outs that would improve us both, and leave us ahead. If we both made a pair of aces, for example, we'd have villain dominated, and could win an even bigger pot. The problem is though, we don't want the chips to start flying too hard against alot of villains. Sure, we might have him outkicked, we might also be behind. If villain has a hand in this range, and we both improve, we'll want to create a medium sized pot, for fear of hand that dominates us, from range 1.

There's also the issue that while each hand in this range has dominated outs, most of the outs are not dominated. There's no expectation in villain catching a jack with AJ, for example (baring running card situations).

Best course of action: I'm not so sure. I like the implied odds of his tainted outs, but most of his outs are untainted. I don't really know whether I'd like to win the pot here and now or not.


So for about half his range, we should check behind, and try and draw (range 1). For small amount of his range, we should protect our hand (range 2). And then there's range 3, where I'm not really sure. There are implied odds in seeing another card, but there is also the risk of being drawn out on. Let's just call it 50/50, and say that for the majority of his range, the best play is a check behind.

I'm less concerned with whether I'm right in this situation, and more concerned with whether my methodology for analysising the situation is correct. You see, I'll be examing my hands when make this play, and I need to know I'm analysing them right.

Massively appreciate anyone who bothered reading this far, and doubt you even exist.

[littleogre]

Quite true. It's just that I'd like to move beyond that basic strategy.

yea me too

[DJJunkPauds]

Okay, so I went away again, and thought about this even more. That stuff up there, the me thinking out loud, is a weird, and I think wrong way of looking at it. There's a much simpler way of looking at things.

Assume heads up flops, against villains who play straightforwardly, and that you have excellent reads on.

If your equity when getting called is greater than 50%, cbet for value.
Otherwise, if your equity against villains current range is less than you make from cbetting, cbet as a bluff.
Otherwise, check.

I think this is it in it's purest form. Is it correct?

There are other factors that come in, of course. Money made from turn barreling, for one. Implied odds from catching up when the pot is bigger, would be another. Yet another is being uncertain of your opponents play, and avoiding difficult decisions on latter streets.

This last one - the risk of being outplayed, or of making missteps against players who play erratically - I think is why it's best for beginners to just fire away, take the pot down, and avoid getting into complicated situations on latter streets. It might also be good idea for better players against unknowns. A little money is better than none, and better still than a loss. However, once we get some experience under our belts, and our confidence in making very accurate decisions on latter streets increases, I believe we can check for value.

Here's how I came to this realization.

There are 3 cards on the flop, and the pot is $100. Villain has {a range}, and checks to hero, who has {a hand}. Hero has 50% equity against villains range. If hero bets $70, villain will fold 50% of the time. When villain calls, hero is drawing dead. Betting yields a profit of $15 dollars. If hero checks behind, villain will only put money in on latter streets if hero is drawing dead, and hero will make a good fold. By checking, hero wins the $100 pot 50% of the time, and so checking yields a $50 profit. More the 3 times the amount hero would have made from cbetting.

This is grossly simplified. We are rarely drawing dead. Even though we're behind if he calls our cbet, we have some equity, and so will make more than the automatic $15. Also, sometimes villain will bluff us out latter, and we'll make a bad fold, or could improve, put more money in, and still loose, so the $50 figure is probably lower (it could be higher though), but $15 has to increase alot, and $50 has to decrease a lot, before the first is greater than the second.

So often times, against easy to play opponents, when one has a marginal hand, it's best to check behind, than to take the smaller immediate cbet profit.

Is this basically it?

[JKDS]

but $15 has to increase alot, and $50 has to decrease a lot, before the first is greater than the second.

well, that is true. the thing is though that we only need about 20.6% equity against villains continuing range (if hes folding 50% of the time, we're betting 70 into 100) for cbetting to be equal to checking (if we have 50% against his checking range and no other shit).

Against most checking ranges, we're usually going to have this much equity regardless of our hand. (IE, checking ranges often have discounted nut hands and are largely consisted of air and mediocre hands...so with like AK on a 9 hi flop we have our 20% (actually 24) to hit an A or K and itll usually be good.

[JKDS]

in addition, by cbetting we will often 'trick' our opponent into taking more passive lines, where as when we check we're often gonna see him stab at the pot more often.

[cleanup.that]

I Forget where I learned this but it's helped me a lot in terms of c betting. Just always think about how much of villain's range will have to fold to a c bet given the board texture and his tendencies. If a flop comes KQA monotone think about how much of a cold callers range from OOP has to fold to your c bet. (22-99, All Scs that do not have a flush, KJ QT depending on the player and so on. That is a large part of his range he will have to dump if you bet, so almost regardless of what your hand is your c bet will get folds A LOT.

Think about how much more of his range will have to fold on the turn to a 2 barrell etc.. Also your bet sizing affects your opponents calling ranges more on certain flops. A half pot bet on a K73 rainbow board will fold out approx the same amount of villain's range as a 2/3 pot bet will. Obviously on a more wet board this may not hold true.

Basically that's the logic that is behind the thinking of "Oh, it's a dry board i c bet, wet board i dont." Its just generally more profitable to fire certain flops over others bc more of Villains range has to fold. But it helped me a lot to KNOW WHY i was doing it and What hands im trying to get folds from that are currently better than mine. And also knowing what range of hands I cannot get folds from that are currently better than mine.

Ive realized how much damage "cookie cutter and standard" advice has probably done to my progression as a player and now I find that fully understanding the "WHY" is waaaaay more important than simply knowing the "WHAT"

I hope this helps someone in some way or another

[Donkafelts]

Ok a couple of things.

I completely changed my c betting from like 90% to now 61%, and i'm not sure what is optimal, but here is the change that happened in my mind. Where as before i would c bet like everything, now i pretty much only c bet if alot of worse is calling or alot of better is folding. Where i struggle alot, and where the logic i now follow is quite bad, is in 3bet pots. In these pots just taking down the pot provides alot of profit, so checking back and letting villains merge their value and bluffing ranges is hugely -ev at times.

One other thing i learned from a video series that is immensly helpful in c betting is understanding the potential value of delayed c betting. Lets say we raise from the button and get called by a player from the BB with 100b effective stacks. The flop comes Q96r he checks and we fire out our c bet with just a ton of our range. One thing we are missing is that alot of players have an extremely exploitable tendency on the turn. Players will check both the strong part of their range hoping we c bet so they can c/r or c/c, and the weak parts of their range on the flop. The thing is alot of players, even regs at lower limits, will procede to fire the turn with all the made hands in their range. This means when they check twice to us we can know we are bluffing against a very very weak range. Some players will actually not throw in any bluffs to that turn firing range, allowing us to play perfectly with all our air. We know they are firing when they have us beat, so we just fold. We know if they check twice, no strong hands remain, and we can push them off anything they might decide to call with.

This same thought process can allow us to recieve maximum value from our mid strength hands on several occasions. Suppose we raise QJcc from the cutoff in a 6max 25nl game to $1. It folds around to the SB who over a reasonably small sample appears to be a regular. He puts in the additional $.90 the BB folds and the flop comes down 7cJhAd the SB checks and we check back. The turn bricks off the 2s and the SB checks again. Now when we fire this turn we have several advantages over having c bet the flop:

1. The strongest part of our villain's flop checking range is not present in his turn checking range. Villain is very unlikely to hold 77, JJ, AK, AQ, AJ,
QQ, or even KJ. It also far less likely he will show up with a suited ace or anything of that nature.
2. Alot of the hands we want our villain to hold when we bet are still in his range. He can still have 22-66, 88, 99, TT, 78s, 67s, and JTs.
3. Although a bet from us on the turn actually represents more strength than one on the flop would, the SB will very likely see a turn bet as a cheap attempt to pick up a pot in which he showed weakness.

Hope all this helped, and i would also like some comments on my thought processes if anyone has time.

[rpm]

^^ good post. i think good flops to check back and delay your cbet are flops which dont really hit your perceived range. if villains are tuned in and realise we are cbetting a high % of flops they may start adjusting and check/raising us with weak draws/pairs/overs or calling our cbets and donking a heap of turns because our range is so weak. however if we check behind this potentially allows our perceived range to strengthen (if an ace or king or whatever falls), giving us a better expectation when we are bluffing (as more of villains range has to fold), but also allows us to guage villains range better because we've got three pieces of information to use (preflop, flop, turn) and thus can make a more accurate estimate of villain's range as a result. this is pretty much what donkafelts said i guess. i thought i had a relevant point to make for a second there.

[Duffryn]

Yes good post donkafelts. I am guilty of the exploitable play you identified. If I have a hand and check the flop for whatever reason, my thought process on the turn is: Uh oh, looks like no-ones betting - must get some value.....bet.

When the flop is checked around, turn bets are so often 2nd or 3rd pair or occasionally TP, very weak kicker. If you Cbet the flop with air, then a lot of these hands will call, but if you check then you get a free card to improve and if not, your opp(s) will let you know if you are beaten without you wasting a Cbet.

[surviva316]

OP and most of thread is tl;dr, but i'd just like to point at that when you're in position, one of your biggest advantages as the PFR or otherwise is that you have the option to close out the betting for that round. lemme put it this way, when you open OTB and have a 100% cbet (and villain has any kind of knowledge of this), you essentially don't have position because villain KNOWS he will have the opportunity act after you on the flop (and either fold, call or raise).

i've had a few discussions in the irc with m2m and boog about which is more annoying, a positionally aware TAgg who opens OTB and cbets 75% of the time, or a TAgg who opens OTB and cbets 50% of the time, and the latter is a bit more annoying.

all that being said, i obv cbet near 100% of my air against straightforward tagg's whose range is like 22-JJ, AQ because you have a huge advantage bluffing when you know villain isn't going to rebluff.

obv there's way way more to be said on cbetting frequently, but i thought this is the topic that was least likely to've already been covered

[rpm]

OP and most of thread is tl;dr,

whats tl;dr?

[d0zer]

whats tl;dr?

Don't worry about it, just forget the whole thread and start c-betting 70% instead of 100%.

[DJJunkPauds]

whats tl;dr?

I spent a little time on image search, searching for funny reactions to this, but then I just though "meh".

Wikipedia:Too long; didn't read - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[dranger7070]

That wiki tilts me. They should have a wall of chat when you click that instead of some gay lil paragraph.

[DJJunkPauds]

Damn man, the spam is getting bad.