[spoonitnow strategy] The Basic Concepts That Drive Continuation Betting

[EasyPoker]

Bump.

The relationship between the checking range and the c-betting range is something that I very rarely see discussed or asked about here in the BC.

Well it's hardly a beginner's concept...that's probably why. But do elaborate for us.

[Cobra_1878]

Well it's hardly a beginner's concept...that's probably why. But do elaborate for us.

This is something I worry about. Learning things that are just too advanced for when you're playing at micro-stakes.

[spoonitnow]

Well it's hardly a beginner's concept...that's probably why. But do elaborate for us.

It is very much a beginner's concept. Did you even read the link in the OP?

lol why don't you enlighten us then.

ikr

@ Spoonitnow what is the relationship?

The only relationship i can see is that the more strong hands you c-bet the weaker your checking range becomes and the more strong hands you check the weaker your c-betting range becomes.

Along similar lines, the more weak hands you c-bet, the stronger your checking range becomes and vice-versa. Go just a little deeper and think about when you want a strong checking range, a weak checking range, a strong c-betting range and a weak c-betting range. What if your opponent raises c-bets a lot? Folds to c-bets a lot? Bets when checked to on the flop a lot? Deciding how to set up your c-betting and checking ranges based on this information will make it really easy to exploit the hell out of people.

Next week's post goes into more depth on this particular part of the topic.

It can be detrimental to implement more advanced concepts while missing other more basic stuff. One thing that comes to mind, your ranges don't need to be that balanced in 5NL, 10NL, 25NL, 50NL. Playing to exploit your opponents' tendencies is much more important. To give an example, plenty of players there will bet according to the strength of their hand, so if you're going to use bluffs to "balance your value range for the future" you can make the wrong plays.

I really don't like the whole attitude in this thread from a number of people (not picking on you) who have implied that balanced strategies are somehow more advanced than exploitative ones. In terms of the decision-making process, exploitation and balance aren't very different at all, and you use most of the same information to do either. I'm of the opinion that you can't learn how to do either one well without learning how to do the other. It just so happens that finding a balanced strategy in a situation effectively tells you how to exploit several different types of players, so it's often more efficient to find a pretty balanced strategy first and then deviate from it in a direction that will exploit your particular opponent's tendencies.

Being fair to Spoonitnow though (even though he can't take compliments) he is and was far ahead of the curve in poker thinking. He was talking about optimal poker based on mathematics for as far back as I remember.

@bold, not really.