Continuation Bets

When I first started playing Texas Holdem, I read the three Harrington books, and my game is based pretty much on the advice he gives.

As regards continuation bets, If I am the aggressor pre flop, hit or not I always bet roughly 2/3 pot, see how the opponnt(s) react and take it from there.

Going back 3 years with only one caller, 2/3rds of the time I would pick up the pot straight after the flop. As the years have gone by this has changed, and I am only picking up the pot 1/3 of the time on the flop.

With the likes of Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan and a cheeky Canadian guy, to name but three, allways on television, it seems that any two hole cards are now playable.

Without conciously changing my game, over the course of time my game has changed. I was tight aggressive and have become super tight aggressive. EXAMPLE : I recently played in a $2 tournament with 3,500 players at Poker Stars, 7 hours and 350 hands later I get to the final table with 700,000 chips, FLOPS SEEN 8%. Basically, if I can't raise PF I fold, and to raise I need a very good hand (mostly), there are exceptions.

With big pocket pairs, I never used to worry about 579 rainbow type flops (except from the SB or BB, they could have anything) but these days that type of flop has to be treated with a little caution IMO. I still make the 2/3 pot bet, if I am reraised allin, I call (probably A9, A7 or bluff). If the turn card is 5,6,7,8,9,10 or Jack and I am reraised allin after another 2/3 pot bet, I am probably folding my big pocket pair.

If I multi table, I am generally unsuccessfull, I like to concentrate on the other players at the table and take notes.

I often play for 3,4 or 5 hrs getting anything between money back and $10 for my $2 entry, but my style of play has become labourious to me, I feel like I ought to be making some changes to become more loose, can anyone recomend a good book to read involving the playing of more cards PF in tournament play ?

Continuation bets are old hat, please help.

My Poker Library (updated)
http://stickspoker.blogspot.com/2008...an-taylor.html
First Poker Books

they aint old, i got a peace of advice for you and i dont want you to take this the wrong way.
from what you wrote on your post, you seem to have totally fixated your game after reading those books....you said you play pretty much to his exact advice.....this sounds like a case where you have started becoming a continuation bet robot, in which no matter what comes up, you raise 2/3 pot. NLHE is an art, not math, no set of fixed rules. i would start thinking about mixing it up a bit, start playing the player and not making the same move each time, your just opening the door for a huge trap and a massive bluff this way. start thinking of creative ways of taking pots down and scaring people off, making sure they wont go fishing on you with wierd hands.
you say you reached the FT of a 3500 person tourney on PS with seeing only 8% of the flops, that sounds about perfect to me if your a tight-agg player. you seem to be doing fine in this current mode your playing in, you might be having the trouble your having with people entering with strange hands against you since they know you will make a continuation bet.
in MTT's you can get away with this more since you change tables quite a bit and playuer different players constantly, in sng's and cash-games you might find yourself in a bit of a pickle.
anyways, keep up the reading, its good for you and try to switch things up a bit, you sound like the type of player who can get away with a bluff here and there due to your image, i would think of ways to change it up a bit. best of luck 2 u!!

Thank you Storm Raven ... such a large library of books...Bearing in mind the dilemma I find myself in...Lessons from the felt by Matt Lessinger looks favourite to me... what do you think?

Thank you Ballboy, You have a good understanding of where I am coming from, Do you really think 8% is acceptable?
You mentioned check raising, well the reason I don't multi table, and hopefully stay on the same table for an hour or two, is to study and make notes on the opposition, there are allways one or two players at the table (mostly big stacks but sometimes others) who are ripe for a 3 x their bet check raise, and It is a big part of my armoury.
I totally agree with you, Check raising is a great play and puts all others who are not multitabling on the defensive in future hands.

Being moved from table to table is my biggest nightmare, I write so many notes I often have to preview previous hand to try and catch up, I even put the exact date on my notes (reason being they might be a beginner who is learning quickly and not set in their ways)! Playing at Party Poker years back I had two 1,500 player tournament wins, Both funnily enough were from table nuber one, and I never got moved the whole game.

Thanks again for your input

Jacksprat44

I used to be a continuation bet robot- but this article helped me think about the value of checking after being the agressor. It was authored by Blair Rodman- who wrote "Kill Phil" an instructional poker book on how to beat players who use a Phil Hellmuth style of playing.

http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-for...-18099/p/18099

Continuation bets Blair Rodman (United States) 174 Posts. Joined 10-12-2005.
10-22-2005 9:58 PM

A poster on the killphilpoker forum agreed with my assessment, put forth in my WPT Day 2 post, that continuation bets don’t work as well as they used to because more players are aware of the theory behind them and take counter-measures. His question was basically, now what? I'm sure there are lots of opinions on this. Perhaps some of you disagree with this contention. If you agree, how would you combat it? My answer was as follows:

In many cases it moves the critical point of the hand to the turn. One example is the play I describe about checking a bettable hand on the flop to plant suspicion in my opponents' mind and set up a play on the turn. Another thing I've found effective is to fire the second barrel on the turn if I’ve bluffed at a flop that missed my hand. A lot of good players will call a flop bet with nothing, or perhaps a longshot draw, especially if having position, to see what the opponent will do on the turn. If he shows weakness, they'll often bet and take it away from him. Continuing the bluff on the turn will often convince them that you have a real hand, and you’ll pick up a nice pot. To take it a stap further, against players who are looking to test you by calling on the flop, show them the weakness they’re looking for by checking a strong hand into them on the turn. They’ll often take the bait.

One point to be gleaned from this discussion is that the game is constantly evolving. The ready availability of quality information from TV, books, magazines and forums such as this has brought to light many of the advanced plays that were previously unknown to most players. There is a learning curve in poker. The best players recognize this, and alter their strategies to stay ahead of the curve.

Thankyou Bilgert, excellent thread on pocket fives, that is exactly what I was looking for.

The game is evolving and I need to evolve with it.