When to call c-bets with nothing?

At 10nl a lot of the time people cbet the flop then check-fold the river. How often and when should you call cbets in order to steal the pot on the turn?

And also if you cbet the flop with nothing and it gets called should you maintain aggression on the turn. It just seems week to cbet then check fold the turn and everytime you do it someone bets.

So what are your thoughts on being on either side if this scenario?

Well it depends on the table, but I've noticed that when you deviate from your general style of play for no other reason than to break the repetitiveness of it all while you happen to be card dead then you are going to start outplaying yourself.

If you're at a table where players are seeing 35-%40% flops yet the average pot is 5-10 BB's then you can rest assured that whoever calls your C-bet isn't doing so with A high K kicker most of the time. This means that the best case scenario for you in this situation is that villain has at least an under pair that they're reluctant to fold because they've waited so long for it. It's more likely that they are strong though.

With that said, if you must satisfy your curiosity, the worst thing you can do in this situation is check the turn and call on the river because even if they were bluffing, and calling with air, you'll be left with a decision after they've had a chance to improve for free. If they are in fact weak on the turn the only logical and possible way to find this out with the least risk is to bet the turn. If villain calls, you have your answer and if he folds then you have your answer.

This beats calling on the river because your turn aggression gives you a chance to take the pot AND get information while checking the turn and calling the river sacrifices your chance to take the pot with a potentially weaker hand, gives him a chance to improve for free and has you paying the same price for information playing passively on the river that you would have paid on the turn aggressively, possibly stealing the pot.

What if he bets the river after your aggression on the turn you ask? Again, you will have had your answer on the turn since villain called and it's time to let it go.

In the end, unless you have some type of read on your opponent, it's a good idea to let it go after your C-bet has been called and you have nothing but 2 overs or an under pair. If you do have a justified hunch that your opponent is weak and you're willing to call the river then you need to bet the turn. This is what it means to play aggressive poker.

EDIT: If you're in position to call a C-bet with air then the only reason you should be calling a C-bet with the intention to steal on the turn is on a rainbow board/you have a read. Even then you will have more than likely been better off raising on the flop to avoid a scare card on the turn. Not a min raise, but 3x should do it. If you're called then you're probably beat, but if you're unsure and need to find out. You've gotta bet it once again on the turn if you'd be willing to call a bet on the river. Same price most of the time and you'll be the aggressive. Best to let it go I say...be patient.

1.) Never call c-bets with nothing .. you need some kind of equity. 2 over cards would be "something"

2.) When you float, firstly the board should be relatively dry. Your villian should c-bet virtually every flop. He should also shut down most turns and fold a lot to turn c-bets.

So he c-bets, you have some equity. You call. He bets you KNOW that he is repping a hand and fold.

or

he c-bets, you have some equity. You call. He checks and you KNOW that he is unlikely to call with most hands.

or

he c-bets, you have some equity. You call. You spike a higher pair on the turn. He bets and you feel comfortable calling with what is now likely the best hand.

Thats it.

You cant float a villian who bets most turns. You can value call but not float.

+1

You should always have a little something equity wise to fall back on when you float.

As for when to double-barrel, again look to you equity. If the turn adds equity to your hand or to your perceived range (if villain is good enough to think about your range) then you should bet again.

Yeah, you dont have a perceived range if you are the only one involved in the hand who perceives it.

Very true and you shouldn't really ever be doubling with air against people who are only playing their own cards

Which is 90% of micro players.

When you call a C bet with ZERO equity you are bluffing.

When you call a C bet with SOME equity, but not the most, then you are semi-bluffing.

That's it.

There are times when it is warranted for you to go for an outright bluff, which I tried to illustrate for you in my previous post, and you should not ignore this part of the game. The object of the game is to win money.

Whenever there is money on the felt and you have a chance to take it you need to make the right play. If you don't then you are losing money. Sometimes an outright bluff is that play. In this case, calling/raising a c bet on a rainbow board with air can potentially be that play.

Not only would it help your image, but it would also tilt players into overplaying their hand's against you, getting you paid off because your aggression gets taken personally. I

In a perfect world you'd always have equity in your hands when you need to make a play (semi-bluff), but as you're about to see...

YouTube - Phil Ivey versus Lex Veldhuis preflop action

Not too much equity there for Phil is there? Now, he doesn't do that all the time, sure, but I'm not saying you should be calling with air all the time either. Sometimes (when you have a read or are at a certain type of table), to reiterate and answer the question in the title of your thread, it's appropriate. When are these times? My OP.

Ivey has no equity if called but I'd say has has plenty of FE wouldn't you?

That just isnt true.

The single biggest mistake micro, small and even midstakes player make is they call too much and dislike folding hands.

When you look at the best players in the world playing, you see these amazing bluffs work because the villians are good enough to understand their perceived ranges, their opponents perceived ranges, they can all hand read, they understand board texture, how their opponents range hits that board texture etc etc etc.

The simple fact is bluffs dont work all that much at low stakes because villians dont understand when they are crushed by a range that includes some bluffs and when they are ahead.

The 2 cards in front of them represent 85% of their decision making process.

I know it is common in cash games to 'float' with overs with position. You have AK, you miss the flop but have position on villain who is bad and c-bets often so you call his c-bet with the intention of bet/ raising on the turn.

I would love to see someone post a report in PT for a large sample (50k hands+) (I'm talking about microstakes full ring <25nl) that shows their total amt won and bb/hand when they do this. (I am pretty sure PT has this capability.)If someone can show that this is a +EV move and is better than folding I will consider doing it more often.

Its difficult to filter

In order to float, you need a dry board (dont want villian to be able to call most turn bets after he checks)

You need a villian who not only cbets too much but also check folds a lot of turns (again, its no good floating someone who will bet a lot of turns)

Most people look at their 2 cards, i.e. AK and then look at the board, AK is an overpair, and then see the bet and think "I can float here". That isnt the case.

We float because we think villian is bluffing and will give up a lot on the turn. We need a villian who is aggro on the flop yet very passive on the turn.

We cant float a calling station or a manic turn better.

How is it not true unless you overlook the operative word and entire point to my post which is sometimes.

You don't need to be a big time player playing against other great players in order to make great plays. I've already said in my OP that making moves depends on your table and the information you have on your opponents which you elaborated on by saying some base decisions only on the 2 cards they hold. Use that agaisnt them when you can.

Sometimes moves will owrk at microstakes and it's important to be able to recognize when it's an option and act on it. If you do not then you are losing money.

I don't know what FE is, but I'm sure I couldn't agree with you more which is why it's improtant to take advantage of spot when you see them come up. Ivey would not have made 50k in that hand had he not taken advantage of the situation the way lex was trying to and exploiting a rare situation.

Thats why you cant do it!

When you bluff, you have 0 equity. So its not like incorrectly value betting where you value bet a bit too loose and get called by a range that beats you (but of that range you beat some). When you bluff and get called, you loose every time.

Therefore bluffs need to work a lot in order to be profitable. They have to be more successful than your value bets.

When you couple that with villians who are looking for reasons to not fold, you find that bluffs rarely work.

Most of the time you think you have pulled of a decent bluff, in fact you have more likely run into a player trying to run a bluff himself. You are likely against a range of hands with similar SD equity to your own, but because they fold and you were bluffing, you decide to put them on much bigger hands than they likely hold.

Just dont bluff at micros! Value bet, value bet thin. Value bet really thin. just dont bluff.

Sounds like FE stands for fold equity. If thats the case then I don't see how I'm not being agreed with here as I'm pretty much talking about just that in my responces.

You have lots of FE when you're aggressive and betting the turn/raising the flop while you hold a hand that has little initial equity and can get your opponent to fold. Isn't that the entire point of bluffing??? Don't you only bluff sometimes??? That's exactly the point I've been trying to make

FE= Fold Equity sorry.

I actually doubt that Ivey's play works often enough for it to be profitable but I doubt it's more than a small loser overall. Also we don't know if Ivey had picked up some sort of tell that led him to believe a shove would work most of the time. Plus it's Phil Ivey, he reads souls.

From a theoretical point of view bluffing is something you do a lot or dont do at all.

There is no real reason to bluff occasionally.

Simply split players into 2 types.

Call a lot

and

Fold a lot.

I can see reasons to never bluff and bluff a lot.

I cant see any reason to bluff occasionally.

This is just not always the case at every microstakes table man. Often times players are more than willing to let it go after their C bets don't work. You need to recognize when you're at one of these tables and play the game accordingly. You have to adapt.

If you are multi tabling then you couldn't be anymore correct for the sake of simplicity. Even then you'll find that you will have lost like 400BB with all the raise folds you end up making when half the time you coudl've at least broken even.

Exactly. He made that play with information. Doesn't do it all the time. Guy would be bust.

Think it through.

If they were willing to let go if their c-bets didnt work, then their equity share in the hand is low and they put themselves in a position where they are bluffing too often and then giving up.

So bluffing isnt working out too well fro them is it?

Well, the play I just posted fom Ivey is a perfect reason to only bluff occasionally. If he did that all the time he would be predictable for one and busto as I just replied for another.

You don't want to either bluff a lot or not bluff at all because you are then a predictable player. You need to mix it up. This is how you get action when you play. This is how you get other players to overplay their hands against you. This is how you get players to underplay their hands against you. This is how you put people on tilt and play the game correctly.

It's why Ivey is as good as he is because he's been able to not only understand this but impliment it as well.

Question:

You have a bluff catcher on the river and your opponent bets pot. You think he'll make that bet with all his hands that beat you and all his missed draws. You think his missed draws make up 30% of his range.

How often should you call to maximally exploit your opponent?

Its close but there is only one answer.

(trying to not give the answer away)

The other point I should have made was about raising vs calling both preflop and on the flop. By flat calling preflop you do not narrow down villain's range at all. A player with 100/100 stats raises with not only 32o but AA so when you flat call you are playing against their entire range and must calculate accordingly. For loose players that range is very, very wide and postflop play becomes that much more difficult when you don't narrow it.

On the flop by flat calling you also are not defining that bet is a value bet or a bluff. By raising you can find that out much more quickly. To me calling is really what you do when you need no more information about your opponent's hand and feel that by raising you would lose value over calling. That's why I don't like to float with overs or even a single pair. On the flop I have lately been continuing my raise or fold style that I had been always so good about preflop.

Since a preflop investment is typically 3/4 bb by folding when you miss you lose very little but when you start to chase by calling or betting bigger and bigger amts on each street you are risking many chips for what in the long term is a nominal return. After all the average EV for AKo is going to be somewhere around .5 BB. I do very well with AK , I think in part because I know when to release it and in part because I perceive that my table image must be pretty scary as my 3bet success lately is very high lately.

Dude, you are contradicting yourself. One minute you acknowledge that the majority of the field at microstakes is bad and thus makes bad plays, so you should play accordingly (it seems this means ultra nitty to you).

Then when it's convenient for the sake of whatever it is your trying to prove you act as though bad play should not be expected when you say something like , "If they were willing to let go if their c-bets didnt work, then their equity share in the hand is low and they put themselves in a position where they are bluffing too often and then giving up." So I should think it through because people don't normally play that bad.

Uhm, Yeah! they make dumb plays like this all the time. Which further drives home my point that it's up to the good microstakes player to exploit ALL TYPES of bad play and not just bad nitty play.

The exploit didnt involve any bluffing did it?

So you like betting/raising for information?

Value
Bluffs
Collection of dead money

Which category does your bet fall into?

You arent playing a single hand.

You are playing an entire range.

What you know about the villian is that he cbets too much on the flop and then check folds a lot on the turn.

You call with AK is for value, because you already know that you will win this pot more than 50% of the time on the turn.

I don't have a clue dude. I'd guess about 30% of the time.

And that is the reason bluffs dont work at the micros!

Well, alright guys for what it's worth I see your points, but I think there is more to the game than simply numbers and that aspect should not be ignored because you are unsure how to overcome it. There will always be opportunities at the felt that ABC poker will not help you through, even at micros... all I'm saying. Sometimes you've gotta make that move.

Answer in spoiler in case someone doesn't want to see for whatever reason:

Dont you see.

Even when presented with a situation where you are given a 100% accurate range and a bet size that can never justify the call AND more than 15 seconds to make your decision

AND

You still represent one of the better micro players....

You still managed to make an unprofitable call.

Thats why bluffing at the micros dosent work.... They find a way to call too often!

Also don't think I'm picking on you Liveone1. I'm not but I did think you would get the answer wrong. I also guarantee you're not the only one who will read this thread and do the same or similar. It is our nature.