Continuation Bets?

I have a problem with them. I don't like them. I usually just end up losing the money. If I miss the flop, I don't like to bet, except for the occasional situational bluff and semi-bluff.

If you raised pre-flop and hit big, you are often going to check till the turn anyway. So your opponent isn't necessarily going to "know" whether you missed or hit.

But some people seem to think a continuation bet is usually in order.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

it depends on how scary the cards are on the flop, how many callers, how stacked they are and how loose or tight they are. if there's cards on your flop that could potentially kill you that you put on the range of callers, then maybe you could check it. also, how big in relation to the pot are your c-bets? if the BB is 30, and you raised 120 preflop, then you're betting 30 after the flop, that's pretty weak. are you putting enough power behind them? its hard to try to play anything but your cards, but you have to try to play the person you're up against more than the card. i don't know what kinda game you're playing or anything though. nothing wrong with experimenting a little though until you find what works for you. but yeah, c-bets don't always work out in your favor, nothing always works. i usually don't check it down when i have the nuts either...sometimes it seems right cause you're hoping someone will hit something worth being nasty about...but it looks fishy sometimes when you're all badass preflop and then checking everything down with everyone, i try to c-bet when i've hit too. you're at least isolating down to 1 or no opponents, or trying to most of the time

GCB, I think I found a little leak in your game, in fact, from what you posted, I KNOW I found a hole.

Right here:
You need to be varying up your play more. Change it up so maybe you will C-Bet 50% of the time and just check 50% of the time when you hit big. If you don't do this, then your opponents will catch on. Everytime you bet after the flop, they will know you didn't hit big and you probably got middle pair or some draw and they can bet you off of it. Also, any time you check and then bet out on the turn, they won't call your bet because they know you probably hit something big on the flop. Now this isn't going to work in every case, but regardless, you need to be varying up your plays with every hand. That is why some people slow-play AA, because if they raised with them every time, then people wouldn't get involved with them. You need to do the same with other hands as well.

yeah, I agree, you gotta vary your play to keep the opponents always guessing

Well, let's suppose you bet pre-flop and everyone folds except the big blind, who calls your bet, either because he's getting a discount or because he knows it's just you and him. Maybe he has suited connectors, KQ, KJ, or even a small pair. If he had a premium hand, he'd most likely raise in an attempt to take the pot right there.

If the subsequent flop includes an A, you really can't afford not to follow through with a continuation bet, regardless of whether you were betting with an A and decent kicker, a pair, or something else. He'll miss the flop completely two thirds of the time (as will you), and even if he does pick up a piece he'll most likely still have an inferior hand to the A you're representing with the continuation bet.

Well you really need to do some maths before you make a continuation bet, count your odds and look for all the hands you oppenent may have or get...I play on stud a lot and find it a lot easyer wealther to make a continuation bet or not... its better at times to make a continuation bet to get a bigger pot and puts your oppent under pressure to call if the pot is big.. helps the pot to get bigger.

Thanks for the tip. I do vary it some. And I usually do c-bet if it's heads-up and A hits and I have K because if my opponent doesn't have A it puts a lot of pressure on him, and if he reraises I'll probably just fold, depending on what kind of player he is.


What I usually don't do is c-bet when a bunch of players have called and I'm out of position and miss the flop. That just seems like giving money away. So I just try to hang on for the turn and hope I get luckier there. Thoughts?

the size of the cbet can help alot too. if you cbet 1/2 the pot. you only have to win 1/3 of the time to break even. and those times you do get called you either will actually have a hand or still may improve to the best hand. but putting a player on a range of hands is a needed skill. you got to ask a question like "what is the range of hands they may have" for eg you have AK and thier range is a lot of medium PP's you won't want to cbet a 237 board. as they either hit a set or likely have an over pair there not getting off of. but also want to ask "what range of hands will call my cbet?" is the board draw heavy? then maybe a cbet isnt the best call. but on flush draw boards with a high card i'll often cbet less than 1/2 the pot figuring it will be hard for them to call anybet without a flush draw and an over card to there PP. i like to cbet more IP than OOP. and wont cbet into mutliway pots(unless i got the goods). if you find your cbets are getting caled a lot and they bet the turn often when you check. your going to get a good pay day when you actually have a hand. which should be pretty often if you came in for a raise.

It depends on who is in with you, how many players, and what the board is...if you raised with K-Q suited and the flop comes A-10-5 and you had 3 callers I would not continuation bet it....there is a strong chance someone has an Ace and you risk that you may get check raised or simply raised if your in early position and bet it...by checking you could get that shot to hit that J on the turn and take the lead. Now if you get 3 callers with K-Q and the flop comes 5-5-3 I would absolutely bet it...if someone wants to make it look like they somehow hit that board then more power to them, they simply made a better play but odds are you are not getting a caller here and you dont want to risk a check and then an Ace hits on the turn or even worse a K comes and someone has A-K and you're drawing to one out.

A few quick pointers, these are things i think about when deciding whether to cbet.

1. How many opponents are you cbetting into?? Usually i make a general rule that if there's more than 2 i don't cbet without some sort of a hand, TPTK,TPGK,OESD, FD etc. Don't cbet into 3 people without connecting with the flop in some way.

So lets say you've raised pf, got 2 callers, not hit the flop and its been checked around to you.

2. What are your opponents fold to cbet stats? If both have high fold to cbet stats then i will fire every single time, preferably above 85% is good enough for me but you'll often see people playing fit or fold that have 100% fold to cbet stats, these people are literally giving you money by calling pf too much and then folding on a huge majority of boards to a cbet.

3. What does the board look like? You get wet boards and dry boards, boards that are say double suited with connecting cards, or boards with like 2 broadway cards on are wet boards. Boards like 225 rainbow are dry boards, if someone's called pf with a 2 then good luck to them, they probably made a bad call pf and when they min-check-raise you can fold easily, other boards like 952 rainbow are very unlikely to have hit someone that called a pf raise. I generally cbet every paired board if its checked around to me.

and 4. Nothing to do with cbets really but if someone min-donkbets into you at the micros then raise it by like 4-5x EVERY SINGLE TIME. Regardless of whether you hit the flop or not these donk min bets are screaming out to be raised.

It just generally sounds like you aren't very aggressive in general, and maybe your LP opening ranges are too tight, b/c someone who doesnt like throwing out a cbet isn't likely to raise from the CO with sc's and small pairs, these are hands that your not going to hit a lot of flops with so it's essential to cbet when checked to.

Cbets are a really easy thing to get to grips with as long as your pf play is good, just keep your EP - MP raising ranges tight, playing in position makes poker a much easier game.

depends what kinds of guys you're playing against

if they're the type that will only continue with a strong piece of the board, it's best to continuation bet because it will work a large percentage of the time (mathematically, most of the time they won't flop anything good enough to continue, and will fold!)

There was a really, really, really good looking thread on cbets about a year ago. I'm too lazy to look it up. You could though...

Ive had times where i made continuation bets with 8 high and ended up taking the pot. But trust me if i was on a real table at a casino everone could tell i was bluffing. Im shaking ALOT when doing so.

Position is a BIG factor and the preflop action also will play a huge roll.

I once reraised with 8/4 trying to take the blinds and the other guy his raised money. But i knew there would be chance he'd call.
He either had a big hand or a decent pair.
When the flop showed an ace I decided to bet and see if he'd call or fold.
I raised 2/3 the pot and luckely he folded.

Ive had situations where people would keep calling and i ended up having to show my cards on the showdown.

Continuation bets are hard to perform tho. Position really matters.
Sometimes i call a person his reraise and when the flop dousn't have much high cards i useally do a continuation bet and see if he calls.

You really have to watch out for your opponents playing style.
I once faced a really loose player who kept calling my bets but when i moved all in on the river he folded away.

Aggressive & loose players tend to call you more and hope to hit something or want to scare you away because they know that when calling your bet they show strenght to their hand. But useally you get them to fold on the turn/river (at least to my experience)

Tight players will useally move you all in, go all in themselves or reraise you.
When that happens its a good time to fold (obviously)


My problem is that i tend to do it to often and I end up with people who keep calling me and busting me.

epic smiley, yo

Like every situation in poker there is no right or wrong answer. The right answer can also vary depending on the other players, your position, the size of the bets pre flop etc. You have to make a judgement call which can vary from hand to hand far less table to table. I have won some and lost some with continuation bets. What you do need to know is when to fold.

i feel the same as you on this one i hate that ppl bet when they have nothing and usually arent gonna catch anything either lol just frustrating

That is poker. If you only bet when you had the nuts then you wouldn't be making very much and you sure as hell wouldn't last very long.

uhh, hopefully not

how are u gonna try to win a big pot if you miss a street's worth of value

Continuation bets are in order sometimes. As always it depends. But even under the same circumstances, you need to vary your play. They quite often are effective in taking down the pot. For me, how often I use them depends a lot on my read of the other players.

Excellent notes on WHEN and WHY to Cbet above, mostly... yes it can be quite complicated, but my natural impulse (majority of the time) is to CBet. I always have a good reason to do so, many of which explained above...

most cbets on the flop will get called....its having the stone to make a move on the turn or even the river...you can win alot of pots with this line of thinking, even if you dont have it...but like anything in poker, its all situational

cheers and gl
wooter

????

This isn't a situation that's going to come up all that often.

For you to c-bet and have a bunch of callers leaving you OOP, you must have made the initial raise from EP-MP

Here your opening range is going to be very very strong. Big pairs and High Aces.

Therefore the majority of the time you will not need to connect with a flop to be ahead, and therefore bet.

Are you playing AT/A9 from EP. Are you calling an EP raise with 22 hoping to hit a set?... That type of play would create the situation you are having difficulty with.

Good point, Stu. I wrote that when I was still doing play money. Now I'm playing real money and the light has dawned. Now I wouldn't raise with those (except maybe A9 in 6Max). But I would limp with 22, depending on the aggressiveness of the table, but fold to raises.

... this is from tournament-play standpoint...
If you're c-betting a larger percentage of the time, then when you do hit the flop hard you fire out a c-bet as per usual (I would only check a big hand on the flop occassionally, with intentions of c/r, c/c so that when I do check a flop I won't always have villain firing out and taking it down from me... (mixing it up so that villain can't exploit you as easily).
CHecking a big hand on the flop and then c/c is pretty transparent,.. .whereas firing out a typical c-bet you will be building a big pot in hopes of getting your big hand paid off BIG (ie. depending upon villain/table/my image/etc., I will often fire out a c-bet when I flop a set,... especially against the trickly lag who will often be floating my c-bets with intentions of taking it away from me on the turn (then I might even check the turn vs. this villain in hopes of them firing out a large bet thinking they're taking it away from me.... << of course this depends upon many factors, board texture, past hands vs. villain, image, what villain thinks I am thinking, etc. etc.).....vs. the Loose Calling station I will just fire another barrel on the turn and take them to value town.

There are tons of good articles on c-betting and yah.. it's not so easy to just auto-fire a c-bet in hopes of taking it down but for the most part I will still be firing on most flops vs. one opponent, but depending upon many factors.

Makes sense, especially against an aggressive opponent. I've noticed if you bet the flop and get a quick call, and then make a higher bet on the turn you often get that little pause implying "oops, he must really have something," followed by the fold.

Read somewhere that C-bets used to be considered almost mandatory among the pros unless the board was scary, but it was so common to just C-bet that players began to exploit it. Now they mix it up as other posters have advised...but it is still the best play in general. Lots of exceptions and multitudes of situations in poker.

I look at the c-bet as good follow through. You must use it, but not always, or you will become too predictable.

I think one of my big leaks in my tournament game is C-betting too much. If I raise preflop and see a flop with 1-2 players I'll C-bet almost 100% of the time. It's a habit that's extremely hard for me to break.

You should be rarely c-betting into multipl opponents.

For example if each player folds 40% of the time, the 2 players combined fold 0.4^2= 0.16 or 16% of the time.

A c-bet must work x/(x+y) % of the time to show an auto profit.

x being the size of the bet and y the size of the pot before the bet.

The smallest usual c-bet is 1/2 pot so 0.5/(0.5+1) = 0.33 or 33%

so against a single player who folds 40 % of the time a 1/2 pot c-bet shows a profit because it needs to work only 33% of the time.

However against 2 opponents with 40% fold rates their combined fold rate is 16% which is less than the 33% needed to show an auto profit.

Therefore you cannot bet into multiple opponents on just any flop with the plan of giving up if they call as it simply wont work often enough.

Hopefully that explaination will help you break this bad habit.

I have actually grown to love continuation bets especially in tournaments. Ive found that people are more likely to call a continuation bet in cash games for the most part. But in tournaments its an excellent way to figure out if anyone has hit. One formula ive found in tournaments is to raise 3 or 4 times the blind pre-flop then continue betting even if you didnt hit. This also works a lot when you get closer and closer to the bubble because most people want to be in the money. these are just a few things ive picked up, even though i am still very much the rookie poker player

Personally, I dislike continuation bets.

Curious.... what is it that you don't like about them? What do you use for an alternative (check/raise.... check/call .... check/fold.. or just get it allin or fold preflop)??