Follow up betting

Well, ive been playing poker for about 4 years now, but online only for about 4-5 months. in both follow up betting is a key element of any hand.
i find myself in more of a dilema in this issue in online poker.
suppose im to get AJ pre-flop and i raise a few times the big blinds (doesnt really matter how much), and then i miss the flop....
in real poker i find myself able to see pther people and have an easier time determining wether or not they hit something. in onlione poker, if im first to talk, its pretty much a gable, isnt it???
so i guess im just looking for some good advice form some experienced players. i feel that this is probably the weakest aspect of my game.
i will sometimes get re-raised or sometimes i dont even make the follow up and then wish a did and i just get rather confused about the whole thing.
is there any specific time in which a follow up is more likely to work than at other times?
hope to get some good tips,
thx in advance

Generally between 2:14 and 2:17 on Tuesday afternoons.

No. As in all poker situations, everything matters. Information about your opponents, their tendencies, etc...will all affect your decision.

Mathematically speaking, Cbetting with air into more than three opponents is where it starts to become unprofitable as someone will likely have hit the flop. (I don't remember the exact numbers, just the premise).

If you are having a big problem with continuation betting (that is what you are talking about here), do a search here in the forums for "cbetting" or "continuation betting", there are a lot of topics on it. If you look in google, there are tons of articles out there on it too. It is just to wide of a topic to cover in a reply. One big thing though, playing some of your weaker hands in early position is probably on of the big reasons you are running into big problems doing this. If you are raising that AJ UTG, you'll easily see how hard it can be to play hands OOP.

Then don't play many hands oop. AJ is a hand for late position.

Online requires you to start playing poker.

Look at your opponent, what range of hands does he play.

Look at the flop, how well does this board connect with his range of hands?

Think about his fold to c-bet frequency, can you bet 100% of missed flops and make a profit? If not think more about how this board hits his range.

Think about your range, when you bet this board, although you have now established that it doesn't hit your opponent, will he really believe it hits you? Will you have to double barell? What turn cards would make you give up?

What is your position?

What is your stack size? Will he shove most steals?

Basically its time to start playing a game based on some form of mathematical logic rather than basing your decisions on whether the guy scratches his nose or not.

Online play is significantly better than live play at equvalent stakes.

Roughly speaking 10NL online = 100NL live.

Mathematically speaking, c-betting a missed flop with a 1/2 pot bet is incorrect if your opponent folds less than 33% of the time.

And c-betting air with a pot sized bet is incorrect if the opponent folds less than 50%

With multiple oppoonents, (with the same ranges)
multiply the fold to c-bet stats. so 3 opponents with a fold to c-bet stat of 60% = 0.6^3=22%

So in this case the combined flod to c-bet of the three opponents is 22% and therefore too small to c-bet with air.

Sort of. Besides all the great advice already posted on here, I like to consider my opponents ranges and what my image is to them. If I am playing tag (tight aggressive) I can usually get away with more c-bets (continuation bets) than when I am playing other styles.

For example:
Tonight at the final 2 tables of a 90 person sng I was getting some big hands for a short while then went completely card dead for a bit. During the period of getting big hands I showed KK & QQ and got called down when I had AA and won. This worked out well for me so the next time I raised pf and had 55 utg I only had 1 caller, the bb, I put him on a wide range as his was seeing a lot of flops and chasing a lot. When he bet small on a Q high flop I did a large reraise of 3/4 the pot and he folded. I had not improved my hand but guessed he would put me on something big like AQ su, JJ-AA.

After a period of being card dead I got QQ. I did my standard raise I had been doing at that table and got 2 callers this time. The flop came out dry but K high. I did a c-bet of 1/2 the pot and 1 player stayed with me. I wasn't happy about this, thought about checking the turn but instead decided to throw out a pot sized bet to see what he would do. He asked for time, thought about it, must have put me on a big hand and folded stating he thought his J kicker with his K wasn't high enough. I said what was expected, "Good Fold, Good Read". Afterwards I stole a few more pots with air in position to put me at the final table.

So yes, there can be a good time to c-bet and knowing your opponents ranges and what they think your ranges and style is can be the key to pulling off a good c-bet.