The C-bet

After reading the book Supersystem one thing i picked up that i am positive i was not doing correctly was betting after the flop. I found i slow played too much and I did not fire a continuation nearly enough. I recently started playing a lot of cash game with Doyles words in mind. The book said he C-bets 90% of the time. The way he gets away with this is by going all in when he has draws. If e gets reraised and he figures he has 9 outs he will often go all in. The idea is that people will respect and back down to his continuation when they see this. I figured that this strategy will never work low stake online because the players are constantly changing but i figured i would c-bet a lot more thatn usual. I went into cash games thinking that i would see an imidiate increase in profits but it was the exact opposite.

my question is how often do you c-bet? What are you looking for when you c-bet and how much percent of the flop do you fire when this happens? and what don't you want to see on the flop?
also, when do you fire the second bullet on the turn and what percent of the pot will you bet?

Cbetting is an art. Position, opponent, # of opponents, board texture, stack sizes, preflop action and Hx all come in to play when cbetting.
I cbet about 66%. I'd search out a tutorial on the subject.

wetyeti said:

Cbetting is an art. Position, opponent, # of opponents, board texture, stack sizes, preflop action and Hx all come in to play when cbetting.
I cbet about 66%. I'd search out a tutorial on the subject.

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What he said about cbetting being an art. I like to cbet quite often, but only if I have position. If I raise it up OOP preflop (a lot more rare for me now than when I first started playing) and someone with position on me calls, it'll depend on how the flop comes whether I cbet or not.

i hope Supersystem was a good read because surely it won't help you in your online poker adventure. c-betting is not that easy, just doesn't work c-betting 90% of the time. c-betting is about position, board structure, and opponents stats.

Very few of us limp preflop. When you raise preflop, it's important that you take what's yours. You've built a pot, and you need to be very careful about abandoning what you've built. That's a quick way to turn a profitable situation into a losing venture. When you raise preflop, you're normally wanting to get into the bread and butter situation where you're in a bigger pot and playing in position. This gives you the initiative in the hand i.e. your opponent is responding to you instead of vice versa.

Having said all that, if you just go throwing money in the pot in bad situations by cbetting 100% of the time, you're certainly going to be losing money. Cbetting well is going to take some experience and critical thinking about the game. Of course, there are 2 reasons for cbetting: value with your good hands and stealing. This certainly is an art form.

Value: Many players I coach do not cbet for value nearly enough especially those at micro-stakes. When you're against weaker players with wide ranges, even a middle pair good kicker can be good for 2 or 3 streets of value. The idea of pot control is often taken too far and players miss out on value because they consider their hand to be marginal. But, they often are thinking about their hand strength only as it looks on a poker hand chart. Our hand strength isn't a static thing; it changes based on our opponent's range of hands. If our opponent can have loads of combinations of bottom pair, middle pair, and top pair hands, then our middle pair strong kicker is actually quite strong. Understanding your hand strength compared to your opponent's range and then betting accordingly is going to take time and experience. Certainly posting in forums like these will help.

Stealing: Your ability to steal postflop is based on quite a few variables: your opponent's strategy, how the board connects with the opponent's range, your position, how the board connects with you perceived range, the stack to pot ratio, your image at the table, etc. Some times you have to consider all of these, and other times only a few. For example, if your opponent is very fit or fold on the flop, you can quite simply bet with anything on many flops. An exception might be if you consider his range to be very heavy with broadway cards and the flop is something like AJK. Then the flop has just hit his range too hard to steal.

So yeah... an art

I like what Qtip said. For the most part, it seems many questions here are for micro/low stakes online games. Following what works in live high stakes games for Doyle is like expecting that changing your tires in a Nascar race will win the race for you when you're in a redneck mudbog... it simply isn't the same thing.

Blindly cbetting at ANY stake will bleed you dry. As others have said it depends on many factors. Just because player X cbets 80% of the time does not mean player Y should try and emulate those numbers. Playing the numbers is the quickest way to lose your bankroll. Play the player, NOT, the numbers!

i c bet about 70-80% of the time. Dont mistake a c bet for a donk bet this is something you dont want to be doing. To c bet the important things is position, the board texture (never c bet a scary board), stack sizes and your read on your opponent.

thanks all for the help. Ollie could you explain more specifically what a scary board is though?

wetyeti said:

Cbetting is an art. Position, opponent, # of opponents, board texture, stack sizes, preflop action and Hx all come in to play when cbetting.
I cbet about 66%. I'd search out a tutorial on the subject.

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Does stack size still have an impact in cash game or were you talking about tournament play

Perhaps I can help. A "scary board" would be a flop containing 2-3 cards to a straight, 2-3 cards of one suit, or a pair on the flop (ex. Jh Js 9h).

As for stack size, it does factor into cash play. Suppose you are sitting there with a full buy-in versus an opponent with a quarter of that in front of him. I would play against the short stack opponent different than another opponent with a full stack.

How much you cbet is just as important as when you cbet. It has to be enough to scare off anyone that either didn't get a piece of the flop or just flopped something like bottom pair. The key is to bet around 2/3 of the pot and make it hurt them to chase. Whether you hit or not is really not important. Like it was said, if the texture of the board is scary to someone who just limp/called PF then you have to hit them hard. If you get called then it's time to reevaluate and try to put them on a hand, you may have to give up if you think you might be beat. You have to watch the turn card and see if it was a brick or completed a straight or flush. It really is an art. You have to rely on your reads as well.

Juniorsdaddy said:

Perhaps I can help. A "scary board" would be a flop containing 2-3 cards to a straight, 2-3 cards of one suit, or a pair on the flop (ex. Jh Js 9h).

As for stack size, it does factor into cash play. Suppose you are sitting there with a full buy-in versus an opponent with a quarter of that in front of him. I would play against the short stack opponent different than another opponent with a full stack.

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I definately agree on the other examples of a scary board, but on a JJ9 board i would definately be c-betting, villain can only comfortably play with a jack (or 99).

Yeah if there's two cards to a flush aswell then i'm probably not c-betting unless villain is tight. ( i know your example was like i described but i don't think that was the point you were making)






On a related point. If you decide to check behind on the flop because of a scary board, and then its checked to you again. How often are people c-betting here of some kind? (assuming your hand doesnt improve such that your betting for value)

As wetyeti and Qtip said c-betting IS an art

And forsakenone, I think you missed the point of Doyle's c-betting.
First you have to have something to get you into the pot, a small pair, suited connectors, a high pair, SOMETHING you fell is good enough to put you in the pot. So needless to say YOU RAISE preflop.

Once you do that you isolate the rest of the table
Then after the flop you c-bet to show your strength
(regardless of whether or not you hit on the flop)

Of course, you do have take your position, the board, your opponents range and your image into consideration but you have to do that on any hand.

starky2009 said:

I definately agree on the other examples of a scary board...Yeah if there's two cards to a flush aswell then i'm probably not c-betting unless villain is tight.

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A board is only scary to us if it connects well with our opponent's range. There are many times when I believe my opponent has very few suited connectors. Take for example, we're in a FR game and open UTG. A 12/10 cold calls in EMP. My assumptions would be a player like this is never calling there with suited connectors under like KQs. So, a two-tone flop means nothing to me. However, it might mean something to him, which is all the more reason to start betting.

starky2009 said:

I definately agree on the other examples of a scary board, but on a JJ9 board i would definately be c-betting, villain can only comfortably play with a jack (or 99).

Yeah if there's two cards to a flush aswell then i'm probably not c-betting unless villain is tight. ( i know your example was like i described but i don't think that was the point you were making)

On a related point. If you decide to check behind on the flop because of a scary board, and then its checked to you again. How often are people c-betting here of some kind? (assuming your hand doesnt improve such that your betting for value)

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Yeah, I agree. I would c-bet on a board like that as well. I didn't put too much thought into an example of a scary board. I should know better than that.

I also think that once you check and your opponent checks, it is no longer considered a c-bet on the turn. At this point, I am betting because I believe I have the best hand.

something i rarely do is fire again on the turn after my c-bet was called. How often should i bet on the turn? is it still 66% of the pot? What should the situation be?

timboslice4 said:

something i rarely do is fire again on the turn after my c-bet was called. How often should i bet on the turn? is it still 66% of the pot? What should the situation be?

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This is when you really need to put your opponent on a hand. If you think your opponent is on some kind of draw, you would want to bet pot size or more on the turn to try to stop him from catching his hand. Otherwise, 1/2 to 2/3 of the pot is fine. On occasion, I will bet on every street if I feel I have the best hand and I think my opponent will pay me.

timboslice4 said:

something i rarely do is fire again on the turn after my c-bet was called. How often should i bet on the turn? is it still 66% of the pot? What should the situation be?

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It could make you very rich if you understand what your opponent is chasing (especially if he limped and then called your bet preflop), continue firing , if he doesn t catch the straight or better if on the board there are 3 hearts or a couple you could "semi-bluff" him.
I don t know the stats about this but i m quite sure even math could justify that is profitable to bet like 75 % of the hands

funny i read this i tried exactly that in last nights 5 dollar buy in and had a hero call my all in with middle pairs.lol how he made the call is beyond me but he did..that will teach me that any player will put all his chips on the line for middle pair...

I'm learning a lot from this board....LOL

The micro stakes are a whole different animal lol, but mainly Ive found that c-betting seems to work on 3 suit boards and paired boards only. Some donkeys will call down with middle pair, top kicker ( I know we want players like that haha)

i agree most with this responce...you do it too often at a low stakes game your going ot find yourself getting reraised a lot when you do it... and you dont want to do it with a lot of draws on the board

xdeuceswild81xx said:

The micro stakes are a whole different animal lol, but mainly Ive found that c-betting seems to work on 3 suit boards and paired boards only. Some donkeys will call down with middle pair, top kicker ( I know we want players like that haha)

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I agree with this for the most part based on two things;



A lot of novice players will

1. call to the river with middle or bottom pair or TPWK

or.

2.chase draws without proper odds

it's better to try and push on the turn or make a river bluff if it looks like they didn't hit their flush or straight. You'd be amazed how many players will call off half their stack and then fold to a small river bet when they missed.

I was going to say cbet around 80% of the time.Then i looked at my stats i'm around 60% across the board on all sites.Seems like i have a leak that i didn't know of i would c-bet closer to 80% than 60% of the time so i'll work on that myself thanks for the thread.

You should generally use the C bet if you don't have many outs, the more outs you have the less you want to C bet. A perfect scenario for the C bet is if you have to big paint cards and all smallish cards hit the board. People absolutely have to C bet with AK, whether it hit the flop or not IMO.

I like to check flops where I have big draws, say I'm open ended or on a flush draw it's nice to not get ahead of yourself in that situation. Although to balance your play, you must C bet with flush draws and straight draws from time to time too.