How does floating c-bet with rags work?

How should it be executed? Last night, I was playing home game live tournament, and I was constantly floating the continuation bet, followed by betting because I noticed two fishes who c-bet 100% of the time but check it off on the turn unless they got a hand, which then they second barrel.

While I was successful with it roughly 80% of the time bcz I did it 4 out of 5 times, there was one hand where I floated it and then got faced with second barrel, which then I was forced to fold because I couldn't even beat a bluff.

What are all the factors for floating c-bets? These are the only factors I end up considering.
1. I'm in position
2. Player's c-bet on the flop is high but weak turn/river play.
3. We have stack deep enough that calling off the flop and folding on turn doesn't put huge damage to your stack.

What else should I consider?

You got it about right. You may want to consider how other players may range you, though. For example, heads up, villain has AQ and you have a random worse hand, you both miss the flop but villain bets and you call, he checks turn. If you bet here, he may not believe you, depending on the flop texture, and could very well call with Ace high or even try to raise you if he truly thinks you are bluffing. Not exactly a horrible thing since you can fold and your float play will have worked a few times already, but if it gets to the river and your bluff is exposed, you could have a difficult time making the same play again.

ive been working on this very same thing, it works like a treat,
you have to consider the level of the opponents aswell

NL2 : these people are so passive its unreal, if you reraise them and they hold something like AQ, they call re raises but fold if they miss
in my oppinion from playing there, the majority of players are loose passive, and they dont even consider what you have (level 1 poker player)

NL5 : we suddenly have a huge change in opponents way of thinking
They have successfully navigated the NL2 in my oppinion and thats how they end up at NL5, so they understand agression, however as much as there thinking changes they are still easily beaten, as long as we dont overinflate the pots ourselves, reason for this is our opponents now think 2 way

1 : they think of the strength of there pre flop hands
2 : they start to consider your range
(Level 2 poker player)

because they put you on a range, they reraise, and cbet a hell of a lot more, but they are probably so used to taking pots with cbets that when you call there raise, they dont know what to do, they havent planned out the hand at all
a few situations that arose in todays session, player defended the blind with 5 6s, never flopped anything, and yet re raised my cbet, then gave up because i called

an opponent tried to steal with QJo i defended with K2o, flopped my King, check check, i then put out a value bet, in which opponent re raised me with nothing on the board

and sb v bb, i was in the big blind with 5 6o and i called the sb's 15c raise (3x the bb) i thought about it and flop came 5 5 A, opponent cbet, i called it again, she gave up on the turn and called me a "lucky station" opponent had no information on me, and i probably did get lucky, but the point was, as soon as the flop bet got called, opponent didnt know what to do, and i didnt nescicarily have the 5, or the ace,
and isnt that why we float? because our opponents fear gives us easy decisions on the turn? makes us less predictable, and when we have a hand we hope they finally decide to fight back lol

Thanks. I also gotta consider the perceived range although I do but I did it subconsciously. If I just have a image of a calling station, then they might just think I'm a calling station who just floated bcz I'm on a draw or actually have a weak hand(which is the case).

I sometimes tended to float in awful or bad spots. I'm trying to fix this. So I'm trying to learn every factor I should consider before floating c-bets to take it down future streets. Long time ago, I've learned it the hard way that I should consider stack sizes when the guy shoved all-in and I was priced in to call since I ended up catching the open-ended straight and flush draw.

Does anyone float second barrel with rags too? I mostly know about flop but dunno much about turn. Because I know some LAGs who second barrel with rags on turn.

another quick thing to consider, you just mentioned about being "priced in" for the OESD, or flush draw, and as correct it may be, if you are calling the shove on a draw you might end up losing more in the long run, because people will see what your calling the raises with and so will start to bet more agressively putting you under more pressure

What you need to factor in:
-Your opponent and their skill level (level of thought)
-How your opponent perceive you
-Board texture, some flops are more likely to hit you range than other (depending on preflop play)
-Opponent tendencies to 'give up' on pots when faced with resistance
-What turns cards you want to see (to steal the pot away) and what turn cards are bad for you

Floating can be tricky but once you get a better feel for when you can float, it can be a very profitable play.

Man when I float rags It usually ends up bad for me. Good thread. would like to know this stuff myself.

Great thread, I was curious about a couple of things:

Do you take the bet sizing of the villain's c-bet into account and how do you interpret it? For example, if the flop is draw heavy but with no face cards, like and the villain puts in a pot size bet or close to it like he's trying to price out draws, do you think he's trying to protect something or is just pretending to?

On the flip side, when the villain puts in a min-bet with a large pot, how do you read this? I repeatedly see the pre-flop raiser min-betting every street after the flop, of course nobody's going to fold to a 50 chip bet when there's 1000+ in the pot, and it seems like sometimes they have the best hand and sometimes they don't. If they don't, I notice that they've connected but it's middle pair or something like that, it's almost like they're afraid to check and show weakness but also afraid to put in a bigger bet because they might get raised and have to fold.

It's not about calling with a legit hand vs. floating. It's about needing x% equity against his range to continue. If he is cbetting flop and folding turn a lot that number is very low so you can start calling with hands like gutters or one over or even just like JT on Q54r. It's not that you're "floating with rags", it's that you're calling with the top x% of your range, and this hand happens to be in that range.

a hand just to show why we float,
in this hand i took into consideration opponents skill level
his tendancy to give up
and his position (so his range)

Thought process was
Hes on button, can i call this to take the pot away from him?
has opponent hit this flop? did he need to?
well his position means hes looser, but how loose is he?
I have an OESD, but i dont believe im getting the correct odds, and 4 of those outs may help my opponent more then it helps me
so lets call this and see what opponent does? is he good enough to double barrell bluff?
i can check raise but im only getting called by something worse, and preferably im putting him on a high card only
when he misses the turn, has he given up?
only way of finding out is to raise the river
if we dont he is probably checking back again and if he does have ace high he wins
can he let go of ace high?

so many questions, but the questions start to reveal themselves the more the story is told


http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/5631425_03D20E6327

hackmeplz said:

It's not about calling with a legit hand vs. floating. It's about needing x% equity against his range to continue. If he is cbetting flop and folding turn a lot that number is very low so you can start calling with hands like gutters or one over or even just like JT on Q54r. It's not that you're "floating with rags", it's that you're calling with the top x% of your range, and this hand happens to be in that range.

Click to expand...

It's not all simple math. There are player-dependent considerations that affect the numbers. To use the example above, if you know that an opponent c-bets every time, never two-barrels without a made hand and always check-folds the turn when he doesn't have one, you can float with a lot more hands than you could vs a more active and/or trickier opponent.

That's simple math...

kingmunchers said:

a hand just to show why we float,
in this hand i took into consideration opponents skill level
his tendancy to give up
and his position (so his range)

Thought process was
Hes on button, can i call this to take the pot away from him?
has opponent hit this flop? did he need to?
well his position means hes looser, but how loose is he?
I have an OESD, but i dont believe im getting the correct odds, and 4 of those outs may help my opponent more then it helps me
so lets call this and see what opponent does? is he good enough to double barrell bluff?
i can check raise but im only getting called by something worse, and preferably im putting him on a high card only
when he misses the turn, has he given up?
only way of finding out is to raise the river
if we dont he is probably checking back again and if he does have ace high he wins
can he let go of ace high?

so many questions, but the questions start to reveal themselves the more the story is told


http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/5631425_03D20E6327

Click to expand...

Thanks for the analysis. I've learned few things just now. The tendency to fold. Because as people say, you can't bluff calling stations. You can't bluff if they don't fold.

PoKeRFoRNiA said:

How should it be executed? Last night, I was playing home game live tournament, and I was constantly floating the continuation bet, followed by betting because I noticed two fishes who c-bet 100% of the time but check it off on the turn unless they got a hand, which then they second barrel.

While I was successful with it roughly 80% of the time bcz I did it 4 out of 5 times, there was one hand where I floated it and then got faced with second barrel, which then I was forced to fold because I couldn't even beat a bluff.

What are all the factors for floating c-bets? These are the only factors I end up considering.
1. I'm in position
2. Player's c-bet on the flop is high but weak turn/river play.
3. We have stack deep enough that calling off the flop and folding on turn doesn't put huge damage to your stack.

What else should I consider?

Click to expand...

Agree you got it about right. Being able to spot specific weak tendancies
is good skill

I would Add 4th being your table image and your opponents mentality.

for example - I could check call against a thinking player or someone who knows I try to disguise my strong hands.
This often sends alarm bells ringing as I've raised 3x pre flop ''or called his raise pre flop - and check called an Ace or K board.

Or If I have developed a tight solid image I will drift in and out target the fish for 30 mins then the regs for 10 mins, floating some flops and really putting thinking players to the test as they have to give you credit for how your playing at the time

(i.e) the reg may think. This guy is rarely bluffing in this spot so the right play has to be to fold without a strong hand

hackmeplz said:

That's simple math...

Click to expand...

Perhaps you'd care to explain in enough detail so those who are learning the game can understand why you believe this is simple.

Sorry I said that way wrong not that the math in itself is simple because it's not and that's why I didn't elaborate it's that we want to be continuing with top x% of hands rather than randomly deciding at every point whether to "float" or "not". So our overall gameplan should be "I can profitably float here with top 30% of hands, some of which will be strong hands others of which will be draws which rely on future fold equity to make them profitable.

So like my response to you, you elaborated on all the details of why it should be higher or lower and I was just saying that all of those factors work into the math to decide which % we want to pick. But the approach should be based on an overall gameplan and deciding what % we want to float in that situation rather than just getting into a spot and being like meh it's a decent spot to float k I'll do it. That's just gonna lead to you being super unbalanced and making bad decisions.

hackmeplz said:

Sorry I said that way wrong not that the math in itself is simple because it's not and that's why I didn't elaborate it's that we want to be continuing with top x% of hands rather than randomly deciding at every point whether to "float" or "not". So our overall gameplan should be "I can profitably float here with top 30% of hands, some of which will be strong hands others of which will be draws which rely on future fold equity to make them profitable.

So like my response to you, you elaborated on all the details of why it should be higher or lower and I was just saying that all of those factors work into the math to decide which % we want to pick. But the approach should be based on an overall gameplan and deciding what % we want to float in that situation rather than just getting into a spot and being like meh it's a decent spot to float k I'll do it. That's just gonna lead to you being super unbalanced and making bad decisions.

Click to expand...

I agree completely that you should have a plan when you float. You shouldn't call with no idea at that moment what you'll do on the next street. The plan doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can float with a plan of betting later only if certain cards come or don't.

As something of an aside, depending on the definition you use, it may not be possible to float with a strong hand. There are definitions around where smooth calling with a good hand is a form of floating, but there are also others where it's a play made with the intention of taking an opponent of his hand (which is presumably better, else why take him off it) on a later street.