What's the thoery/ thinking behind the 1/3 pot cbet sizing that I'm seeing lately?

Mostly to deny equity. EV lost due to low sizings with stronger holdings can be made up for by polarizing with larger sizings on turn/rivers.

That and the best counter strategy would be for your opponent to raise a dece bit and float more and people don't do this enough.

The sizing makes floating very easy and, as far as my recent experience goes, rather profitable. Not sure if people are mis-applying it at the stakes I'm playing.

Depends on the textures it's being used on. Coordinated boards not so great, but say a flop comes A72r and you're in the btn vs BB. Seems pretty reasonable to c-bet a lot and choose a smaller sizing. This way you increase your value range and get cheap bluffs.

Makes sense. I'm seeing it a lot on low or medium high co-ordinated boards

Can you post a HH as an example?

It's because the "correct" bet sizing has to do a lot with, not just direct pot odds, but also with implied odds or just the SPR. As the stack to pot ratio decreases there is less incentive to bet bigger for a couple reasons; 1) you won't need to bet as big on every street to get stacks in by the river and 2) you don't need to worry so much about pricing out draws or even stuff like BDFD and over cards based on the direct and implied odds because there is less money behind.
If villain has a flush draw with tons of money behind then he may well have the odds to call getting only 2 to 1 on the flop because he can win money after he hits but if there is not much money behind for villain to win then he may be making a very big mistake taking even 3 to 1.

another factor is that players will tend have a linear, depolarized c-betting range in a 3 bet pot because there is more value in just folding out equity and because ranges are not as wide and because draws don't have as much value and it's just a function of game theory that a polarized betting range benifits from large bet sizings and a depolarized or linear betting range has higher EV when using a smaller sizing.

You can look at c-bet sizing in a 3 bet pot kind of like open sizing when stacks are shallow in a tourney.

A lot of players, myself included, will begin opening 3xbb with deep stacks in MTT's or SnGs but switch to maybe 2.5xbb when stacks fall below 75bb and then start min raising to open when stacks get down to maybe 45bb or so.

That is, again, because the open raise sizing is a function of two things; the price you lay the bb in direct odds and the implied value there could be going post flop. When stax are shallow their aren't the same implied/RIO to worry about and so the open sizing can and prob should be smaller.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full Tilt Converter Tool from http://flopturnriver.com/

CO ($25.97)
Hero (Button) ($27.16)
SB ($56.98)
BB ($25.97)
UTG ($40.24)
MP ($51.56)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q, K
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.62, SB raises to $2.06, 1 fold, Hero calls $1.44

Flop: ($4.37) 7, 6, 2 (2 players)
SB bets $1.45, Hero raises to $4, 1 fold

Total pot: $7.27 | Rake: $0.33

Hero didn't show Q, K.
Outcome: Hero won $6.94



Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (5 handed) - Full Tilt Converter Tool from http://flopturnriver.com

UTG ($25)
MP ($24.86)
Hero (Button) ($31.39)
SB ($39.14)
BB ($26.27)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q, K
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.62, SB raises to $2.30, 1 fold, Hero calls $1.68

Flop: ($4.85) 5, J, 6 (2 players)
SB bets $1.62, Hero calls $1.62

Turn: ($8.09) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $4.50, 1 fold

Total pot: $8.09 | Rake: $0.36


Hero didn't show Q, K.
Outcome: Hero won $7.73

h1 pry not great for the aggressor imo

h2 is okayish.

Personally I think c-betting more often with smaller sizing is good vs plenty of people, but in 3bp OOP it becomes less attractive as the in position player can float wide profitably in these spots. H1 is pretty coordinated and I don't think it makes sense to c-bet 1/3psb here OOP. H2 I think a small sizing is okay, but due to being OOP and 100bb I still think 1/3rd is generally not great as the IP guy is floating a very very very high freq on this texture vs. this sizing and the OOP player jus ends up bloating pot OOP.

C-betting frequencies OOP is probably one of the biggest mistakes in today's games.

IP with a polarized range it makes a lot of sense. If they do it OOP at a high frequency then they are either using it as an exploit or are misapplying stuff they saw at high stakes.

The thing about doing it OOP is that IP should float !!!ridiculously!!! wide. Way wider than most people would intuitively guess or feel comfortable with. So for now it's a profitable play against the population tendencies.

It's one of those things that will eventually die out when enough people figure out how to combat it.

Any time your opponent gives you a profitable opportunity with a small betsize, be thankful that they didn't bet enough to make calling unprofitable. Any time you get to earn value from the pot, this is good for you. This doesn't necessarily mean that your opponent should have bet bigger, it just means that you're earning profit.

I play a lot of limit holdem and I'm often thankful that I'm not playing no limit because I get to draw much much more often. Floating isn't really a thing there though because I can't bet big on the turn or river like I can in a no limit game. That's ok with me though because I just like playing cards. This is why I prefer limit games to big bet games. To each his own though.