It seems to me that C-betting is now so common that it has little usefulness on the flop. Sure, weak players will fold away potential outs, but better players will often see the C-bet for what it is and float to the turn.

I have rarely won a pot with a c-bet on the flop (unless it was a small pot with less than 4 players in the hand). But, I have had a reasonable degree of success by double barreling and taking down pots on the turn. So I am beginning to wonder: When deciding whether to c-bet, should I assume that I am committing to a bet on the turn (unless of course my c-bet is raised or a donk bet is made on the turn)?

Auto cbetting against 4+ players is a big mistake. Your flop bet should be for value, not to win the pot.

that would a very very bad thing to do

That pretty much sums it up.

So I miss on the flop, c-bet; miss on the turn, c/f is the play every time?

I would imagine a lot depends on board texture, the nature/number of your opponents, and preflop action as to whether double barreling with air is profitable.

On dry boards against one tight opponent, double barreling will work some of the time. I have found that against multiple opponents it almost never works.

Once you miss the flop, did you have a reason to cbet? If not, you need one.

It looks like you're just blindly cbetting flops and then are confused on the turn with 3 or 4 callers. The mistake was the flop. Also, people don't tend to float in limit. They typically just have correct odds to draw. They mostly don't bluff big bet streets, so you're looking at the situation wrong.

Thanks for this. It is helping me understand more.

In most cases I am c-betting for one of two reasons: 1) The pot is small with only one or two villains and a bet has a chance of taking the pot; or 2) The pot is large enough that I am likely going to have odds to draw another card and will call a bet; so I'd rather keep control and potentially buy some outs. (I don't consider betting for value to be a c-bet). If I can narrow the field down to one or two villains on the turn, I often will bluff if I have air on the turn.

Between c-betting and value betting the flop for these reasons, my flop bets after I have been the raiser pre-flop are a very high percentage. From what I am reading here, however, it seems too high, aka a leak to plug.

Question 1: Why would you want to spend a lot of money to buy a small pot?

Question 2: Why do you want control of a pot? Maybe you should consider the reasons to bet/raise. If you haven't read Theory of Poker, you should. "Keeping the betting lead" isn't actually a reason to bet.

Question 3: (The bold one), why re-define cbetting? CBetting is just betting when you have the previous betting lead. You could do it for value, you could do it as a bluff. There might be other reasons. Do you know them? The action is just an action. Seems like you're talking OOP, so this leads to...

Question 4: If you know how to use pokerstove (I prefer equilab, and so should you), let's look at some board textures. loose/passive villain who raises JJ+, KJs+, AQo+, and ATs+ limps in EP. Two others (let's assume same raising range, to keep it simple) limp in middle and late position. You raise AK in small blind. Big blind somehow folds. 4 ways to the flop. What is your equity on each of the following boards?

• T22
• Q96
• A72
• 876

Winning poker is about winning money in the long run and not winning pots in the short run. It seems like once you've raised preflop, you really want to just maximize the chance of winning the pot. If you raised in what will be a 4 way pot and you are 40% likely to win the pot overall, you've just won a ton of money. As long as you don't squander that profit the 60% of the time you don't win the pot.

Poker is a little more complicated than that:

What was the flop?, how many players? What was the turn? How many players? What was the turn action? What are your pot odds? How many outs do you estimate having? Is it heads up? Does he ever bluff? How many bluff combinations does villain have on that board?

Why do you keep thinking everything has to be done every time?

Automatically cbetting the flop with no regard to the number of opponents is a mistake on its own.

Against few opponents, you can cbet and take the pot down, but you also still have the best hand a lot of the time even when you miss. People "floating" the flop by automatically calling are making some pretty large mistakes - they're going to make second best hands, so milk it when they do.

Against many opponents, you rarely take down the pot, and also it's less likely you have the best hand.

I have answered your questions not to defend my practices but to try and take the dialogue another step farther in the education process. Even after thinking about your questions and answering them, I struggle to put the entire picture together still. I certainly get that auto c-betting means that plenty of times, I could be betting when my equity is too low to be "profitably" making that bet on that street. And I see where this point leads to the issue of making the "right decision" on that street vs. a "win the pot" way of thinking. I have my doubts that the two concepts are necessarily distinct. In other words, the math on one street may not always lead to the right play for winning on a later street.

Then again, I could be wrong, maybe I am just not doing enough math on each street. It's a hard game.

You put in an amazing amount of work on your reply. Hope to have time later to reply in detail. Could you share your ranges for villains on stoves? I agree with results, but wanted to see what you think about opponents. Also, do you cbet all of them now?

Thanks again for your thoughts!

Thing is C put, having 1 OR 2 opponents ( 3+ is even worst) change things dramatically for bluffing issues.

It is written in TOP in the bluffing section or semi bluffing section if my memory is correct.

If my memory is correct, let say you face 2 player on turn and each player have 20% of folding to a c-bet bluff on the turn.
The % of both folding to your bluff should be around 4%...
Hence equity should be very important when facing more than opponent on the turn with bluffing.
So you should not blindly c-bet the turn if aint HU.