This is something a few micro guys have approached me asking about recently. When i started poker, id attack with guns blazing every flop. Make em make a hand.

Well the problem here is, sometimes they call without a hand, and it puts you in some rough spots. Lets analyze factors that are important to analyze when considering making a CBET.

Factors in favor of a CBET

+++ Board is Ace or King high
++ Board is Queen or Jack high
++ Board does not contain a flush draw
++ Board is relatively not connected
++ Heads up pot
+ Checked to
+ Opponent often folds to Cbet
+ You have a hand very unlikely to have showdown value

Factors AGAINST a CBET

--- Pot is multiway. (The more players, the worse)
-- Flop has a flushdraw
-- Flop contains a Ten and a card somewhat near a ten
-- Flop is monotone
-- Flop is very connected
-- Flop is low
- OOP
- Opponent rarely folds to cbets
- Your hand may have some limited showdown value.

These are all things to note, the more +'s or -'s it has the more important it is. For a rough guide on whether to cbet or not, add up the +'s and the -'s. If you have more +'s, then a cbet is probably better. Vice versa applies.

Now, lets talk about Double Barrels *Note! You should NOT be double barreling with any sort of frequency at very low levels*

Double barrels are ONLY good when the board dynamic changes in a way that DRASTICALLY changes the value of a given hand.

For example a good double barrel.

You open 89s in late position and are called from a fairly decent player in the blinds.

Flop

Tx 5x 4z

He checks, you fire 7 bb, he calls

Turn Ax

He checks, Hero fires 2/3 pot.

This is a great card to double. The flush got in, and an ace hits. without at least an ace +, he is never going to continue here. Dont be afraid of the flush yet, fire out at that board!

Always think about possible opponent hand ranges and how a card changes their value. That is the key to successful double barreling.

Nice post, WC. Thanks.

nice recovery

Hello Sailors

Relative noob here, been playing NL10 FR on and off for coupla years, but very much as a hobby though over the last couple of months I've been trying my hand at 6max with "variable results" (tm) so I'm investing much time in 2+2 (yeah I *should* be working, but what the hey... ) and gotta say for the most part I'm absorbing and understanding the advice I see, esp these 'why (i) suck...' posts, which are always a winner, keep up the good work that man.

This though seems somewhat contrary to other advice, particularly

"Conventional wisdom" as I understand it would be to be more inclined to cbet a drawy board hard and price out the opposition's draw... Therefore, in my mind I have them points somewhat reversed at the moment. I'm not sure what I'm missing here, bound to be something obvious I'm sure so if someone could help me out on this one I'd be much obliged. Please, do forgive my idiocy!

TIA

MM

in theory if you could price out draws ok but in application they are going to call you.

Or when you are up against players that peel flops with a under pairs - or other assorted hands that are best but can't stand another bet.

Lucky

Could you explain why a ten is a bad card to Cbet?

WCG, I'd be scared to fire a 2nd barrel into that A on the turn for fear the villain called with middle or bottom pair plus an A for 5-outer. Can you explain why I shouldn't be?

There are a lot of people that like to play SC or conecting cards like 89, 78, JT, T9, ect. A flop that contains a ten and something close to a ten is dead smack in the middle of this range.

Ill take a shot at this and see if WCGrinder backs me up. But think of it a little differently. You said you are scared that the A hit your opponent. Now think of it from his perspective. He is just as likely to be scared the A hit you. It is completely possible he just hit 2 pair but it is more probable that he hates that A just as much as you hate that A.

WCGrinder - very nice post. I have been trying to find spots that 2 barreling is a good play and this post helped a lot.

A ten like didnt help your hand and villains dont fold 3rd pr on a T high board but they quickly fold when they see that QKA fall on the turn. Unless ofcourse they paried those cards!

Ah no wait, looks like I missed the key phrase:
*slaps forehead* Of course it does, that's the point. It's not "don't cbet a flush draw", it's more "don't cbet a flush draw 'cos if it hits you'll be in a rough spot".

Indeed they certainly do, but I always understood that would be classed as a Bad Decision/-EV by the caller and one would actually want them to make that call as it makes us money in the long run... The more I think about it the more I'm begining to feel I may have been somewhat labouring under a misconception here. I suspect the answer lies somewhere in implied odds, and if the flush draw hits then correctly being able to assess likelyhood of whether a villain representing it is FOS or not and paying them off (or not)... And of course, as I suck, I'm likely getting too many of these decisions wrong and it's bye bye dollar.

Finally, a moment of clarity. Nice one.

congrats on your win into the sunday warm up WCG.

Always a pleasure Doug.

I really am not worthy to give any sort of advice, but micromonkey when you refer to callers who make bad (-EV) decisions when they call with the wrong odds for the draw, this works in your favour when you have a good hand and you're ahead. Here, I believe, WCG's advice applies to occasions when you don't have a hand and you do want villain to fold.

I will now go back to my humble hole and stop spoiling this great thread.

Exactly what WC said, they call too much. At 10NL most players just don't understand pot odds well enough to know when they've been priced out and they just looooooove chasing draws. Sucks that you can't always get them to fold when you are betting light but you can more than make up for that by value betting their draws when you have a hand.

the best one of this series so far for people who are not only losing regularly, but also for winning players. might keep this as a list, similar to hand rankings when u first started out next to my computer so i remember not to c-bet every single flop, lol.

as a more complicated point, when i know a player will often call a flop bet with a flush draw i will often make a big bet then, and when it doesnt hit on the turn ill make a bet big enough to not give them odds to chase. it is a technique which is basically like pot sweetening for me, knowing i can get away from it when draw hits or when there's some aggression. i find that there arent many players who will call 2 streets to chase unless they are an uber donk. it also means that players who call with third pair, or an underpair often fold to 2 streets of betting as well.

think its verging on spew, if not actually being spew, but wondering if many other players use this

Opponent often folds to cbet and you have a hand without showdown value are both WAY, WAY more important than "You have been checked to". Both more important than board queen or jack high too imo.

Also, it's not GENERALLY true that double barrels are only good when the board changes drastically, but its probably a good enough approximation for uNL.

:yes: Two bets on a T637 board looks pretty scary to someone holding T9.

To paraphrase jasonfish a little, you're basically betting that your opponent didn't hit that ace.

Yep and that's usually a good bet to make, but the problem is that as we all know, uNL is full of donks and calling stations who don't seem to think in a logical way. I notice it when I do hit something strong like top 2 pair and they follow me all the way to the river with their pair of 5s even though I bet the pot on the flop and the turn.

oh well, my bankroll is going up.

I wrote this recently in another thread so I may as well put it here too.

Flop Texture

Flop texture depends on how connected and suited something is.

- Very dry boards:

K73 rainbow, Q62r, J55r, T53r, A72r, 842r, etc.

- Dry boards:

KT4r, QT5r, 977r, A65r, etc.

- Semi dry boards:

T42 two tone, J86r, K62tt, A94tt, 866tt, etc.

- Semi wet boards:

QJ4r, Q83tt, JT6r, 873tt, etc.

- Wet boards:

QJ4tt, JT9r, KQ6tt, KT7tt, K62 monotone, AJ4tt, 653tt, J87tt, etc.

- Very wet boards:

T97m, QJTtt, etc.

These aren't completely separate zones, some boards are wetter or drier then others.

The drier a board is the more inclined we should be to bluff. We should almost always bluff dry or very dry boards and rarely bluff wet or very wet boards.

We should almost always double barrel very dry boards and rarely double barrel very wet boards (although if we do we should almost always triple barrel).

Bet sizing

The wetter the board the larger your bet size should be. On dry boards we can (and should) bet about half pot with all our hands. On wet boards we should bet closer to full pot. For boards in between we can bet anywhere from 2/3 to 3/4 pot.

Number of opponents

The more opponents we have the less inclined we should be to bluff (unless they'd read that as strength). Heads up we can bluff frequently. 3way less frequently and so on.

Opponent tendencies

We should be more inclined to bluff rocks or nits. We should be less inclined to bluff calling stations and fish.

Position

We should be more inclined to bluff in position and less inclined to bluff out of position.

Hand strength

We should be less inclined to bluff if we have showdown value. We should be more inclined to bluff if we don't.

Against calling stations and fish we should be more inclined to bluff with weak draws (gutshot, backdoor flush or straight, overcards, etc.). Against tricky or aggressive players we should be less inclined to bluff weak draws or draws we're not happy continuing to a check-raise with.

Opponent's range and our perceived range

We should be more inclined to bluff boards which are more likely to have hit us and less likely to have hit our opponent.

If we open from the CO and get called by the SB and BB and they check to us on a
- KQ4tt/A93tt board we should be more inclined to bluff even though it's wet.

- 653tt/876r board we should be less inclined to bluff.

Image

We should be more inclined to bluff if we have a tight, solid image and less inclined to bluff if have a wild, loose image.

When we have a hand

This is a much more interesting topic and probably a more important part of good postflop play. This thread is about bluffing though so we'll save it another thread. Maybe your next thread could be on value betting vs. pot control, WCG.

Could someone please elaborate a bit on the purposes of a CBET?

Also,
Why such small relative weight to opponent's tendencies?

A c-bet can have multiple purposes....it is important that you know WHY before you just mash the bet button.

It can be:
-For Value....worse hands incorrectly call eg: you hit TPTK and expect worse hands and draws to call or; Flop a good hand 2pair+ with multiple opponents
-As a Bluff.... better hands fold eg: you whiff AK on a Q95 board and your opponent folds 22
-For a free turn card in position
-To maintain iniative...(kind of weak reason but ok)
-For information (my least favorite but whatever)

It is not good to cbet when:
-Your hand has some limited showdown value and you want to try to keep pot small
-You are against multiple opponents, you whiff, and you don't think all will fold to a c-bet based on board texture, stats...etc....

The bottom line is that YOU NEED TO KNOW WHY you are doing what you are doing to help you recognize spots where it is good or bad to c-bet.

Protection and taking down the pot are both valid reasons as well. Just not as great as value or bluffs.

People have mentioned other benefits too, but the main principle is:

Just by probability, it's likely that the flop did not hit your opponent.

You represented strength by raising flop, and you're representing strength again with your flop bet. If there's a high card on the board it's even more believable that you connected, but even on a low-card flop your play is totally consistent with an overpair.

So 1) he's probably weak, and 2) he's now been told twice that you're strong, so he has a large incentive to fold right here.

Plus, if you are betting half the pot (a standard cbet amount), you're getting 2:1 odds on your money, so it only has to work a third of the time for you to break even on it, and it works more often than that.