When you raise preflop and see a flop, there are certain scenarios that can come on the flop.

1. 1) You get donked into
   • You fold
   • You raise
   • You call
2. 2) You cbet
   • You get called
   • Everyone folds
   • You get raised
   • -----You call
   • -----You fold
   • -----You 3bet
3. 3) You check
   • Someone bets, you fold
   • Someone bets, you raise
   • Someone bets, you call

What you do should depend on several factors:

1. 1) Your opponent’s tendencies.
2. 2) Number of opponents
3. 3) Flop texture
4. 4) Your hand
5. 5) Possible turn cards and how they change the texture of the board.
6. 6) What you want to accomplish

This concept of the week will focus on when action comes to you on the flop and the flop betting is unopened. The choice you have is to c-bet the flop, or not to c-bet. Your decision should depend on these 5 above factors.
Most likely, you’ll be c-betting 65-75% of the time. This frequency should not be determined by slowing down, or speeding up depending on what your % is, it should be based on your opponents. If they fold more, then c-bet more. If they fold less, then c-bet less with air, but value bet more.

So when you decide not to c-bet, it should be because:

1. 1) The board smacks your opponent’s calling range and you have air and very little fold equity
2. 2) Your opponents won’t fold and you have nothing and deem it an unprofitable spot to bet
3. 3) Your hand crushes the board and opponents have very little hope of outdrawing you, or for another reason, you decide not to c-bet based on your hand. For example, you do not want to get raised and lose your equity when you can’t call, based on stack-size, pot-size, and your equity.
4. 4) You want to induce a bluff later, or keep the pot small, or you are trying to check-raise.

For the purposes of this treatise, the only situation to be examined is when you decide to check the flop, with the idea in mind to bet on the turn as a delayed c-bet.

First of all, what are the times when you should not attempt a delayed c-bet?

1. 1) You can’t rep anything with it.
2. 2) You can’t pick up equity on the turn.
3. 3) The villain floats the flop, but gives up a lot on the turn.

So for example, the board is A 7:clubs: 3:spades:

If you check here, and decide to bet the turn, what are you trying to represent? Everyone knows it looks like you have a pair and hate the A. So people might call you down lighter, or they’ll call the turn, and then what?

They bet the river and you don’t want to call. You especially rep less the higher the second card gets.

On the same board, you have 66. There’s no turn card that can come that changes anything really. Most will be higher than your pair. If you check the flop, most of the time, you should check the turn on this type of board with an underpair.

Or let’s say you have KQ. Bet the flop and try to win it right there. You’re not going to improve often and would rather fold a hand like 22, 44 or so that beats you.

The lower my overcards are to the board, the less likely I’m going to delayed c-bet. This is because I can’t really pick up much improvement. So if I have 9:clubs: 8:clubs: on a 6 4:spades: 2 board, I won’t often hit my pair, I don’t have a good draw, don’t have a backdoor flush draw, and won’t care if I get raised and have to fold. So it’s a good spot to just stab and take it down.

If the villain calls the flop c-bet a lot but doesn’t on the turn, you are burning money to delay c-bet. Let’s say villain will call with 2 overs, any backdoor draws, and his weaker bottom pair/pocket pairs under the middle card and worse. Then he folds on the turn a ton. Against such players, you have to bet the flop to get $ from him when he still thinks he has a viable draw. A lot of the time, you should fire 3 barrels if you think he picked up a draw on the turn and it missed on the river.

So when do I like to delayed cbet?

If I have overcards and the board is low and semi-coordinated. For example 872 and I have AJ. On this board, your opponents likely aren’t folding anything. There’s too much that either has a good draw, or has at least a pair. So I usually check back. If a J+ hits on the turn, I bet. This goes back to the theory that when you raise pre, everyone puts you on AK/AQ type hands and will call on low flops with any pair, and when the big card hits, they bemoan their bad luck and muck pocket 5s. The drawier the flop, the more it’s either a situation where you unload the clip, or you don’t fire a bullet. This is because if someone is just calling on a wet flop and turn, they most likely don’t have a strong hand, which would have raised.

When the turn doesn’t help the board at all. Let’s say you checked on a J T 3 flop and the turn is a 2 If your villain checks the turn, he likely is weak or on a draw. I’d bet the turn here a lot since he’d bet any strong hand. But if he calls the turn, you need to bet the river to fold out his weaker hands and draws that beat you.

If the turn is something like a A, K, Q, J, T, 9, 8, 7, 3 I’m checking back. You might think “holy **** that’s a lot of cards! Yes, that’s why you checked the JT3tt flop – there’s a lot of hands that hit it and a lot of cards that complete their draws. If it’s a heart and they check, bet, and bet a non-heart river a lot of times, since he could have picked up a flush draw on the turn.

You pick up equity on the turn. Let’s say the flop is T76r and you decide it’s not profitable to bet with AQ because he hits this range a decent amount. So the turn is a J and he checks. I’ll bet here because I picked up equity.
You think your opponent will float the turn and fold on the river. Remember, on the river, nobody has a draw – they either hit, have a previously made hand, or a busted draw. You can’t get a drawing hand to call again. So if he has that FD that came in on the turn and it misses on the river, then bet the turn, and bet the river. One exception I make is if it’s the A. Nobody folds the NFD, and now they’re not folding TP. So just check or if you have a hand with decent showdown value – 2nd pair or so, you can block bet to get to cheaper showdown.

Also bet the turn if your opponent has a low bet vs missed cbet and low went to showdown. These people aren’t playing your weakness. They’re not stealing pots just because you checked. They’re c/f because they don’t have a strong hand and won’t call you. So just bet.

So when should you not pull a delayed c-bet and just check the turn, hoping to get to a cheap showdown?

1. 1) The board pairs on the turn.
2. 2) The card hits every draw
3. 3) Your opponent won’t fold

When the board pairs, it’s less likely you have a monster, because there’s fewer hand combinations that are possible to make that monster. So the flop is 9h8h3s, turn is 8c. You obviously bet the flop if you’re strong, and when the 8 hits, there’s fewer 8x hands since 2 are on the board. So you’ll get called by weaker hands and it’s harder to bluff.

The flop is T 9 5 and the turn is 7 If he has any kind of draw on the flop, this turn card has helped him, except for QJ w/ no hearts. He either has a straight, a flush, a pair + straight, set, etc. The only thing you’ll fold is random overs he floated, or a stubborn pair, maybe. Even then, there’s no guarantee.

Your opponent just won’t fold any pair. Some people can’t fold bottom pair. A lot of players bet, bet, bet vs these players, then complain because they called with bottom pair. Guess what. Bad players do that. If you know they do it, don’t bluff them. Value bet them.

In conclusion, when you raise pre, sometimes you’ll have the chance to check behind. Sometimes, you’ll want to do that for various reasons, and one of those is that you decide a flop bet isn’t the most profitable line, but a turn bet is. So you decide to pull off a delayed cbet to maximize your equity.
You do so based on the players, the board, your hand, and possible turn cards. If you bet the turn or not, depends on the turn card and how it affects the probably holdings and your perceived holding.

The drawier the board is, the most you either check or unload the clip, because most of the time you’re up against weaker hands. But don’t bluff calling stations, they’ll call you down.

1st

2nd

FWIW sometimes I will check behind with AK/AQ in this spot to vary my play and "represent" that I don't have an ace. If the hand ends up getting shown down, the table (or perhaps the 1 or 2 players paying attention at the table) will know you are capable of checking behind with a good hand on the flop, so you may even be able to delay c-bet with KQ in this spot in the future and get away with it.

Right, there will be a lot of spots where you can delayed cbet and get away with it, no matter what. And you do want to establish that you can check back a strong hand. It's dependent on board texture, villain, and their tendencies.

For example, if you're up against a nit on an A73r board w/ AK, and he folds to cbet 80% of the time, he's not going to pay you off with 99/TT. He won't show up with A8, AT that much, so when he floats, he'll have a set/AK. If you check the flop, they might decide you don't have TPTK and be more willing to pay you off with medium pairs, AQ/AJ that they might have.


Sometimes, too, if it checks to the river - in raised pots and limped pots, I'll overbet the pot, 2x or so no matter if I have a strong hand or nothing, sure you get looked up sometimes, but most of the time, they fold fast.

One spot where I absolutely will NOT check AK/AQ on the flop is when I think they will call down with Ax, or if I have two pair, say A5 on A95, I want to get max value from AJ/AT type hands

So you do need to balance trying to establish that you'll check back with tptk, and get max value vs a fish who will call down with TPNK.

Nice a COTW... too early to digest will read when I get home. Thanks udbrky!

Nice COTW

the same we can say about villain's range.
Paired turn narrows his continuing range imo
and I thnk it is quite possible for us to check back an 8x so we can represent trips.

Yes, it does narrow his range, but it depends on the board texture.

For example, AT88, he can't continue as much as 8328 - here, I don't see anyone folding many pairs, you'll get high card hands to fold, while on the 1st board, I think you'll see gutshots sometimes fold if you bet big, and Tx, 99, JJ type hands.

Nice thread. I sometimes choose to delay cbet because cx flop, bet turn on a TT7 flop can rep more value than if I would bet flop. Ofc I'm only looking to do this when I'm holding air. If I have a value hand then I'm trying to find a way to rep air or just hope that the board hit villains range as well.

What is our strategy in case we choose to dcbet and get donked into on the turn that didnt improve our hand?
I think this is quite common scenario latetly

Depends on board texture, their tendencies, what the card was, bet size.

If it's an ugly board you have no hope - i.e. you were most likely going to give up unless you hit a good card, like offsuit K, to bet, then just fold.

If you think you can raise him off it, raise him off it. I have donk bet for each street and donk bet - fold, so I can see how often they just throw out a bet - in this case, the stat would be bet vs missed flop cbet oop - if it's high, then he might just be betting because you checked.

The drawier the board is on the turn though, if I get aggro on the turn, I'll bet the river most of the time.

COTW is back, the world is saved

fyp, nice op too.

Nice post, just skimmed through, but will read properly later.

One spot where I think it is cool to delayed c/bet is when we have position on a fit/fold villain on a wet broadway board when we have air. Let's say we open the CO with 55 and the BB calls, he's weak-tight. Flop is KQ9ss. He checks. If we cbet as a bluff here, he never folds anything that connects. Sure we can fold out all his PPs, but we can fold them out on the turn as well if he checks again. Villains like this will not check the turn after the flop goes c/x on a flop like this, so we can be sure if he checks the turn, he's just given up. We can also be sure if he leads the flop, we're done. So I see a lot of advantages to checking back the flop here with the intention of firing a delayed cbet on the turn 100% when checked to.