(Here's a post I wrote about Cbetting and Board Texture long ago that I'd rather add to this thread than create a new post that would say the same thing)
Flop textures are hard to quantify live because donky players have such wide ranges pre. However, their wideness only adds to the fact that
>80% cbet is too much. Why? Because normally, we base our cbets around board textures and villains' related ranges. We can't decide with fair-certainty which boards are best to bet against
1) unknowns, and
2) very-loose players (especially if they're loose-passive).
If I have a read on a guy that his range for calling a raise pre is mostly nut-mining hands like suited connectors and small pocket pairs, then I'm going to be cbetting board textures that have high cards like K
J
8
or A
A
Q
or A
K
9
close to 100%.
Against a player who is very tight pre, I'm going to be using the opposite board textures like 7
6
4
or 9
8
5
or 5
6
10
or 8
4
2
. I'm also going to be barrelling often when a scare card hits.
For example: if I cbet a 7
8
6
board and get called, The 4
is a perfect card to barrel because I know this tight player
1) has basically 0 5x combos in his hand,
2) can't have 2-pair, and
3) is going to be scared of that card with almost his entire range. (Obviously for this example, we also need to know if villain is capable of folding a hand like JJ and how he plays his sets).
However, in these examples we are dealing with players who's ranges are exposed.
I am in no way implying that there aren't board textures we can cbet against all types of villains at a high %.These are generally ones that have low connectivity and coordination like
for example: Q
7
2
or 9
9
4
or K
8
3
or basically any board with low potential simply because they hit less hands.
To add: The generally higher your cbet % becomes, the more you need to start incorporating moves (like 2barrelling, c/raising the turn, 3barrelling, etc.) There are so many reasons for this, but I'm going to focus on the main two that I think are most relevant. For 1:
Live Low Stakes players station the flop more than any other street. It goes back to that common saying "they put you on AK" so they call a cbet, but so often they change their mind when facing a double or triple barrel. Sometimes you'll even hear the "You probably have AK but I fold" simply because they can't stand the heat.
Here's an example of a hand that involves this concept: You have A
J
, you raise and get 1 caller. The flop is 2
2
9
. You bet, your opponent calls. Turn comes K
and you check, he checks back. River comes 10
and it goes check/check, he turns up 5
5
and wins the pot.
REWIND! Why aren't we betting that turn card?
That turn card is an AMAZING barrel card because it
1) rarely hits villain's flop-calling range, and
2) it hits your perceived range so often: "I put you on AK". Even on the simplest level, it's a scary over-card to their 33-88, Ax, or 9x or w/e so you'll get a lot of folds.
The second reason why becoming a one-and-done cbetter is bad is simply because it is unbelievably exploitable. Any decent reg, and even some bad players can pick up on the fact that you are cbetting then giving up. They can then start playing perfect poker against you by floating the flop, calling any piece of the board and folding (the non-nutted parts of their range) if you bet OTT or betting if you check. You just can't rely on 1barrel against these players. I think people scare themselves out of profitable barrelling spots by thinking "Damn, this guy called the flop? He's never gonna fold."
Final thing to add: Cbetting is always going to be better when you have a decent back-door draw. Like, I'd rather be c-betting a Q
7
2
board with 8
9
than J
9
because it helps make barrelling easier on a bunch of turns, regardless of the fact that J9's absolute hand strength is superior to 89 because the only turn that can come to give us a decent draw is 10x, whereas with 8
9
, any club, 6, 10 is going to give us nut-outs, and any J or 5 gives us at least a gutshot. If you do some quick simulations on Pokerstove, you'll see that 8
9
does better against most calling ranges than J9 does.
Last edited by canoodles; 09-05-2011 at 08:57 PM.