So I see lots of advice these days where people advocate c-betting a small size, like 25% pot, with ~100% of our range on certain boards. I vaguely understand the idea; it puts our opponents in a tough spot with a lot of their range and allows us to deny equity while also getting some thin value. I'm just trying to get a better handle on the concept.

The way I'm used to playing is similar to Doug Polk's Post Flop Gameplan approach. There have 4 categories of hands: Fat value, marginal SDV, good equity but no SDV, and complete air. Categories 1 and 3 are usually bets, where as Category 2 generally x/calls and C4 generally x/folds. This approach is clearly more polarized.

What makes "range betting" better than the latter approach, and how do we decide when to do it? What factors make a situation ideal for betting our whole range with a small size?

Additionally, I know "range betting" generally implies cbetting ALL of our hands, but are there ever hands we choose not to include (instead betting like ~90%)? If so, how do we decide which hands not to bet?

Finally, how do we deal with flop raises? According to MDF we're gonna have to call some % of our range to avoid being exploited. Of course, when we bet all of our hands on the flop that MDF % is gonna include a lot of very marginal stuff. How do we make sure we properly defend on the flop/turn/river when we have so many weak hands? Are we generally bet/calling flop with any pair?

Also, do you guys know of any helpful training videos/articles that cover this topic? I haven't been able to find much myself.

Thanks in advance for the help. This is a complicated topic that I don't know much about, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

Another thing is that there are 2 more streets of play and hand value is not as clearly defined, so keeping our continuing range very wide can be beneficial.

We risk less on stealing the pot and improve the EV of hands we would otherwise give up on, which improves our overall ev.

We also keep ranges wide which might benefit us in different ways on future streets.

Also I don't think the 2 philosophies are necessarily at odds. I am sure there are flops and situations where Doug Polk would advocate just betting our whole range (perhaps with variable sizing).

It's all about range/board interactions and who holds the most nut combos and how likely a range is going to hold future nut combos.

The narrower the opening range and the more the board benefits that range, the more combinations that range can bet, so the closer to 100% you will get.

So someone opening from UTG with a high card unconnected flop is likely to bet at a high percentage of that range than someone who opens from the button and hits a high card unconnected flop just due to the sheer number of additional hands in buttons range.

Choosing flops correctly based on the above criteria I mentioned will help prevent this as well as choosing opponents wisely. Good opponents won't c/r you on those boards and bad opponents typically aren't aggressive enough overall.

If you're playing against a tough player you can also cbet less frequently as a defense as well as mix sizings etc.

I would say this high cbet frequency play is much more of an exploitation than an optimal play.

Above all just don't defend some hand because you think you have to reach some arbitrary defense frequency or you'll get exploited. It doesn't really work that way the farther you get from the river.

Position is important, ofc, and it seems you are talking about OOP cbet percentages, on boards that favor an early opener range.

The problem with 100 percent bets is you never get to check-raise and generate a huge pot.

If you go 90 percent, the problem is having a balanced check range that contains only ten percent of your hands.

I would be surprised if Doug Pork did not cover this extensively in any material with his name on it. I defer to his material and encourage you to reread it or gather more of it. Doug has never claimed to be a world beater at 6-max but the theory is rock solid and can be tuned by you to exploit your perceptions of your particular opponents.

Personally, I bet larger and less often. Also a Cbet that gets called does not require a second barrel on the turn to be balanced. Often, “give up” is a perfectly balanced and profitable decision on the turn.

Thanks, this post was really helpful. I've done some more research on my own and I think I'm starting to get a better grip on the concept. I guess the main thing that I don't understand is how we defend our range when we DO get check-raised. I assume our opponent should still have *some* check raises even though we would usually make this kind of bet on boards where we have the equity/nut advantage. Can we just call with TP+ and our good draws while bet/folding lower pairs? Also, if we bet and get called, how do we decide which hands to continue with OTT vs. give up with? From what I read it seems like after we make this range bet otf we generally want to polarize our range on the turn. Can we just proceed the same way we would when making a polarized cbet otf, continuing betting good TP+ and choosing an appropriate # of bluffs based on our # of value combos?

I am sure your opponents may have some check raises but just because they may have a check raise range does that mean you're being exploited in some way?

How do they balance their check raise range?

What if the top of their check raise range is still lower than your best value hand? What if it's equal?

What happens on the turn when they c/r and you call? Who is likely to benefit from more turn cards?

Like I said looking at the flop in isolation is completely different than looking at the river in isolation. Things don't necessarily work the same as there are more streets and more betting that can change the EV of your entire line. So you can't necessarily look at the flop in isolation here and think "oh I am overfolding" because it could be worse to continue just to prevent yourself from maybe being bluffed.

Depends on board texture, villains likely range composition, how future cards help or hurt your hand etc. I would probably tend to flat everything if I had the range nut advantage unless I thought villain was prone to spazz bluff 4bet or something.

What's villain's calling range?

Which range (villain's or ours) is helped most by the turn card? Did you pick up some backdoor equity?

How would you bet your value hands here (big or small)? How does that effect how you can continue bluffing?

If you are the aggressor or believe you can take an aggressive action I would think of every betting decision this way.

What are my value hands?
How do they interact with villain's range?
What hands can I bluff?
How do they interact with villain's range (blockers and equity)?
What betsizing makes the most sense based on all the above?