Have cbets been getting smaller?
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 3,479
Hi, I've been out of the loop for a little while but noticing a trend in the hands posted on this forum. I'm seeing a lot of cbets for only 1/3 pot or less. I am used to 2/3 pot from a few years ago. Why is this a trend lately, and if so, are people exploiting it with lighter raises/ floats? Should we?
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 1,027
I think that it's important to choose the c-bet sizing depending on
- where does our hand stand within our range
- what we want to achieve : get the value from weaker hands/protect our equity/fold stronger hands out.
- the eff. stack size
- no of players postflop
- stat of V (large sample size)
for example if we have a monster and V might hit the flop and he has deep stack, using 1/3 PBS is fine.
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 928
The bets are smaller because stacks are smaller in tourneys usually. In cash games you usually play 100bb deep at least, but in tourneys you play well under that most of the time.
So preflop raises are usually smaller as a result and bets are also smaller, especially flop bets. A smaller size allows you to bluff more often, which is mostly what cbets are about.
If you start the hand with 25 blinds and you put in around 2-3 pre (single raised pot) then if you want to cbet 2/3 pot it will cost you almost a quarter of your stack. That's a bit much, and you would not afford to do it a lot since most of the time you're not going to have a hand.
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 1,688
Right, they are not raising or floating as widely as they need to be so may as well save money but you should expect some loosening.
Which is why its funny when I see a player cbet 27% then go "oh he called, now I cant bet turn for value its too thin", or "now he cant have any air so I gotta check fold this connected turn", or "whoa he raised me I need to fold the 3rd nuts". Like if dont have Snowie's or Piosolver stomach for action, don't induce it with Snowie/Pio sized bets.
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 4,435
Yes cbets have gotten smaller. Pros started doing it and then it trickled down to other levels, though I'm sure many low stakes players do it without understanding why.
Sort of like the preflop minraise epidemic.
