Hi everyone!

I've been watching copious amounts of streams from this year's WSOP events the past week, and I've been noticing a giant drop in C-bet frequency from most, if not all players. If you watch poker as new as 2015, the pre-flop raiser places a C-bet in most situations, especially when there's only one caller, and almost definitely if the raiser also had position on the caller, but this year it seems the C-bet "trend" has all but vanished. More to the point, it's also become quite usual that the pre-flop raiser doesn't even place a bet if they hit the flop, unless there's a giant draw or two, and not even then in some cases, I noticed. I guess it makes sense not to bet if you hit if you don't intend to hit if you miss, but it's still strange to me.

Has anyone else noticed this? If yes, why do you think this is so? I understand the potential benefits of not C-betting, and after all ever strategy has its pros and cons, also trends come and go in poker (like how bet sizing has gone through a gradual decrease in the past few years from 3x in early 2000s to 2.5x and lately to min) but the C-bet has been at least a very positive EV play for me personally, and though it lends itself to a slightly more high-variance strategy, I can't quite shake the habit of C-betting about 75 percent of the pots I raised pre, unless someone gives me a convincing argument why C-bets are going out of style (which please do lol). In fact, if anything, since the C-bet has gone out of style it feels like the same actions now reps way more strength than when everybody C-bet all the time, so it has become even more "potent" a move than it used to. Anyway, looking forward to hearing some thoughts on this.

Thanks for reading and Good Luck out there

Good players absolutely shred people with high cbet frequencies. The average player has become a lot better so naturally cbet frequencies go down. Against droolers you can still do just about anything and win.

Cbets are still fine. You shouldn't cbet 100% of course, and when you miss on a very wet, high-card heavy board with more than one caller you should probably not cbet. But you should also lower your cbet percentage when you're against players who know others cbet a lot and like to steal against them or float a lot.

You just have to tweak it based on circumstances. But it's still (and always will be) a powerful play on flops like Axx or Kxx or Qxx, etc., because you can legitimately represent hitting a lot of flops and your range is not narrowly defined yet, and your opponent will have to bluff into the unknown if they miss and decide to try to play back at you. It puts them into a difficult spot, so they often will just fold and move on if they have no piece of it. Most amateur players especially will just give up unless they are crazy. Having said that, a good player will know that a Kxxr flop is a good spot for you to cbet, and may try to steal back. So just be aware of how your opponent plays.

But obviously if you always check when you miss, you will be extremely exploitable.

C-betting at a very high frequency developed as an exploitative strategy against players that called (or limp-called) pre-flop with too many crappy hands that they would then check-fold on the flop.
The basic idea was this: "Many weak players call too much pre-flop and then play fit-or-fold, and it's usually FOLD, so you should bet with air".
Many of these exploitable fish still exist at the lowest stakes, but the "fold pre" message has got through to many players, so they have slightly stronger calling ranges pre-flop and don't fold on the flop so often. Because of this, randomly betting most flops is no longer as profitable as it used to be.

As the pool of highly exploitable players dries up (e.g. when you move up stakes), a more theoretically sound strategy is required. Quality c-betting is taking over from quantity c-betting.

Cbetting frequency will be higher the stronger range you play as well. So there is no one % that's correct, although 75% sounds really high.

as players get better they learn when to c bet. and not play like a robot. which may work at tiny stakes but not against experienced players.

The classic one and done is out of style; bet the flop and give up out of position on the turn. A floater's dream situation.

Cbetting with a lower freq than 75% in MTTs IP vs BB is almost certainly a mistake. Pretty sure my cbet in MTTs IP vs BB is 95%+ when antes are in play. I'm assuming we are talking about mtts here?

In lower stakes, there's a trend that if player checks back the flop, you should bet very aggressively on the turn, because we assume that the players range is capped.
For amateurs that may be the case for sure. They are not aware about protecting their checks. They bet when they have it and check back with nothing, and therefore fold too much to turn bets.
So that's why more people choose to check back the flop. They think it's more profitable to induce a bluff from villain.

I would attribute the reduction in cbetting to the current craze of GTO playing. People realize finally that if you fire at the pot a high % of the time, you are exploitable. Janda's book played a big role in this. Fortunately, the vast majority of players completely ignored Janda's advice of having to work out a balanced approach for your villain and game. They just saw the % that Janda used for high stakes 6-max cash games and use it full ring cash and tournaments.

The result is that the players that think they are playing GTO are actually exploitable. I suggest exploiting them.

In advanced games you probably need to mix it up. Like sometimes check your good hands on the flop. Luckily for me I play against folks who mostly all fold to cbets way to much

Every one of your actions should have meaning in poker. And I agree that the 'meaning' of a C-bet has decreased in value. So in response player's tend to do it less, thus hoping to increase it's merit when they actually do c-bet.

I've always noticed a high tendency to check through Turns in a lot of tournament play. Perhaps this has now come 'to be' on the Flop instead.

I've also noticed that raising from OOP has increased now that the 'standard' opening sizes are smaller. Certainly in the later stages of a tournament when stacks are shallower it may be wiser to avoid 'unnecessary' c-bets when the Flop misses your perceived range and the pot is small enough for your IP opponent to float into the Turn.

Balance is the key. I've seen where c-bets that are 60% of the PF raise take down plenty of pots whether they were placed on the Flop or Turn.

I totally agree that either 'method' is exploitable once you have some history with an opponent. Streams certainly don't 'help' when your opponents know what you are doing no more than 30 minutes after you did it!! GL

I don't think Janda's book had a lot to do with it. People just noticed that they kept losing money when they c-bet and quit, or c-bet and folded to a check-raise, or they posted hands on 2+2 and were advised to check the flop instead of betting.
Besides, if you followed the strategies in Janda's book religiously (e.g. by playing according to the hand histories at the back), I think you'd be c-betting a fair bit more often than is GTO, especially when OOP or multiway. Ed Miller's approximation of Janda's theories led to him picking 75% as the ideal c-bet frequency on every street. That number has no basis. It's as arbitrary and ludicrous as Greenstein's 100% flop c-bet.

I think this is it in a nutshell.

There are certain flops, like, say, 9s10sQh, that are going to be attractive for a very wide range of hands that might have called your bet pre-flop. In these situations the c-bet is a losing play if you're betting with air, because you'll usually induce a call, maybe a raise, and then you have no idea whether you're behind by a little or a lot.

Players are getting better at picking their moments for c-bets rather than just firing them at the pot hoping that the combination of cards on the deck will put their opponent off.

You're absolutely right. I play almost exclusively MTTs, followed by rarely Sit-N-Gos and basically never Cash games unless it's Omaha or live and friendly.

Thanks everyone for your replies. It has definitely been an very insightful into the world of not C-betting so often for me as I'm sure it will be for many beginners reading. I will definitely try and have some focus sessions and try to Quality instead of quantity C-bet. One thing I don't like about it is that all this checking the flop through has made a lot of pots much smaller than they used to be even in huge encounters like Top Two vs. Set.

However, I can definitely see that you are right. After all, poker is an ever-evolving game and a race against trends sometimes. Today's Optimal play is often tomorrow's Donk move.

In mtts/sngs if antes are in play, BB always has so huge range disadvantage that you should cbet almost 100% when you are IP in HU pot. Obviously you need to make ur cbet size a bit smaller.