I have a love/hate relationship with C-Bets and I need to commiserate. At times it seems like a fool's errand. After all committing chips on a flop I didn't hit robs me of the very chips I'll need for fold equity closer to the bubble.

At other times, I find myself checking a flop turn and river only to discover my opponent has a hand he would insta-fold to a c-bet.

Obviously if I have a strong semi bluff hand like AKs after flopping a flush draw with two overcards, I'll c-bet etc.

My instincts are:

1. in early rounds check fold, bc there's not enough in the pot to make it worth the risk
2. starting at 50/100 or possibly 75/100, there's enough in the pot to make it worth the risk.

Where I find it difficult is in these later stages when my opp is either short stacked or one of the chip leaders (the middle sized guys seem worried to fight)

Anyway your thoughts are appreciated.

-Monkey

Couple of things here:

- Blind structure has nothing to do with whether it's worth to take the risk. You simply have to take the most winning approach in every spot (let's take ICM and future game implications out of the equation for a moment to make it simple) and if that's to CB then you should CB.

- It's dependent on the player you play against. Is he sticky postflop, or is he a hit-or-miss type of player that plays an ABC- style?

- It's dependent of the preflop action. Does villain call in the CO, on the BU or in the BB? If he calls in the BB then his range is probably extremely wide as he already has money invested and players have come to the realization in the current climate that you have to defend your BB wide to not be exploited and because you often get a good price to call.

- It's dependent on the board. Is it very coordinated (read: drawyheavy; like a J98hh flop), or is it very dry (K72 for example)? On the first board there are a lot more hands that villain can continue with, while it's the other way around for the second board.

- Does the board favor your range or villains range? Example: If you raise UTG - a position in which you have a tight range - and villain calls in the BB - a position in which he will call a wide range because of the money he already has invested - then a 567cc board is better for villains range, because he has all two pairs, sets and straights, while you don't. If you raise from the CO, villain calls in the BB and flop comes K72, then your range is stronger, because you have all AKo, AKs, KK and AA combinations, because you could've opened these hands and it's very unlikely villain has these hands because he just called.

- Make sure that you use a small CB sizing to make sure your CB doesn't have to work that often. When you CB 100 in a 300 chip pot, it only has to work 1/3 in the time and there's still opportunities on later streets to take the pot down. You can balance this by betting a wide range of hands. You can include 33 - 77 for a 1/3PB on J82o for example, so you have the chance of taking the pot down immediately with a vulnerable hand or even get value from some AT, AQ, AK, QT, Q9, T9 and 97 type hands hands that call at least once (depends how deep you are and stuff like that, but just to keep it simple).

- When your opponent is short you can't CB as much, because he'll shove with a lot of hands. If there's 6000 in the pot after you bet and villain has 9000 chips left then he can happily shove pairs and draws when he's aware of the fact that you're gonna fold a lot. The amount of times he just wins the 6000 straight there vastly outweighs the times that you call with a better hand and his remaining 9000 chips are in trouble. Even then he probably still has outs, so they won't always be lost. In situations like this it's often better to check valuehands behind that you don't want to call a shove with or hands that have just a little bit too much equity to bet/fold, like a gut shot, overcard and backdoor nut flush draw.

There's plenty more to think about, but this is a pretty good basis.
If you have a solid CB and follow up strategy then the times that you rob yourself of the very chips you need will be fewer or cheaper than the times you take pots down with CB's. This would mean that you would have accumulated chips rather than being shorter near bubbles because you kept "robbing yourself". Don't worry, mate. Just try to play around a bit with the above parameters and you'll get the hang of it as time goes by.

OG tuff has a good, thorough reply.

I'll just add that my impression is that in the hypers c bets are not as effective as in deep stack poker since 1) double barrelling often puts all the money in so it is often not a great option and 2) when stacks are shallow people will just tend to get it all in with a weaker piece of the board than when they have deep stacks.

This is a good summary. I have huge success c-betting, the two things I consider the most are position and flop texture.

Two thoughts:

1.) I dont like the term Continuation-Bet. As the name suggest the main reason for betting is having bet before. Clearly this shouldnt be much of a consideration when betting. But rather depending on your opponents skill-level: Boardstructure, Hand-Strenght, His Range, Image, How active you have been recently, Range vs Range, Image vs Image, How likely you are to be able to bluff later on...

Also there is the issue that just because betting might net you a profit, checking may be even better.

2.) Dont be afraid to lose chips. Seriously. Its poker and therefore unavoidable. If you tried to only get it in as a 100% favorite you'd blind out any game.

Also while losing chips hurts your FE, getting the chiplead on the bubble with players who understand ICM is massively +EV.

Really good response and your point here is right but the math is wrong - it's even better than that because a 1/3 pot bet only needs to work 25% of the time to break even