I have been currently watching a few streamers playing cash games and it seems pretty common that their cbet on the flop is only 1/3 pot.

I am curious why to take that strategy.

Anybody have any idea ?


Thanks and happy grinding

In single raised pots? In 3-bet pots this is common. But 1/3rd in single raised pots at micro/small stakes isn't generally an ideal strategy. You'd have to be bombing a lot of turns and rivers, which is spew at these stakes imho.

Missing a lot of value on the hands he wants to be called with, and letting everyone draw for super cheap (or float marginal hands), which makes your decisions harder on the turn and river. Which is bad news because you have to make more money on these 2 streets to make up for the money you didn't make on the flop with your small bet.

I would also had... Never ran statistics on this (and I'd be interested into reading some) but I'd be pretty confident that on the flop your bet size barely matters (as long as reasonable) if he has an ok hand. If the pot is like 6bb and you bet 4 and he folds, he usually would fold for 3 as well, and if you bet 2 and he calls, he usually would call 3 as well, and so on.

The bet sizing doesn't seem to influence the call/fold decisions much on the flop, only on the turn/river when it gets bigger so the difference between 1/3 pot and 2/3 pot is 3-6bb on the turn and 8-12bb on the river, and not just 1bb on the flop.

So by betting less on the flop you don't really influence a call/fold, you mostly just change the amount of $ you both put in the pot. You both put less. Which is bad unless your hand is on average worse than his hand. You want more money to be put in the pot when your range is better than his range.

And if your range is worse than his range, perhaps you should not bet in the first place. But most of the time your range should be better when you bet flop, so you'll miss more on value than you waste on a failed cbet.

Generally what I saw, this is not the common practice in micro stakes.
As I see the games play at micro/small stakes, most good regs don't play a massive high cbet strategy and their cbetting patterns are most likely a polarized one.(not in tye scene of nuts or air.. But lite TP+ , very good equity hand etc..)
But in higher stakes, you see more of a LAG style of play from most of good regs. So they use a more cbet heavy strategy which in general means wider ranges on both opoonents perspective.
So In general, they use smaller cbets because of the wideness of ranges. And to implicate this strategy, you need to be good post flop. So good regs take the game to future streets when pots get bigger and their opponent (who is mostly oop) has a lot tougher decision because he gets to turn with a lot widrr range than normal..
And you normally see a Big bet (more than 3/4ps) following a small flop cbet on turn.
That's what I understand about this strategy so far by just watching some pple play...

People overfold vs 1/3rd and don't x/r enough vs this strat. There's also other benefits such as equity realisation, equity denial, value etc.

+1

plus.. cbetting 1/3 pot OOP is good, eventho ur cbet % should be somewhat small.

Ofc u should be adjusting ur bet sizes vs certain V... fishes like to call more and with wider ranges, etc...

This one too

Those are the benefits of continuation bet.

You saying that people tend to overfold to 1/3 pot so cbetting something like ~90% with 1/3 sizing vs cbetting normal 1/2 or 2/3 pot with a normal 55-65% cbet frequency gonna be more profitable? (hope it makes sense what i am trying to say)

I also use the 1/3 flop cbet in 3b pots especially but it seems they never ever fold flops so this just makes turns super hard for me (especially oop) because their range gonna be much wider on turns and i bleed money there.

Obvs all cbets get those benefits, just w smaller sizing you tend to bet a wider range so more hands benefit.

I can't go through every sample because there are so many variables, you have to go learn it yourself. Don't go crazy with 1/3p cbets if you don't know what you're doing, so many people misapply it. e.g. some may think you should always cbet 1/3 on dry boards such as Q72 but it doesn't work like that because the ranges involved haven't been considered.