Continuation Bet in NL

[NYCNative]

You make a big raise. One caller. Flop misses. The flop's texture says "make a continuation bet." How much is a good bet in this case? Pot size? Half pot teaser? Or are we basing it on the flop's specific texture?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

2/3 - 3/4 pot size is a good rule of thumb as long as you adapt that to the stack sizes (relative to the pot size) of you and your opponent(s).

[PotatoStew]

What sort of texture says "make a continuation bet"?

[Guruman]

I like continuation bets when an overcard that I don't have shows up.

Ex: I raise preflop with AQo, get one caller, and the board comes 7J5. In these cases 1/3 of the pot seems to work well. Fire the bet and take down the pot. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[NYCNative]

[ QUOTE ]
What sort of texture says "make a continuation bet"?

[/ QUOTE ]I don't know, that's why I asked. You never want to do the same thing all the time. Also, if you come in with a raise and get one caller and you miss with a flop that is 2-7-4 or you miss with a flop that is T-Q-Q, those are very different textures and maybe you treat them differently.

[kado]

i say either when the board pairs you bet around 1/2 the pot, this also rids you of losing money later if you catch your hand because you know the set is out there if you get called (especially if you have more than one caller). when the board it 7-5-2 be careful but 1/3-3/4 pot bet is decent but you want to take away some of the odds if they happen to play low connectors and have a draw.

[NiceCatch]

[ QUOTE ]
You never want to do the same thing all the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? There are certain table conditions where you want to make exactly the same ratio bet each time. This completely masks the value of your hand. At a loose passive table, this is exactly what I would do.

I think flop texture is more important for steals than for continuation bets; continuations are usually expected, and I will either make a set-ratio continuation bet (usually about 70% of the pot), or I will check in certain situations. Usually the check will have more to do with my opponent than with my hand, or the board.

[NiceCatch]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What sort of texture says "make a continuation bet"?

[/ QUOTE ]I don't know, that's why I asked. You never want to do the same thing all the time. Also, if you come in with a raise and get one caller and you miss with a flop that is 2-7-4 or you miss with a flop that is T-Q-Q, those are very different textures and maybe you treat them differently.

[/ QUOTE ]

Reading this post I must say that I really disagree with the advice given here. A continuation bet heads-up is almost mandatory; unless you are completely random about how you make your continuation bets, or are playing very LAGgy, the amount should be the same relative to the pot every time. A half-pot bet is usually too weak... as mentioned above, 2/3-3/4ths is the standard. I personally lean towards 3/4ths.

[NiceCatch]

[ QUOTE ]
I like continuation bets when an overcard that I don't have shows up.

Ex: I raise preflop with AQo, get one caller, and the board comes 7J5. In these cases 1/3 of the pot seems to work well. Fire the bet and take down the pot. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would this change if you hit your A or Q? And 1/3 of the pot? This may apply to small stakes games, but playing like this will get you killed at higher stakes NL.

[Mathemagician]

[ QUOTE ]
set-ratio continuation bet (usually about 70% of the pot)

[/ QUOTE ]
Please explain.

Thanks!
M

[NiceCatch]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
set-ratio continuation bet (usually about 70% of the pot)

[/ QUOTE ]
Please explain.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, you've preflop raised. The flop has come down, and the pot is $60. You will bet the same amount as a ratio of the pot every time; so for example if you bet 70% of the pot as a continuation, at this point you would bet $42. If the pot was $100, you would have bet $70. This way you never give information about your cards; if you bet the pot on our strong hands, and bet half the pot on your weaker hands or draws, people will be able to figure out what type of a hand you have.

The alternative is simply to bet a random amount, but this can be problematic.

The idea with a continuation bet is try to take down every flop; on the flops that you get called on, you make your real decision on the turn. Interestingly, this pushes the action later into the hand, and protects your stack to a certain degree. The interesting thing about high-stakes short-handed poker is that the action is pushed to later in the hand between very good players; this is basically the result of pot control. Unless you have a boss hand, you don't want to be elevating the pot so that your opponent's bets and raises become uncallable. But that's a whole different topic.

[Guruman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I like continuation bets when an overcard that I don't have shows up.

Ex: I raise preflop with AQo, get one caller, and the board comes 7J5. In these cases 1/3 of the pot seems to work well. Fire the bet and take down the pot. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would this change if you hit your A or Q? And 1/3 of the pot? This may apply to small stakes games, but playing like this will get you killed at higher stakes NL.

[/ QUOTE ]

A quick defense of this play:

1)According to Harrington on Hold 'Em (p277) a bet must meet three requirements to be considered a continuation bet:
"a)The player making the bet was the betting leader before the flop
b)after the flop no other bets have been made
c)the player making the bet missed the flop"

Therefore if I hit an A or Q on the board my bet would not be a continuation bet, it would be a protection/value bet by definition.

Also from HOHE (p 278-279) "For a continuation bet to be a profitable move, the amount of the bet has to be carefully chosen in comparison to the pot. In essence, you are hopint to buy the pot right now. if you overpay you'll loose too much money when your opponent calls with a hand better than yours. If you underpay you'll be offering your opponent correct pot odds to stick around with a drawing hand."

If I bet 1/3 of the pot, my opponent will need a full eleven outs to make a call profitable for him. Harrington states that he likes to bet around half of the pot on a continuation bet. My opponents typically will call an all-in if they wouldn't have folded to somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the pot, so I keep it around there.

[Finite_Risk]

If the pot is 6 and you bet 2, he is getting 4/1 to call...why does he need "11 full outs"?

[NiceCatch]

Fair enough. I believe this thread probably belongs in the Small Stakes NL/PL forum. The way you play a continuation varies widely from small-stakes to high-stakes.

Additionally, tournament play and cash-game play vary widely. I was speaking specifically to cash games.

[Guruman]

[ QUOTE ]
If the pot is 6 and you bet 2, he is getting 4/1 to call...why does he need "11 full outs"?

[/ QUOTE ]

oops, bad math on my part. I aplogize for that - it's more like 9 outs. Still too long for even an OESD. That point's a little less relevant though, since villain will almost never be very far behind when we make a continuation bet when you consider that we've usually got only overcards and no part of the board with only 2 cards to come and an opponent who called a pre-flop raise.

IOW, he'll almost always have odds to actually catch us, he just won't know that. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Malachii]

[ QUOTE ]
What sort of texture says "make a continuation bet"?

[/ QUOTE ]

A weak board with one high card is excellent. K-7-2 offsuit when you have A-Q is a great board for a continuation bet. A poor board would be J-10-8 with two spades. There, check/folding is probably your best option. There was an article in the twoplustwo mag (April, I think) on playing overcards in limit that talked a lot about this.

[Mathemagician]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
set-ratio continuation bet (usually about 70% of the pot)

[/ QUOTE ]
Please explain.


[/ QUOTE ]

You will bet the same amount as a ratio of the pot every time

[/ QUOTE ]

Please don't laugh too hard, but I was thinking that the 'set' in "set-ratio" had something to do with 3 of a kind when you really meant it to mean a "fixed" ratio. Sorry for the confusion!

M

[NiceCatch]

This advice does not apply to most NL cash games. As the original question was about a heads up situation, it most certainly does not apply to nearly any NL cash game at any stakes, long-handed or short-handed.

This thread needs to be clarified and cross-posted in the correct forums, or the advice in it will be misapplied.