[adanthar]

I've recently noticed that a lot of people seem to have no idea about when a continuation bet is +EV. There are several types of continuation bets, but the classic example is when you flop overcards on a raggedy board. Most of the EV of that bet comes from the times that every other player folds and you take the pot.

The good thing is that figuring out if a bet that is designed solely to fold your opponents is +EV is extremely simple. Just take the ratio of your flop bet to the chips already in the pot, divide by the number of your opponents, and express it as a percentage. If they fold more than that percentage of the time (plus some small percentage for when they fold a small pair/just call and you hit the perfect turn card), the bet is good.

For example, if you have AK on a QTx flop and bet half the pot into 2 opponents, they will both have to fold roughly 33% of the time [adjusted for the times JT just calls/would have bet if you checked, and the turn card is an ace, so it's actually around 30%] for the bet to make any sense. If you bet the pot, they must both fold slightly under 50% of the time.

To translate this into the real world quickly, put them both on a range of hands and then figure out how likely they are to have hit. On this QTx flop, for example, it is wildly unlikely that two decent (but not great) players both missed. On the other hand, on a flop of 222, it is at least conceivable that a solid continuation bet from KQ will be able to fold out both AQ and a disciplined 55. Therefore, a bet of 2/3 of the pot into two opponents, designed to get them both to fold around 40% of the time, is probably a good one. Also note that while it is actually relatively rare for a continuation bet into 2 people with overcards to be good and a bet into 3 people usually sucks, a bet against only one opponent is almost always profitable.

Of course, stack sizes, how loose the callers are, if a second barrel on the turn might work, etc. also factor into this. But the rule of thumb is that you should take the 'fold percentage', subtract a little bit for lucky breaks and free cards, and then go with that.