Need help with poker theory, NL the preflop raise and continuation bet

[john kane]

I play short handed NL $200 sit downs.

Recently ive been thinking about the preflop raise and continuation bet. I like to be more aggressive preflop than the average player mainly when i should have position.
Ive come to the thought that with any preflop hand you want to raise with, say QK (this is short handed, but same may apply to ring games) to aim to keep 2 players in, not 1. In general.

Ive also decided not to continuation bet flops unless i hit. To good players this will become apparent after a while, but we all know we arent up against the most concentrating players online.

The reasoning behind keeping two players in rather than one is it means you getting far better value with two preflop callers on your 32% hit of a pair on the flop.
Although with high pocket pairs, say 10s and above i want to isolate one opponent.

As for the continuation bet, especially if your raise has left it with one other player, it seems a -EV move from the preflop raise.
If you know you are going to bet whether you hit or not, you are effectively not preflop raising to say 3BB, but instead 7-8BB (assuming you bet 4-5BB on the flop to cont. bet). This means you are risking 7-8BB to win on average 4BB. Now in theory the opponent will only hit a pair 32%, but if he has a pocket pair or even overcards he will still likely call (unfortunately due to the nature of some players). So the fold equity is not as good as one would expect. If he then calls you then have the obvious problem of the turn bet. In theory i would base it on how tight my opponent is, whether ive seen him call with overcards or fold to a continuation bet.

Anyway, those have been my trails of thought, and id very much appreciate any other players thoughts on with a hand like QK preflop, how many players you want to see a flop with. And also reasoning for the continuation bet.

[benkahuna]

I think never continuation betting unless you hit is a big mistake.

Certain hands you should raise pf almost every time.

The flop is an entirely new situation and your pf raise money is gone. You cannot consider it in your flop decision.

If you continuation bet half the pot you need only win 1/3 times to make a profit. You may have the best and get bet out of it otherwise, and you can often get small pairs that missed to fold.

Don't do it every time you miss, but never doing it strikes me as a horrendous mistake because you're usually going to miss.

[Triumph36]

What this overlooks is the real benefit to constant continuation betting while short handed in NL - your good hands will get paid off too. Therefore, while continuation betting every hand against one or two opponents seems bad, it is more likely to get people to call you down with second pair when you hit a set, etc.

If you check behind a lot after you raise, you will be leaving money out on the table, IMO. You want players calling you down on any pair - a continuation bet earns you a free river a large percentage of the time, and the other times you don't want a free river since you're probably drawing dead or don't know what outs are clean.

[Kirkrrr]

Great question, and there is no single perfect answer of course. A lot of just depends on the table dynamic, your image, your opponents that session, whether you've hit some hands recently or you can't hit a single flop if your life depended on it.

If you have shown down some winning hands, the power of your continuation bets go up dramatically. If, on the other hand, you are seen splashing in a lot of pots but can't seem to really connect, I would quickly slow down as now my opponents will try to look me up a lot more often.

Likewise, who are you playing? Some players will call a raise pre-flop every time when they've limped in, and call your flop bet every time if in their convoluted minds they see a glimmer of hope to connect some way by the river. Obviously c-betting is worthless against those, and it's time to switch to strickly value-betting if in the pot against them.

I think that's it for now.

Kirk

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Some players will call a raise pre-flop every time when they've limped in, and call your flop bet every time if in their convoluted minds they see a glimmer of hope to connect some way by the river. Obviously c-betting is worthless against those, and it's time to switch to strickly value-betting if in the pot against them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Continuation bets are not worthless against those players. Against them, my continuation bets are value bets. Keep in mind that ace-high is a made hand. Calling stations don't last long against me.

[Kirkrrr]

A-high, in that scenario, could be a value bet. I was thinking more along the lines of 78s, though.

Kirk

[mudbuddha]

ahh... well i sort of agree, sort of disagree.
There are the calling station who calls with AQ all the way, but there are far more that will call with their bottom pair the whole way down...
calling stations, i find less merit to continue betting them since they wont fold and your building the pot with ace high.. you will find your self very easily turned or rivered..
instead. i strictly value bet since there is little to no fold equity vs these opponents.. which is like half hte reason why you use continue bets.. unless ive mistaken the definition of cfold equity