Continuation betting a lone calling station

[Xhad]

Lately it seems that I've been running into a lot of people that fall into the following pattern if heads-up or shorthanded:

-They will limp/call from an early position, or defend their big blind with almost anything
-Any hand they called with preflop they will call almost any flop
-They will fold on the turn if they still have nothing
-They will generally not bluff the turn even though you checked behind on the flop
-They may be clever enough to c/r the flop, but they won't check a good hand the second time if you checked the flop
-They are not clever enough to realize that you might have checked the flop because you missed, then bet the turn because they checked, and will still check/fold the turn even if it "should" be obvious you don't have much.

I realize that is a LOT of "if"s but it seems every online table and most B&M tables I've been playing at lately have at least one player that fits most or all of these.

So...what I'm wondering here is what conditions need to be true to cbet on the flop? Do you need a pair? Overcards? A reasonable draw? This is all under the assumption that you will nearly always be called, and betting the flop has little to do with your fold equity on the turn. Does flop betting even AKo make sense in this situation?

I haven't heard any discussion of the PFR/check/bet line anywhere, but I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it. Is there something I'm missing? Or am I just overestimating how often this comes up?

Thoughts appreciated.

The texture of the board, the villain's limping range (obviously this is going to be quite different from a random hand in the BB), how light the villain calls down/peels, general aggression are all considerations for a continuation bet in addition to having a plan for the rest of the hand.

In this case, I guess you're describing a run-of-the-mill loose-passive, so most continuation bets are going to be for value, i.e. any hand with showdown quality that's unlikely to be dominated by the majority of the villain's hand range.

Assuming the villain is loose-passive for the most part, this allows you to liberally take free cards when you feel you're behind, again assuming you have no fold equity (in practice, you do have a varying amount of fold equity on each street, and one street may affect another). This also means that there's very little likelihood of being pushed off of the best hand, so you can bet liberally for value.

Hand reading/board reading is fairly important in these situations, so I don't think you can really assign a default line regarding continuation bets because, as with all things, they are made for specific purposes.

[Xhad]

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Hand reading/board reading is fairly important in these situations, so I don't think you can really assign a default line regarding continuation bets because, as with all things, they are made for specific purposes.

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This isn't about a default line against unknown, it's about a default line against a very specific type of opponent as outlined in the OP.

Basically I'm starting to have reservations about betting something like a whiffed KJ or even AK when I have zero fold equity, it won't stop a bluff, it won't help me bluff the turn (since I can do that anyway) and I might run into the odd check-raise. I'm trying to decide if this is some kind of weak-tight leak or just prudence.

You will win 1 sb when he misses the turn, and lose 1 sb when he hits his hand and bets into you on the turn. Since he will improve to a pair ~13% of the time and a little more for flush/straight draws it's a +EV bet.

Again, I don't think you can afford to have a default line to extract the most value from your hand in these HU situations. Your action will differ greatly depending on the various factors mentioned in my other post.

Checking behind the flop against a loose-passive as a default line because you have 'zero' fold equity is excessively weak-tight, when it's because you're not sure where you're at. Much of the time your hand that was good pre-flop is also good on the flop, and the bet is for value particularly when the villain folds the turn. If the villain is always folding the turn when he misses, I'm betting the flop and turn every time.

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
You will win 1 sb when he misses the turn, and lose 1 sb when he hits his hand and bets into you on the turn. Since he will improve to a pair ~13% of the time and a little more for flush/straight draws it's a +EV bet.

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Another point I had forgotten about in my OP is that many of these people won't bet the turn if I bet the flop and they catch some crappy pair, but will bet into me on the turn if I checked. And if I bet the flop against this type of player I have to bet a blank turn after they check because I have no reason to believe they have anything. So I save 1.5 BBs when they hit the turn and bet assuming I can safely fold the turn UI.