Continuation Bet in NL

[NiceCatch]

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

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Please explain.


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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.