BB Defense: Betting the flop when HU

[waffle]

It's folded to a player in a non-blind position who open-raises. It's folded around to you in the BB and you call. The flop comes and you bet out.

How often are you doing this and in what situations? I never do it. On the flop, I either:

1. c/f
2. c/r
3. c/c (planning to calldown or wa/wb)
4. c/c (slowplay, planning to c/r or bet turn)

HEFAP recommends betting out with legitimate hands on the flop for shania purposes: If you often have a legit. hand when betting out on the flop, you can also use it as a cheap bluffing opportunity.

In the games I play, I think this flop bet causes the PFR to fold almost never.

Jason Pohl's shorthanded articles compare the expectation of betting out versus checkraising the flop in this situation. ( Part 1, Part 2) He draws these conclusions:

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So, when the big blind has a pair or better, the check-raise is superior against competition that will automatically bet on the flop, with a couple rare, but notable exceptions.


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and
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But all things being equal, I believe it is apparent that check-raising is most often the 'correct' strategy against the average preflop raiser who automatically bets the flop.


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(The notable exception mentioned above is: If the PFR will fold immediately to a c/r, but not a bet. I couldn't find another exception that wasn't a rephrasing of this one.)

In the games I play I am pretty certain that the PFR is betting the flop. I would say about 95% or maybe 97.5% certain. Why not take advantage of it?

I feel that I do a pretty good job of keeping information leakage to a minimum by making the flop c/r my default play. I also do it with draws on boards unfriendly to PFRs and it works as a good semi-bluffing opportunity.

So why bet out the flop? Against an aggressive opponent who sees this bet and loves to raise hands like ace high, a case for betting/3betting could be made. But against this aggressive opponent, why not check/call the flop and then check/raise or bet/3bet the turn?

When is it good to make this bet?

[waffle]

Is there nothing to talk about?

Am I overlooking something blindingly obvious? Or is this just a dumb question? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Jinx]

It might be better to bet out the flop HU if you're on a straight bluff/draw. You don't want the opponent calling, and I'm certainly more likely to fold the flop if you just bet out than if you C/R since I have worse odds to draw to my overcards if you just bet out.

But if you actually have a pair or something then yeah I always CR the flop.

[meow_meow]

Unless I'm planning to c/f, I almost always bet out, especially with very strong hands.
I find that (at least at 5/10), this gives the impression of a weak made hand. The pfr'er will raise more than half the time and call most of the rest, allowing you the option of either calling with the intention of cr'ing the turn, or just reraising.

An exception is the wa/wb scenario where my opponent will autobet all the way.