When not to make a continuation bet

[ellipse_87]

One of the disadvantages of playing a hand post-flop from early position is that any attempt to get in a raise bears the cost of occasional missed bets and free cards. The late position player who regards continuation bets as "mandatory" neutralizes a substantial part of his positional advantage. One should not continuation bet all the time when checked to--that helps your opponent by foreclosing opportunities for him to make mistakes.

[ QUOTE ]
One of the disadvantages of playing a hand post-flop from early position is that any attempt to get in a raise bears the cost of occasional missed bets and free cards. The late position player who regards continuation bets as "mandatory" neutralizes a substantial part of his positional advantage. One should not continuation bet all the time when checked to--that helps your opponent by foreclosing opportunities for him to make mistakes.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are also correct. When you feel your opponent won't call your bet with a worse hand but he may bluff the next street if you show weakness that's fine, but this was a coordinated flop that helped hero's hand enough that a semi-bluff was definitely appropriate. Sure you're trying to induce villain into making a mistake, but why give him control of the hand when you have no clue where you stand here? I like your thinking much better when hero is the one holding a monster on a ragged, non-coordinated flop that's very likely to have missed the villain. Hero was the original aggressor and I think that he needs to make an attempt to keep that control here and let villain define his hand a bit to us. This isn't exactly a safe flop for hero here - he's behind plenty of hands that call preflop and needs to hit his draw if he is going to win this hand. If you check behind and allow villain to lead the turn, what if an offsuit 9 falls and now you have a flush draw + straight draw and villain leads the turn? You've picked up some more outs but do you have any clue how strong your hand (or draw) may be in relation to the villains? With this line you only lose a small amount on a hand where you stand to lose a considerable amount by continuing on and missing your draws. The other possibility, as I stated earlier, is that villain may have called preflop with any pair 22-QQ and be ahead of you here but capable of laying it down if he can put you on a hand with a king and he isn't holding a pair that hit a set on the flop. It's unlikely that he'll fold a better hand on later streets if you don't represent a hand that's ahead of his right now.

[ellipse_87]

OP's question was whether and how often to check the flop in position instead of making a continuation bet. If villain had seen hero cont. bet 100% after his preflop raises, then hero cost himself 150 chips in this hand by doing that. If on the other hand hero had checked a few draws and maybe a couple ragged flops previously, villain might have bet out here and hero saves those 150 chips.

So let's take this hand. Hero should bet most draws but check some. He's made cont. bets 100% previouly. So now, although certainly he may be giving up a chance to take the pot on the flop, why not check one? It may foil a checkraise, it may enable him to win chips against an overpair if the diamond comes, but most importantly it (1) subjects him to fewer checkraises from here on out, and (2) enables him to get chips on the turn sometimes with TP when opponent would have folded the flop, because hero's checks don't just mean made hands now, they mean missed flops too.

Cybr mentions this, check the flop only when you're able to extract value on the turn and the board's ragged, but this won't work if the table never sees hero check a missed flop after raising pf.

You also have to do this sometimes to set up some turn action that will give you a free showdown when you need it. Check-bet-raise-call on the flop cedes control of the hand to the out-of-position villain. Check-check, then bet-raise-call, lets you check the river behind, so now you're paying one street instead of three to see SD--this is invaluable sometimes but is never available to you if you auto-CB the flop, or check the flop in a predictable pattern.

[adanthar]

Without going into too many details and without saying that these are the only possible lines, here are some good flops to check J [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] behind on with these stacks vs. a typical PF calling range:

A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Q [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Some flops that can go either way:

Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

Flops that I, personally, would always bet:

J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
K [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Half of this is straight out of SSH and I recommend anybody who doesn't get when to CB to read it.

[Proofrock]

Would you explain why you would check J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] behind on an A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 10[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] board?

This is one board where I would be perfectly happy getting all-in on the flop (with 15 outs making me a favorite against Villain's range).

[adanthar]

Because your FE on that board vs. him is somewhere between 0% and -5%.

[LearnedfromTV]

[ QUOTE ]
Because your FE on that board vs. him is somewhere between 0% and -5%.

[/ QUOTE ]

And, you don't want to be on the calling end of a checkraise with 50% equity.

Being checkraised allin is bad. Being checkraised less than allin is also bad because the rest will go in on a blank turn.

[MLG]

This flush draw + gutshot is the only one I disagree with you on. You have 40% equity in the hand based on your hand strength, you dont many folds to justify following through on the flop.

Also to some degree what kind of flops you follow through on depends on how aggresive you are. I'm more aggresive than most so I get cred more than most, so I'm more likely to check a good draw because its more likely ill be forced to fold than a lot of plaers.

[Proofrock]

[ QUOTE ]
Because your FE on that board vs. him is somewhere between 0% and -5%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe so, but you're a favorite against most of his likely holdings, right? You don't need FE to be +EV getting all-in on that flop. Are you suggesting it's more +EV to check behind? I haven't done checked the numbers, but given the stack sizes I'm dubious of this ...