Musings on an archived quote

[kevkev60614]

In an archived thread Irieguy says

[ QUOTE ]
Pros want to be able to play automatically and quickly. Especially young, inexperienced pros who have never checked a flop after raising preflop in their lives.

[/ QUOTE ]
Irieguy uses the quote to explain why many players prefer fewer starting chips to more, but that's not what caught my attention.

What puzzles me is, what would make an experienced player check where an inexperienced player would bet after raising preflop? I c-bet probably about 90-95% of the time, and had never thought much about it. In an effort to sleep better at night, I'm gonna list the reasons I'd consider NOT c-betting, giving up the impetus. I'm hoping you'll point out reasons I missed, or reasons I give that are stupid. Or maybe someone will see that my whole process of thought is off, and Irieguy was thinking about something completely different.

1) I flopped something worthy of slowplaying.
2) I’m either way ahead or way behind.
3) I got caught on a pf steal and my tourney would be at risk with a c-bet.
4) Villain is LAG and likely to raise, and I want the turn and river as cheap as possible.
5) My pf raise didn’t weed out enough opponents and I missed the flop.
6) Checking the flop will make villain easy to read (i.e. he only bets when he has a hand but will call my c-bet).

Sorry if this is difficult to read. It’s more brainstorming than coherence. Thanks to any responses.

[TruFloridaGator]

I'm thinking those 5 things a lot lately, can't be good for me. My c/b game is ugly.

[Irieguy]

[ QUOTE ]


What puzzles me is, what would make an experienced player check where an inexperienced player would bet after raising preflop?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's one of the few really, really good questions I've seen asked on this forum.

I'll give you a hint by highlighting where your thinking is misguided.

[ QUOTE ]

1) I flopped something worthy of slowplaying.
2) I’m either way ahead or way behind.
3) I got caught on a pf steal and my tourney would be at risk with a c-bet.
4) Villain is LAG and likely to raise, and I want the turn and river as cheap as possible.
5) My pf raise didn’t weed out enough opponents and I missed the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

The fact that most people think this way is why deep-stack poker can so lucrative, and why people like Greg Raymer and Dan Harrington can make it deep into a 983918398691284826718231261902828901 player tournament more often than they should

[ QUOTE ]

6) Checking the flop will make villain easy to read (i.e. he only bets when he has a hand but will call my c-bet).

[/ QUOTE ]

Now you're getting somewhere.

Irieguy

[ QUOTE ]
I'll give you a hint by highlighting where your thinking is misguided.

[/ QUOTE ]Is the point that the impression you give is more important than what actually happened? And, that once you see how your opponent reacts to the information you "give" him, the more likely you are to know where you actually stand?

[The Yugoslavian]

What is important is being able to tell where your opponent is with his/her hand.

Your hand matters much less.

Yugoslav

Thats some deep [censored] right there. Glad i caught it.

[adanthar]

Here's a fun game you can play with betting impetus in your head:

Suppose your raise preflop means you will always bet postflop.

1)What implied odds are you giving the lone coldcaller of your raise to call it?
2)If you are a fan of the HoH2 probe bet vs. continuation bet distinction, how much information are you leaking about your hand in connection with that bet size? (this one has been awesome online lately)

Now, suppose that, on any harmless looking flop, you check no matter what your hand, and your opponent, a LAG who likes to play lots of pots, has the impetus.

1)If you are him, attempt to balance a bet size sufficient to get overcards out of the hand with one that he can still fold when you have aces and checkraise, coupled with the times that you have either of those two and just call.
2)When you give up on #1 being at all profitable in the overall flow of the hand, describe the implied odds of that LAG's PF floater call with J9o.

It reminds me of something I heard a long time ago from a dealer when I first started playing limit hold'em. He was answering a question from a player about the difference between limit and no-limit:

"In limit, you play your own cards. In no-limit, you play your opponent's cards."

[kevkev60614]

I think there's a lot to learn from it and I hate the feeling that I'm only getting 25% of it.

Irieguy says a lot of my thinking is only one level deep and he's dead-on-balls accurate. That's tough to change, though. Gotta work at it, I guess.

On to adanthar's quiz...
[ QUOTE ]
1)What implied odds are you giving the lone coldcaller of your raise to call it?

[/ QUOTE ]
1) I'm not sure what you're getting at here. His immediate odds are (1+1/x) to 1, where x is a fraction of the pot. So he's getting immediately 3 to 1 on a 1/2 pot bet or 5 to 1 on a 1/4 pot bet. To calculate implied odds depends on a multitude of factors. So I'm not sure what you mean here.

[ QUOTE ]
2)If you are a fan of the HoH2 probe bet vs. continuation bet distinction, how much information are you leaking about your hand in connection with that bet size? (this one has been awesome online lately)

[/ QUOTE ]
2) I don't think you leak very much information at all unless you're showing down hands where you've done each. But you learn less about your opponents hand, also, and you're giving a cheaper look at a turn card.

[ QUOTE ]
1)If you are him, attempt to balance a bet size sufficient to get overcards out of the hand with one that he can still fold when you have aces and checkraise, coupled with the times that you have either of those two and just call.


[/ QUOTE ]
1) This was very interesting to me. Villain is likely too scared of a c/r to bet an amount that would induce me to fold overcards.

[ QUOTE ]
2)When you give up on #1 being at all profitable in the overall flow of the hand, describe the implied odds of that LAG's PF floater call with J9o.

[/ QUOTE ]
2) This makes calling a pfr with J9o hard work. He should know I'm very likely to at least see the turn, and if one overcard appears, he's in ugly shape.

Thanks to all the replies.

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
2)If you are a fan of the HoH2 probe bet vs. continuation bet distinction, how much information are you leaking about your hand in connection with that bet size? (this one has been awesome online lately)

[/ QUOTE ]

i have not read hoh2 (i know, shame on me), so i dunno if i get this. are you saying that players will make a ~1/3 pot bet with weak hands and 1/2+ pot bet with strong ones? what is the hoh2 difference between probe and cbet?