Cbet Poker Definicion

What is a continuation bet?

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A CBet isn't a poker rule, but it is a common strategy. Well a CBet stands for continuation bet which is when you bet on the flop after you had raised preflop, hence - the continuation. You are simply following up your own bet, with another bet. This is a discussion on Cbet? Within the online poker forums, in the Tournament Poker section; PokerStars - 80/160 NL - Holdem - 8 players SB: 25.13 BB (VPIP: 27.78. That might be fine against bad players, but that's a horrible way to play against observant players. In tournaments I notice a lot of players who vary their c-bet size based solely on hand strength, and as soon as I can figure out what they're doing (some players bet bigger on bluffs, others bet bigger for value), then it becomes very easy to figure out when to bluff-raise and when to fold.

A continuation bet is when a player raises preflop and bets the flop.

Continuation betting is a complex and nuanced concept. This guide is an introduction to the most important factors determining whether or not to continuation bet the flop.

You can also continuation bet the turn and river. This article, however, will focus on “heads-up” pots on the flop; that is, pots between the preflop raiser and a single preflop caller. In multiway pots, you need to play in a much more straightforward and value-oriented way, as you are against more players and need stronger holdings to value bet.

What does a continuation bet achieve?

Continuation betting is done for value, as a bluff, or as a semi-bluff. To begin with continuation betting, you should understand your own hand and understand your opponent.

Types of hands you should be continuation betting

Value-betting hands

If you have a strong hand then you should bet, as you want to play a larger pot. This is called “value betting.”

For example, let’s say you hold A♥K♥ on a flop of A♦5♠3♣. On this flop, you have a strong hand with top pair, top kicker. You generally want to be betting, as you can be called by many worse hands, such as weaker aces, straight draws, and underpairs (that is, pocket pairs that are lower than the highest card on the board; on an ace-high board, for example, J♦J♥ is an underpair).

A value bet is a bet that you make when you can reasonably be called by worse hands.

With this holding on this board texture, you have a very clear value bet.

Semi-bluff hands

You want to lean towards continuation betting as a semi-bluff if you have a hand with low showdown value and high equity. Learning these two concepts is essential to understanding semi-bluffing. To illustrate, here is an example hand that has both low showdown value and high equity.

You hold T♥9♥ on a board of 8♥7♥5♣. In this case, your hand value is only ten high. If you go to showdown, you are going to lose against even a hand as weak as queen high, which would be very likely to fold on the flop against a continuation bet. Your hand therefore has very little showdown value.

But you also have a straight flush draw, which gives you plenty of equity. To understand equity, just imagine that both players are all-in on the flop. The percentage of times that your hand wins is your equity.

For example, what kind of equity do you have with this hand against a player that holds 2♥2♠? Their pocket pair is currently ahead of your ten high in showdown value. You might be shocked, however, to find out that when you run the two hands against each other in a simulation program such as Equilab, T♥9♥ has an equity of 70%! This means that 70% of the time, you are going to win if both players go all-in on the flop.

What happens if your opponent holds a strong hand, such as a pair of queens, which they decided to flat call rather than 3-bet preflop? You might be surprised to find out that T♥9♥ is still ahead with 52% equity.

On this particular board, T♥9♥ has high equity against your opponent and is a great candidate for a continuation bet based on equity alone.

Weaker hands

What do you do if you have a hand low in showdown value with less equity?

Even a weaker hand, such as T♦9♥, should be used as a semi-bluffing hand on a board like 8♥7♥5♣. Your open-ended straight draw gives you good equity, but you have very little showdown value with simply ten high.

An open-ended straight draw (OESD) is a straight draw that can be completed at either end by one of eight cards. (It is also known as an up-and-down straight draw.) In this case any 6 or J gives you a straight.

A semi-bluff is a bet made when you can be reasonably certain that your opponent will fold better hands and hands that have better showdown value than yours.

Types of hands you should not be continuation betting

If you have a medium-strength hand, you ought to play a smaller pot. You should be more inclined to check and call with these hands. This concept is called “pot control.” Medium-strength hands have much better showdown value than the previous hands; therefore it is less important to bluff with them.

You can check and call against opponents who are overly aggressive, and check and fold against opponents who are tighter.

For example, let’s say you hold 8♥8♠ on a flop of A♦3♥9♠. In this case you should lean towards checking rather than betting. This is because most worse hands are not going to call your bet.

If you bet here, you will frequently be called by aces, some underpairs, and pairs of tens. Hands you currently beat that will call you include straight draws such as JQ and KQ, but there are simply not enough worse hands for you to bet and be called.

Pot control should be used when you have showdown value but low equity against the range of hands with which your opponent will call your continuation bet.

If you have a hand that is low in showdown value and in equity, then your decision to continuation bet is determined by your opponent. In general, you do not want to be continuation betting as a pure bluff. Do not be afraid to check and fold to aggression with your weakest hands!

Understanding your hand at a deeper level: Board texture and hand ranges

Your opponent is going to give you much more credit when you continuation bet on an A-high board if you have raised UTG rather than from the BTN. Why? As we show in our article on unopened preflop raises, when you are opening only 12% rather than 45% of your hands, the chance that your hand contains a strong ace is much higher. Most opponents understand this.

Understanding your opponent

Understanding your hand is just one part of the puzzle. Another part is understanding your opponent. This is especially important for determining when a semi-bluff is profitable, and whether or not you can be called by worse hands.

The most important poker statistic for continuation betting is your opponent's “folded to continuation bet” (FCB) percentage. Poker Copilot breaks this down by the flop, turn, and river, as well as showing whether your opponent is in position or out of position.

Some of your hands will be straightforward decisions based on the strength of your hand, your showdown value, and your equity.

Other decisions, however, will be more nuanced. In this case, the guideline is that the higher the percentage of hands your opponent is folding to continuation bets, the more fold equity you have. This means that continuation betting can be done as a bluff more often. When your opponent has a low fold to continuation bet, you have less fold equity. In this case, you should be continuation betting less as a bluff and more for value.

Good opponents will usually have a fold to continuation bet somewhere around 42%–57% at the lower stakes. Opponents who stray from this range can be exploited.

One common mistake newer players make is basing their decisions on insufficient data. While the fold to flop cbet statistic starts to become useful after a few hundred hands, you need thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hands on your opponents before you can completely trust it!

A word of caution: do not continuation bet too often

It used to be thought that at the lower stakes players could profitably continuation bet at frequencies of 70% or higher. While this strategy may have been profitable a decade ago, online poker has evolved and it is profitable no longer.

In the current state of poker, many players will have a continuation bet frequency of 40%–60%.

Even if your opponent has a high fold to continuation bet, you should try to cbet hands as bluffs that have at least some equity. For example, having a single over-card, a backdoor flush draw, or a gutshot straight draw gives you a better chance of winning the hand.

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A backdoor flush draw occurs when you have a hand such as T♥9♥ on a board of 2♦6♥7♠. If the turn and river are both hearts, then you will make a ten-high flush. This hand also has what is called a “gutshot straight draw,” meaning that if you hit an 8 you will make a straight.

As a last lesson in continuation betting, imagine that you hold T♥9♥ on a board of 2♦6♥7♠. Think of the situations in which you would decide to continuation bet and those in which you would not, bearing in mind your position at the table, your opponent's position at the table, the value of your hand, and the frequency with which your opponent is folding to continuation bets.

These are just the first steps to understanding when to continuation bet or not. Our article on check-raising will give you another piece of the puzzle.

A bet from a player on the flop who raised pre-flop is known as a continuation bet or simply a c-bet. That player has continued to seize the initiative, hence the term, continuation bet. The normal use of the continuation bet is by a player in position against a lone opponent who has checked on the flop. The use of a continuation bet is rooted in the wisdom that most of the time one’s hand does not improve on the flop. Therefore the first player to bet may take down the pot right then and there.

Over time the use of this strategy has almost become the 100% default action by many poker players. Right up front we will state that if players employ this poker strategy every time they have taken the lead pre-flop, they are continuation betting too frequently. When this is the case, what can be utilized selectively to one’s benefit can become a major leak. As in all of poker, predictability is analogous to stepping into the cross hairs of all but your most obtuse opponents.

In this lesson we will attempt to explore the why, when and against whom this action should ideally be taken. We will also recommend some counter strategies for when your opponent is the one making a continuation bet.

The Purpose of Continuation Bets

As stated above, the strategy is based upon the fact that a hand is not usually improved upon by the flop so attacking your opponent with further aggression, regardless of your holding, can many times win the pot. It can also be used a reverse bluff when you hold a strong hand and would like to build the pot. The main purpose, however, is to win the pot immediately.

The Number of Opponents

The fewer opponents you are facing the higher your chances of success in winning the pot with a continuation bet. As a general guide, consider the following:

• C-bet almost 100% when heads up
• C-bet 50% when against two players
• C-bet 25% when against three players

Continuation betting against more than one opponent, while much less frequently, gives your game a degree of unpredictability. Although if there are four or more players then you’ll probably want to have hit the flop before sending more chips toward the middle – and a check may be in order.

The Texture of the Board

As the Mad Genius of Poker, Mike Caro, has stated… hold’em is a game of high cards while stud is a game of live cards. Keeping that counsel in mind, if the flop comes Jack, Queen and King there is a high likelihood that one of your opponents may well be holding a match to one of these wheel house cards. They weren’t calling your pre-flop raise with 6-3 offsuit!

The texture of the flop is critical to whether a c-bet is the play with the best expectation. Aside from high cards, be careful of coordinated boards that favor straight and flush draws. Ideally, you’ll want to see a ragged, rainbow flop.

Let’s look at a few examples. Suppose you raise with and get called by the button and the blinds. The flop comes :

Figure 1

This is not a good spot to c-bet. You’re against three opponents and your hand value is only an inside straight. You missed your high cards and flush potential and one of your opponents could have easily connected with such a flop. If checked to, then check and hope you get a free look at the turn. If you bet and then get raised by the button or check-raised by one of the blinds, you would have to fold, so see if you can hit your draw on the turn.

Let’s suppose you’re holding the same hand, yet this time you’re against a single opponent and the flop is dealt :

Figure 2

This is a completely different situation and if your opponent checks it’s a great time for a semi-bluff c-bet to either take the pot right then or if called you have two overs and the second nut flush draw. If you were facing more than one opponent then it would also be a good time to make a continuation bet, unlike the previous example.

You can also make a continuation bet when you flop a very strong hand, such a set. Remember that in poker it’s important to play different hands the same way. If you regularly make continuation bets when you whiff on the flop, you should also bet when you make a strong hand too – so as not to arouse suspicions. Your intention in poker is to manipulate your opponents and one advantage of frequently c-betting is that you will give your good hands some cover and disguise.

Bet Sizing

If you’re playing no-limit hold’em then you will also need to decide the size of your wager when planning a continuation bet. Many factors should contribute to your decision including: opponent playing tendencies, stack sizes and your own table image. You need to balance your bet size for two reasons. Understanding that the strategy is not fool proof… you don’t want to bet too small which will invite a call and to bet too large becomes foolhardy.

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But it’s important to be consistent with your betting. Therefore your continuation bets should be the same size as any other post-flop betting and conventional wisdom seems to favor a bet size of at least half the pot. To bet less extends better calling odds to your opponent and to bet more becomes too costly when you run into an opponent that actually has a hand. This is not a hard and fast rule and you’ll find yourself making adjustments through experience, feel and the general nature of the game.

Your Opponents

While it is true that knowledge of how you believe your opponents will react is a universal poker criteria to successful play, when betting into an opponent with nothing, it is good to know how tight or loose he may tend to play.

In addition, just as you are making a play so may be your opponent. Is he savvy enough to be floating you? This is a play in which your opponent may suspect you are continuation betting so he just flat calls expecting you to check on the turn. If you do check after he calls your continuation bet, his intention is to seize upon your apparent weakness and bet to steal the pot.

The factors outlined above are the major criteria one should evaluate to determine the wisdom of making a continuation bet. In a perfect situation you should be in position against a single weak/tight opponent making a bet of about half the pot into a raggedy board. The half pot bet will offer him 3-to-1 odds which aren’t very good drawing odds. If you know your opponent is knowledgeable regarding drawing odds, this becomes a positive to offering him poor odds to a possible draw.

Countering the Continuation Bet

Now let’s take a look at the same situation in the mirror. Instead of aiming the shotgun at a lone opponent, we’ll imagine you are looking down the barrel of the continuation better. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, always be observant of your opponents in order to improve your decision making. Is he aggressive and loose or timid and tight or where in that range does he dwell? You know many players love to see a flop and then feel compelled to fire a continuation bet to end the action. Know your opponent’s tendencies – this knowledge pays dividends.

Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering is a term used in many fields to describe a process wherein you first dissect a competitor’s product, marketing plan or just about anything in order to determine how it’s made or done with the intention of replicating it or improving upon it. The best way to combat an opponent who is continuation betting is to understand his thought process and, if appropriate, play back at him. Review the following checklist to determine if you’re being manipulated by an opponent’s continuation bet.

• Does he regularly, therefore predictably, continuation bet?
• Does his bet warrant a call based upon your hand?
• Based on his tendencies, is attempting to steal the pot?
• If he is stealing, should you raise, call, or fold?

Identifying the Meaning of Your Opponent’s Bets

There are many different types of bets in addition to continuation bets… value bets, probe bets, and semi-bluffs as examples. There is nothing worse than attempting to thwart what you believe is a continuation bet by calling all the way to the river only to face the ultimate revelation that your opponent was value betting the whole time.

Knowledge is power and it is up to you to observe your opponents betting patterns to understand just how they play the game. It is this knowledge that will help guide you to making quality decisions and when all is said and done – making quality decisions is what separates the winners from the losers.

Conclusion

Continuation betting is a solid poker strategy to employ when the criteria outlined above is in place. However, it should represent only one arrow in your quiver of ploys. As in all of poker, don’t use it every time you have been the pre-flop aggressor as you will become predictable and, therefore, exploitable. Instead, observe your opponents and determine who among them does not understand the wisdom of mixing up one’s game.

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By Tom 'TIME' Leonard

Cbet Poker Definition

Tom has been writing about poker since 1994 and has played across the USA for over 40 years, playing every game in almost every card room in Atlantic City, California and Las Vegas.