25NL: When NOT to C-bet

[gir]

No real reads except I took a sizable amount off him a few hands prior. In any case, I see my hand as incredibly marginal and only getting called by hands that destroy mine. Thoughts? Questions? Opinions? Try and guess Villain's hand if you'd like.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool (http://poker-tools.flopturnriver.com/Hand-Converter.php) from FlopTurnRiver.com (http://www.flopturnriver.com) (Format: 2+2 Forums)

SB ($23.90)
BB ($20.53)
UTG ($15)
MP ($31.88)
CO ($49.75)
Hero ($51)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 7/images/graemlins/diamond.gif. SB posts a blind of $0.10. UTG posts a blind of $0.25.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, CO calls $0.25, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $1.25</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, UTG (poster) calls $1, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>.

Flop: ($2.85) 7/images/graemlins/spade.gif, Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif, J/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
UTG checks, Hero checks.

Turn: ($2.85) 9/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
UTG checks, Hero checks.

River: ($2.85) 8/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
UTG checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: $2.85

[EricW]

You should have cont betted

[bozzer]

Who cares what your hand is? Two cards in villains range is not enough to slow me down HU on rainbow flop.

We have a good chance of taking the pot down now before he hits his hand. Plus you want to be betting this for the meta IMO.

Edit: my advice may well have been coloured by seeing the rest of the hand - just edit that out in future.

My guess for villain's hand: JQ.

[gir]

He's calling with 95% of his range in this spot.

[keikiwai]

[ QUOTE ]
He's calling with 95% of his range in this spot.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think you under-estimate how often you get him to fold

yes, he mostly only calls with hands that beat you (there's some str8 draws, so this isn't 100% true) but you bet to take the pot down now

if he calls, you give up unless you improve, and if you do improve you'll actually win something, and if you don't oh well

but I think you def. win money from him w/ a cbet here just by getting folds..... if he never EVER folds to cbets, don't isolate him w/ crap

[bozzer]

What? Why?

[AKQJ10]

You underestimate both the protection value and some of the semibluff value of a CB.

Your sevens may well be best, in fact likely are, but your opponent could have all kinds of overcards to them. Even ugly hands like K9 have six outs to you.

If you're not ahead, then a decent player will have a hard time calling this with 88-Jx. Even if you are behind and opponent calls, you get five outs twice to beat anything short of a set, AQ, or AJ. This is a great example of how one bet can be both for protection/value and a mild bluff, depending on opponent's holdings.

Not CBing if you expect to get them picked off and have to fold a 5-outer to a good hand is fine. Not CBing just because you really wish someone would draw out on bottom pair and give you an excuse to fold gracefully is foolish.

[nuts]

bet that flop, you'll also get a free card on the turn if you want it.

[Panthro]

this is fine OP, I occasionally play it the same when my image needs re-tooling. No worst hand calls on any street, and no better hand folds. "I want to take the pot now" and "because" are not good enough reasons to blindly cbet this flop IMO.

[bozzer]

[ QUOTE ]
this is fine OP, I occasionally play it the same when my image needs re-tooling. No worst hand calls on any street, and no better hand folds. "I want to take the pot now" and "because" are not good enough reasons to blindly cbet this flop IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's wrong with wanting to take the pot down now?

Why is it blind to cbet here? How will your sight improve on later streets?

If you had A6 would you cbet here? If not, I suggest you give up playing it. Just because we only have BP does not mean we suddenly aren't allowed to cbet.

[thedustbustr]

op,

getting him to fold hands that have 6 outs or less is not terribly much equity gained whereas saving the money vs 88 and better gives you a free chance to improve (thats never a mistake) + you save a 2/3p bet.

considering nobody ever folds 88+ there, i check.

[thedustbustr]

now if the board and player were such that even though you made a weak pair there are not many combinations of random weak hands that may be beating you, but there are very many combinations of hands that have 6 outs on you (for example, the board is fairly low, and you have a pair of 3s) the equity gained from folding out a 6 out draw may outweigh the money saved from not losing money to a made hand better than yours.

[Panthro]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
this is fine OP, I occasionally play it the same when my image needs re-tooling. No worst hand calls on any street, and no better hand folds. "I want to take the pot now" and "because" are not good enough reasons to blindly cbet this flop IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's wrong with wanting to take the pot down now?

Why is it blind to cbet here? How will your sight improve on later streets?

If you had A6 would you cbet here? If not, I suggest you give up playing it. Just because we only have BP does not mean we suddenly aren't allowed to cbet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Taking the pot down now isn't terrible, but what are the chances of that happening? We have no reads other than CO open limped and called our raise -- suggesting he's a weaker player. Secondly, this board hits alot of hands in a weaker players limping range (middling str8 cards), along w/ 88+; And I seriously doubt he folds anything we beat to one bet.

I have no problem if you want to lead at this flop to prevent a non-paired hand from drawing out on you, or semibluff for those times you do improve on later streets, blah blah blah, but autobetting against a weaker player because you raised PF is a leak IMO.

[jakbse]

I have never played NL, but I would try a c-bet on the flop to take it down. If he calls I check it down, if he raises I'm out of there.

[chanchuan]

Is it so obvious that villain calls with 88/99/TT? As AKQJ10 pointed out I feel it's a hard call to make. If we were villain here holding 99 and the OP cbets this flop what should we do? Raise?

[Corrupt Rose]

[ QUOTE ]
He's calling with 95% of his range in this spot.

[/ QUOTE ]

At nl25 they are calling you quite widely preflop. So to say that he is calling with 95% here is quite an overstatement. I say go for the continue betting, since the cards on the flop is likely to have hit you from his point of view.

[bozzer]

I'm surprised this post has been so controversial. I am assuming when we c-bet that he will not lay down a J or Q. But this leaves a massive range that he will fold or incorrectly call with:

- any king
- any pocket pair below J
- AT
- K9
- 89
- any 7
- anything else in his UTG limping range such as Axs, low SCs blah blah.

Apart from a pair of jacks+, he might correctly call and give us some trouble with:

- T9
- AK

In this hand I wouldn't fire another barrel if a brick hits, but if you fire a PSB now, he's not to know that.

we are getting a fold at least 50% of the time, and after that we're c-folding unless we improve.

[Shoot59]

Just because a cbet gets called, doesn't mean it failed. It could be for value if villain calls and misses whatever he's drawing toward.

A cbet here is correct for several reasons:

1) It should fold some better hands (88-TT, Jx?)
2) There are some worse hands that are calling
(AK,K10,T9,67,78)
3) If your hand is best (any pair when heads up is a decent hand) than a bet will charge your opponent to draw to his overcards.

The only reason not to cbet this one (IMO)would be under the condition that this villain has been floating/playing back at you a lot, and this hand will be tough to defend against much future action UI. Normal NL25 donks don't do this enough to warrant a check, so bet away.

[Matt Ruff]

[ QUOTE ]
Is it so obvious that villain calls with 88/99/TT?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm puzzled by this assumption as well.

[crookdimwit]

QFT... Exacty right....

This is a clear spot for a c-bet, IMO... provided you can be disciplined enough to slow down if you get called.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm surprised this post has been so controversial. I am assuming when we c-bet that he will not lay down a J or Q. But this leaves a massive range that he will fold or incorrectly call with:

- any king
- any pocket pair below J
- AT
- K9
- 89
- any 7
- anything else in his UTG limping range such as Axs, low SCs blah blah.

Apart from a pair of jacks+, he might correctly call and give us some trouble with:

- T9
- AK

In this hand I wouldn't fire another barrel if a brick hits, but if you fire a PSB now, he's not to know that.

we are getting a fold at least 50% of the time, and after that we're c-folding unless we improve.

[/ QUOTE ]

[holyfield5]

cbet this plz.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
If you had A6 would you cbet here? If not, I suggest you give up playing it. Just because we only have BP does not mean we suddenly aren't allowed to cbet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I think a CB is more desirable here, because of the greater likelihood that you have the better hand.

[AKQJ10]

Great post. Of course we're saying pretty much the same thing. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]

The only reason not to cbet this one (IMO)would be under the condition that this villain has been floating/playing back at you a lot, and this hand will be tough to defend against much future action UI. Normal NL25 donks don't do this enough to warrant a check, so bet away.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the point -- it's not always right to CB bottom pair, but OP gave no coherent reason not to.

Balancing is fine if your opponents are observant, but I think you're better off checking behind with two-overcard hands because there's not as much to protect.

[kerplunkNL]

Does this post (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&amp;Board=ssplnlpoker&amp;Number=726133 0) apply to OP's hand?

[AKQJ10]

Although the ideas there are worth thinking about, metagame is generally not a major consideration against a uS unknown.

The first part (well, so far I've skimmed it) is good, though, and much of the reason why I usually tend toward betting in situations like this. The idea of betting to make later round decisions easier is tempting, and possibly has merit. It's very much akin to betting for information (http://poker.wikia.com/wiki/Betting_for_information).

But what if instead of making the later round decisions easier for us, we focus on making them tougher for the opponent? My quibble with that post is, it seems very deterministic.

[ QUOTE ]
Let's say when he bets, he is ahead 80% of the time and is behind 20% of the time, if he bets any more than 1/3rd of the pot we can't call. We can't even call if he bets 1/3rd of the pot because we have to call later streets. We are risking money on later streets aswell as our current street just to snap off a bluff that happens infrequently.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, that's the power of the bluff, but unless the player is sophisticated enough to bluff at a near-correct frequency then you need to play back or look him up occasionally too so that always bluffing isn't profitable. Obviously not too much if you're WB 80% of the time. But it's also plausible that you can get him to fold something like middle pair of queens through aggression.

More importantly, if a check behind always induces a turn bet from your somewhat sophisticated opponent, then this tendency is very exploitable. Check with top pair of aces, too, or KK.

Even though metagame doesn't matter, betting into weakness HU is enough of a standard play that exploiting it can be quite effective. Many uS unknowns will bet the turn after a flop check, so you can slap them around on the turn when you have a good hand. Show down a good hand and they won't soon forget that flop check != weak hand.

But back to the CB question - with JJ on an AQ board, I probably only bet if I'm in "always CB" mode. I'm in that mode a lot in uSNL though, just because so few will exploit it.

[bozzer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you had A6 would you cbet here? If not, I suggest you give up playing it. Just because we only have BP does not mean we suddenly aren't allowed to cbet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I think a CB is more desirable here, because of the greater likelihood that you have the better hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. Not only are we more likely to be ahead, we also have more outs, but this tends our cbet into a value bet.

My main point was more that if we had A6 here most people would cbet it (am I wrong to assume this?). But because we've got BP according to OP and others we're suddenly we're in a WA/WB situation and only getting called by hands that beat us. I've explained why I think this is wrong (excluding our potential to improve, which has been covered well by others) in my earlier post.

My second point is that if people don't cbet A6 on this sort of board, nor A7, then they should consider not playing these kinds of hands, because I'm not convinced they will be profitable if you are not willing to force the action when you have the initative.

I want to make this clear again: on this flop I am cbetting with 22, K9 and A7. It's not the best flop to cbet on I agree. But heads up it's fine: you will win the pot there and then more than half the time: bet!!!