c-bets and the gap concept

[chicheebee]

here's something i'm having a bit of trouble with. most people seem to advocate c-betting against one opponent a large majority of the time (typically 75-100%), regardless of whether the flop has helped them at all. sklansky's gap concept tells us that we need a stronger hand to call than to bet. it follows, then, if we're betting almost all flops that we should typically expect to still have aweaker hand, on average, than our opponent on the flop. since our opponent, if they're even slightly observant, should be aware of this, i'm slightly confused as to how this can be profitable.

sorry for rambling, hope this makes sense

[templar999]

The continuation bet itself isn't necessarily profitable. However, as part of your overall strategy, your mix of continuation bets and value bets should be, if you are a winning player. Your continuation bets should provide more value for your value bets, and your value bets should provide higher folding equity for you continuation bets.

[NMcNasty]

The gap concept means you need a stronger hand to call than to open at the position you are sitting. For example if you are on the button with A4o and the cutoff raises, you should generally just fold, but if its folded to you should raise. It doesn't mean that your range necessarily needs to be stronger than your opponents. You can call raises with a wider range than your opponent's opening range in no limit poker due to implied odds from your opponent being a bad player or your positional advantage. A lot of good players will call a raise from the cutoff or button with any suited connector regardless of how tight or loose their opponent is. Also, they will reraise their good hands. So its quite common for the initial raiser's hand range to be much better on average than the caller's even with two good players, so its usually correct for opener to almost always c-bet.

[Robin Donks]

Do you never cbet? If you only bet flop when you hit, any observant opponent will catch on and call your raises with any 2 cards and autobet flop each time you check. Most time in NLHE both opponents miss the flop so the first one to show innitiative usually wins pot in these cases. The continuation bets are simply very profitable

[mvdgaag]

You'll often get the best hand to fold if you hit nothing, you don't give up command of the betting, you give no information wether you have hit or not and you can use the cbets as semibluff. It's just the best action most of the time, especially if you consider your overall strategy.

Most importantly. They know it is quite likely you have not hit, that's true, but that is a good thing, because if they know when you've hit or not they will make fewer mistakes.

Some players will autocall your standard cbets after a while, but you can second barrel them or check the flop and bet the turn instead. Just make sure you use these patterns with made hands as well sometimes (which is no problem for the second barrel, but it is for the postponed cbet).

GL

[Barfunkel]

[ QUOTE ]
The continuation bet itself isn't necessarily profitable. However, as part of your overall strategy, your mix of continuation bets and value bets should be, if you are a winning player. Your continuation bets should provide more value for your value bets, and your value bets should provide higher folding equity for you continuation bets.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, but how about situations when it's highly unlikely you'll never see the opponents again, say you are on a trip to Vegas and play for a few hours against strangers. Say you raise AK on the button and get one caller, who looks like a calling station. You miss the flop completely and it's checked to you. You think he'll call any pair or any draw. Is there a reason to bet here?

[templar999]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The continuation bet itself isn't necessarily profitable. However, as part of your overall strategy, your mix of continuation bets and value bets should be, if you are a winning player. Your continuation bets should provide more value for your value bets, and your value bets should provide higher folding equity for you continuation bets.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, but how about situations when it's highly unlikely you'll never see the opponents again, say you are on a trip to Vegas and play for a few hours against strangers. Say you raise AK on the button and get one caller, who looks like a calling station. You miss the flop completely and it's checked to you. You think he'll call any pair or any draw. Is there a reason to bet here?

[/ QUOTE ]

If I'm understanding you correctly, future and past actions are irrelevant with regards to mixing your betting strategies on the flop? Sure, even in this scenario, a continuation bet may be profitable. First, there's a decent probability that your AK is still the best hand. Second, if your AK is not the best hand, there exists a decent probability that your AK will improve to the best hand by showdown. If you have a rough estimate for these two, you can pretty much figure out whether or not the continuation bet is profitable.

Let's use your example of AK against a calling station who will call with any pair or any draw on the flop. Say You raise 4x the BB, and there are 10 BB's in the pot. Let's estimate conservatively that he'll miss the flop with no pair and no draw 40% of the time and will fold immediately. The other 60% of the time, he will flop a decent draw or any pair and call. We can assume we're a decent underdog when we are called. Again conservatively, let's estimate our equity at 20% when called. If you assume no post flop betting, your EV for a continuation bet of 3/4 pot would look like this:


EV(cbet) = winning immediately + called/lose SD + called/win SD

EV(cbet7.5BB) = (40%)(10BBs) + (60%)(80%)(-7.5BB) + (60%)(20%)(17.5BB)

Way to simplistic and unrealistic, I know, but it's applicable if we were to look at a continuation bet in a vaccuum.

p.s. The equation may not be correct since I have no caffiene in my body, but you get the general idea.

[PantsOnFire]

[ QUOTE ]
The continuation bet itself isn't necessarily profitable. However, as part of your overall strategy, your mix of continuation bets and value bets should be, if you are a winning player. Your continuation bets should provide more value for your value bets, and your value bets should provide higher folding equity for you continuation bets.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well stated.

[PantsOnFire]

This may help you.

Suppose I have AJs in MP in a NL tourney. I open raise for 3xBB and CO calls and others fold. According to the gap concept, CO should have a fairly good hand to cold call a raise. Let's give him two hands, AQ and 88.

Now the flop comes K96 rainbow. You make a standard continuation bet of 2/3 the pot with your hand of A high and no draw. It is verly likely that both AQ and 88 will fold. This is of course player dependent but I am talking generalities here.

So the power of the cbet is to be the pf aggressor and continue being the flop aggressor. In both cases, you are actually losing the hand (both pf and after the flop) but your pf raise combined with your flop bet will get most hands to go away.

A preflop raise and a cbet is good aggressive poker. You are taking charge. This will work against most players. Fish might tend to call with anything and good tricky players will eventually catch on and play back at you. But, in general, it is usually a good play.

As well, as another poster mentioned, if you get caught cbetting a few times, your value bets will get paid off more.

Another way of looking at this is if you never cbet, then any bet means you have a hand. That's not a good thing.

[doh742]

Lets simplify this whole discussion. Most flops miss a players hand. Therefore, a continuation bet is usually a good bet. Its that simple. If you were the raiser, you should bet at the flop. Good poker is forcing your oppenent to make a tough choice, rather than allowing them to dictate that choice to you.