continuation bets losing money, how do I adjust?

[elus2]

what is your definition of weaker vs stronger.

[Miles Ahead]

Yep. So fire away!

[dalerobk]

[ QUOTE ]
what is your definition of weaker vs stronger.

[/ QUOTE ]

In this particular case, I meant someone who plays a lot of hands and will then call raises but doesn't go crazy after the flop. By stronger, I meant someone who plays many fewer hands and can't necessarily be pushed off if they think they're good. For this particular play, I like to do it in position and against someone who will call all kinds of hands preflop but not necessarily call you down with any pair. Often even if they call the flop they'll then fold to the second barrel on the turn, unless they have something good, of course.

[elus2]

where would you put in the players who will play any two but can narrow down your hand range effectively enough to take the pot away from you on a later street if certain cards fall? you've completely disregarded the times when opponents will play back at you and you will be forced to fold with the best hand sometimes.

[dalerobk]

[ QUOTE ]
where would you put in the players who will play any two but can narrow down your hand range effectively enough to take the pot away from you on a later street if certain cards fall? you've completely disregarded the times when opponents will play back at you and you will be forced to fold with the best hand sometimes.

[/ QUOTE ]

YOu're right. Thank you. My definition was not entirely complete. My point was that you have to do CB in good situations and very dependent upon the player. My experience lately, which I'm not sure is right but it's been working so far, is that I don't CB against tight solid players. It just seems to me that they likely have a small big pair. CBs seem to work best, for me at least, against opponents whom I have position on and who will call plenty of raises with weak hands. The chances of them hitting the flop are not very good, so you can often push them off. Obviously, if you know the player will make a play on you no matter what, then you should probably just take the free card. My overall point was that tighther/stronger players who call your preflop raise are much more likely to have a real hand, so it's harder to get them off of it with an xxx flop. Well, a weaker/looser player is likely to have something like J-10 K-9s, A-7o, so that a CB on an xxx flop seems to be more effective (assuming they are not the type to call you down with any pair). I point this out only b/c it seemed a little counterintuitive to me. Everyone seems to always say CB against tighter players and not agaisnt looser players. But this goes against my experience.

Sorry for not covering 100% of the possible situations. Is there anything else I forgot? Please let me know.

[Dommer]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm really tired, but I'll post a couple of thoughts before I hit the sack.

1) Don't bet too much for your continuation bets... I usually bet between 1/2 and 2/3rds of the pot. Sometimes 3/4ths. Never larger. The less you bet, the less often they need to work to be profitable.

2) Think about the flop texture when you bet. Something like 9-7-6 is not a great flop to bet your AK on.

3) Don't make continuation bets everytime you raise preflop. ~60-75% is probably ideal.

4) Don't make continuation bets into loose players that are liable to call you with any piece of the board. These are fish who need to be value bet, not bluffed. Also, pay attention in between hands so you can figure out who the AK cops are.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great points, one question on #1 though... are you betting like this with your made hands as well? That's the only reason I bet near the pot, I want to be consistent with how I bet when I actually have a hand. But I suppose I could vary how I bet with my made hands as well.

[Rococo]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Stop doing them. (not a bad option)

[/ QUOTE ]

Talk about making yourself predictable . . .

[ QUOTE ]
2. Raise so you get 3-4 callers, that way you're always drawing with odds and don't need to continuation bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

WHy raise at all then?

[ QUOTE ]
3. Don't continuation bet heads up, do it into 2-4 players. Amazingly, this works even better than heads up if you bet large enough..

[/ QUOTE ]

Continuation betting into a 4 person field, particularly OOP, is pure chip spewing. This is frighteningly bad advice. Super aggro players fare much better in SH games precisely because they are banging away at flops HU and taking down a lot of pots where both players miss. If your theory were correct, LAG play of this sort would be best suited to full ring, which is surely wrong.

[dc_publius]

I use a combination of flop texture/my hand strength/individual player reads to determine whether to cbet or not. In general, if I think my opponents connected on the flop I don't cbet. If I don't think they connected I cbet.

Obviously, the more players, the more likely for someone to connect so I am less likely to cbet into a big field. It's player dependant, but I will also fire a second shot on a safe turn and find it very profitable since alot of people appear to float the flop cbet and 'believe' me after my turn cbet.

I generally don't cbet into small pots. (I wonder if this skews poker tracker stats for those who use PT and help me steal big pots later...)

[mwatkins]

i think continuation betting works best if you have a big range of raising hands. plus i only like doing it with 1 or 2 others in the pot with me, maybe more if the board is really dry and i have position.

with this play you can also make a lot of money out of those people who like looking you up, for example raising a,k preflop, flop comes king high, he checks you bet pot, he flat calls, no scare cards on turn he checks you check, and then on river he will either bet or check so that you can either call the bet, or bet the river, about pot size.

from this i have got lots of calls from people with pocket 8's to jacks on a king or ace high board when i have either of those cards.

[DWarrior]

c-betting into 4 players, that's something I used to do.

The math for this is really simple:

if you bet 2/3 pot, then the odds of you winning the pot, 1, must be p and the odds of you getting called (and losing) 2/3 are 1-p.

So the formula is:

1p=2/3(1-p)

p=.4 <- villains must fold 40% for this to be break even.

To figure out how often each villain must fold to achieve .4 is a function:

x^v=.4, where v is # of villains and x is their odds to fold,

x=.4^(1/v)

for 1 opponent: x=.4
for 2 opponents: x=.63
for 3 opponents: x=.74
for 4 opponents: x=.80
for 5 opponents: x=.83

you can see that with 3 opponents, they each have to fold 75% of the time for this to be break even, and for 4 they each have to fold 80% of the time.

Some of these times you will outdraw them, or maybe you'll have positional advantage, so maybe sometimes you can c-bet into 3 opponents, but c-betting into 4 opponents looks suicidal, at least from a mathematical point.

That being said, my flop aggression is 5, which indicates that I c-bet way too much. I almost always c-bet 1 or 2 opponents and never c-bet into 3+.