Never C-betting with air.
 

How profitable is it if you only ever Cbet when you flop a pair or draw. Do you really need to be c-betting with air some of the time to be profitable?

I suppose the easy answer is yes, but how much is it going to hurt you if you dont?

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

not Cbetting is 0EV. so we are only interested in Cbetting air if it is higher than 0EV.

we can quickly calculate that:

people miss flops 2/3 of the time. so if you make a Potsized bet when you miss, (assuming they fold if they miss and that if called you are drawing dead and shutdown) it will have to work 50% of the time to break even. they will fold 66% of the time because they have also missed.

so you can see that it is +EV.

this really is the simplest way of thinking about it, you can go into alot more detail about it, but this will suffice imo

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

I have found that cbetting is almost always the right thing to do. If you get selective, good players will notice, but If you come out with a strong (and probably slightly uncomfortable bet for you) bet, chances are EVEN IF THEY HAVE NOTHING they will fold if they don't hit a good pair. Do this especially with people that like to call and see alot of flops. If you lose, so what... you'll win the next three.

btw. If you cbet, you find out where you are. If you don't, you have no idea and you're giving power to the opponent. No free cards!

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

[ QUOTE ]
not Cbetting is 0EV.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, folding is worth 0. Checking does not mean you lose the pot. Comparing a continuation bet with folding will strongly bias your analysis in favor of making continuation bets, even when they are less profitable than the alternatives.

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

You can miss the flop with AQ/AK/KQ and still be ahead in the hand. In order for c-bets to be most effective you should vary your c-bets somewhat. check call, check fold, raise, re raise. Depending on your opponents and if you hit or miss the flop. The individual play of that hand to extract the most amount of money for that hand and the ones that proceed it.

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

[ QUOTE ]

people miss flops 2/3 of the time. so if you make a Potsized bet when you miss, (assuming they fold if they miss and that if called you are drawing dead and shutdown) it will have to work 50% of the time to break even. they will fold 66% of the time because they have also missed.


[/ QUOTE ]

This assumes that your opponent has a more or less random hand. Given the preflop action, you might be able to put your opponent on a hand range that is much more likely to have hit certain flops.

You also need to not c-bet some of the times that you miss to disguise those times when it might be correct to slow play a hand.

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
not Cbetting is 0EV.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, folding is worth 0. Checking does not mean you lose the pot. Comparing a continuation bet with folding will strongly bias your analysis in favor of making continuation bets, even when they are less profitable than the alternatives.

[/ QUOTE ]
Folding is deffinatly worth 0EV, however checking is a different story. Checking could actually be close to -EV. If you will miss the flop 2/3 of the time with AK/AQ/KQ etc and your opponent will also miss the flop with two unpaired cards 2/3 of the time then checking when both have missed may be -EV. If you can expect your opponent to fold 2 out of 3 flops and you only bet when you hit (1/3) and check the rest you will be missing opportunities to pick up the pot. Say it is a 1-2 NL game and you raise to 10 out of the SB and the BB calls so the pot is 20. You will both miss the flop 2/3 times and you will both hit 1/3 of the time, so the pot is really split up like this: $13 is what you will be fighting for when you both miss and $7 is what you fight for when you both hit. If you both miss and it goes check check(assuming you are not going for a check-raise) then the bigger pot($13) will go to whichever one of your hands holds up or improves in the end. Essentially you are giving your opponent a chance to catch up, or perhaps to win with a better A high or something. If you give up the pot by checking it could be a -$13 EV rather than a 0EV. This is of course assuming your opponent folds when he misses and is a pretty simplified version but in this case checking could actually be worth -EV sometimes. And times that is could be worth +EV would be checking to induce a bluff or checking to as a slowplay.

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

In a random situation, say you have KQs on the button and it is folded around to you. You make a standard 4x raise. One of the blinds calls with A10. Technically they are ahead. Flop is all rags or say it is JJ or something. If you have varied up your c-bets so that you don't do it automatically and have shown that you will lead out with a big hand that A10 goes into the muck just about every time. You do have to show that you are willing to c-bet without a piece though from time to time with AQ/AK or a small or medium pocket pair with overs. You don't want people climbing over top of each other to get at you but at the same time you don't want people to fold out to you because you only c-bet when you connect with the flop.

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

dont ever always do anything. dont c-bet every time you whiff. dont check every time you whiff. dont c-bet every time you flop a pair or draw.

Re: Never C-betting with air.
 

You can use pokerstove to help you decide when to c-bet. For example if you put an opponent on a range of say 99-AA, AK, AQ, then you probably don't want to c-bet with a whiffed AK if there is a Q on the flop.