To cbet or not to cbet

LearnedfromTV · #1 09-15-2007, 07:11 AM

So I've seen a handful of posts in here about cbetting, and I know that figuring out whether or not to cbet, and how much to bet, especially in lategame situations, can be tricky. Here is a hand I played in the wcoop 215 6 max second chance. I guess I could have posted it in hsmtt but I thought it would be better here. It's the kind of decision that people tend to skip over without really thinking it through.

We're in the money, 84 got paid, I'm something like 25/35 when this hand goes down.

SB is decent, which means I know he's good enough to be playing a reasonable range, but I don't know whether or not that range is as tight as it probably should be, or if it includes stuff like JT. He has not flatted OOP very often, maybe three or four times in the past hour; this is probably the first time he's done it from the SB rather than the BB. (but note that if he were going to, albeit with a somewhat limited range, this is the ideal stack size situation for it as an alternative to 3betting). BB is relatively new to table, but has been aggressive and a little erratic; he moved here with 18k, shoved his way to 23 or something, then doubled up by reshoving JTo and getting there v KQ. Obviously he's calling fairly wide given the odds laid by my smallish raise and the Sb's call.

So both of them have jacks and pairs in their range (but plenty of other stuff too). Don't overrate how much my reads on them mean - this hand and hands like it are mostly about the board texture, my hand, their preflop ranges, and a set of generic responses that most opponents take with most hands. (e.g. No "Oh BB's aggressive so do x"; BB having shoved a few hands and then restole once is like 5% of what matters in this hand - the opponent read stuff that *really* matters is stuff that's hard to know, like "how many hands does he check-call the flop with but fold to a turn shove?").

So, after all the build up. Do you bet?

If yes: Why are you betting? How much do you bet (and what does that betsize accomplish)? What are you planning to do on the turn if called?

Are there any hands you wouldn't bet? (Assume your range is like 75% standard "good hands" i.e. pairs, big aces, kq, kj; 15% suited connector type crap (i.e. 97s which is great if we're deep but here raising that instead of 72o basically a randomizer); 10% "[censored] it i feel like raising this time."

A secondary question which is obviously very relevant: how often (that is, with what percentage of their preflop range) is one of them checkraising me?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t1500 (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

SB (t78970)
BB (t56090)
Hero (t28392)
MP (t100940)
Button (t13615)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
Hero raises to t3888, 2 folds, SB calls t3138, BB calls t2388.

Flop: (t10014) J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks,