C-betting survey.

[Worm75]

While I like the overall direction that the survey is going Pokey, I do think there needs to be a couple of questions reflecting c-bet habits vs loose players/ and c-bet size/frequency on dry drawless flops, such as K62 rainbow

[Pokey]

A few responses:

[ QUOTE ]

You compare tight to aggressive in many polls, should it not be tight vs loose, or passive vs aggressive?


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I did not compare tight vs. aggressive. I had a question where I was asking about opponents. I asked if you would c-bet bigger/more often against tight opponents (rather than loose), and at the same time I asked whether you would c-bet bigger/more often against aggressive opponents (rather than passive). That's why there were the options of more against both or less against both....

[ QUOTE ]

I bet people are gonna miss that there's only one opponent here


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but I did say it, so hopefully it won't be a huge problem.

[ QUOTE ]

I think that polls like this are actually counter productive.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, which is why I said "Think of this survey as a springboard to a conversation about c-betting." I don't mean the survey as a final product or some grand revelation about how c-bets should look; rather, I threw out some ideas that I consider important (though by no means comprehensive) in the hopes that it would kindle a good discussion about what good c-betting strategy should be. If it gets people thinking about the size and frequency of their bets, that's a good thing. If it gets people discussing those concepts, that's a GREAT thing.

[ QUOTE ]

some of those are kind of trick questions.


[/ QUOTE ]

All of them are kind of trick questions if you don't play by rote. In fact, all of them should be trick questions for the best poker players -- they should be looking and saying "wow, that's just not enough information to answer. It depends on too many other things." Here I'm just trying to give people a general idea of the most basic and straightforward strategies that we implement. All the tricky parts should be discussed in responses, ideally in great length (though that might be a personal bias [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

[ QUOTE ]

there is a big difference between JT9 monotone and Q82 monotone


[/ QUOTE ]

Certainly, and I could have (should have?) mentioned connectedness. Of course, a complete list would also include table image, my stack size, their stack size, perceived strength of opponent, perceived tilt of opponent, villain's fold-to-c-bet statistic, villains went-to-showdown ratio, villain's won-at-showdown ratio, my exact position, villain's exact position, the strength of my read on villain, relevant table chat, if the board is two-tone, if villain is positionally aware, the frequency of villain's three-bets, the frequency of villain's cold-calling, villain's suspected range for me, my range for villain, villain's flop tendencies, villain's turn tendencies, villain's river tendencies, villain's "trickiness," villain's frustration level with me, villain's perceived "luckiness" of hero, villain's perceived "luckiness" of villain, and so on and so forth. A complete survey would probably be ten times longer, and this one was already too long, so I just did what I could.

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I completely agree that a survey is a bad format for getting answers to these kinds of questions. However, I think a survey can give us a starting point. That's what I was hoping for.

So: anybody find anything interesting in the survey that they want to discuss? Anybody have any pet theories or clever ideas regarding c-bets that they want to share?

[well named]

One thing that strikes me as interesting is that it appears that it is more popular to vary c-bet frequencies than sizes.

I can think of a couple reasons why this might be so:

- Good "default" c-bet sizing avoids inadvertently giving odds to the most common drawing hands

- We expect our opponents are more likely to notice patterns in bet sizing than in bet frequencies

On the other hand, this topic reminds me of discussions in the past about pre-flop raise sizing. It has been argued (for example in NLH:TAP) that with proper randomization to avoid obvious exploitability, varying pre-flop raise size with hands of different strength could be a good strategy. That is generally not part of the 2+2 "default" strategy, but I wonder if there is a similar argument in favor of varying c-bet sizing as well.

The main problem appears to me is that both very small and very large flop bets are likely to seem suspicious, which isn't necessarily what we want, and understanding the difference in EV between say 1/2 and 3/4 pot sized bets across a large sample of c-betting opportunities is difficult and there may not really be a large enough difference to bother in practice.

[kurto]

I think there could be some interesting discussions about varying c-bet sizing.

I personally think its NOT a good idea at microstakes because people read too much into bet sizing.

If you Cbet small, most people seem to read it as a sign of weakness and will often raise you off the pot. So, If I bet too small, I'm more apt to do to induce a bluff. (I think the aggressive players who I want to play against are easily manipulated this way.) I want to be able to read something into an opponents action. So I don't want to have to figure out if my opponent is raising me because he's strong or because I bet smaller then usually and he's picking this up as weakness.

So... in effect, I bet a consistant size to (1) make me less readable and (2) to help me gauge their reaction.

I DO sometimes change my betsizing, but its usually when there are larger then normal pots and/or if I think I can manipulate a particular opponent with a different betsize (inducing bluffs).

[BrunoThePug]

People must have missed the part about the flop being heads up. I will c-bet basically ALL of the time when it's heads up. I might vary that based on a reasonable sample size of PT stats but that's not very often.

I only rarely worry about c-betting heads up when I've been called by a TAG that I've got a lot of hands on. At that point I will deviate from my normal strategy.

[well named]

[ QUOTE ]
I personally think its NOT a good idea at microstakes because people read too much into bet sizing.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is my main concern about the idea. On the other hand, if it was possible to get a read on a villain that in general they were just as likely to fold to a 1/2 pot c-bet as to a larger one on flops with certain textures (assuming you both missed) than it could be quite +EV to notice this and make that adjustment. Unfortunately, even with HUDs this seems a difficult read to be able to make. It may be possible by experimentation at a given level to adjust your regular c-bet size to match the tendencies of the typical player there though. One other sizing adjustment I do make sometimes is to c-bet smaller in multi-way pots OOP on drawy boards, usually as a bluff. I don't do that very often though.

[ QUOTE ]
I will c-bet basically ALL of the time when it's heads up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been experimenting with c-betting a little less lately, like 65-70% heads up instead of 90%, but mainly just by not c-betting in spots where I think the flop very easily hit villain's range and i'm OOP with air. I really have no way of knowing whether this is really accomplishing anything at this point, but at least at .02/.05 given the typical villain's tendency to like to call bluffing/semi-bluffing a bit less makes sense.

[Student Caine]

Man Pokey, you are the man, man. This is like perfect timing because I have just started to (once again) pick apart my cbetting.

So as with everything in Poker, there is always the "it depends" factor, but in general this is my line:

Frequency: Against a single opponent I am a cbet machine - I have to have a very strong read that a player will not fold to a cbet before I check it (thank you PT and PAHUD).

Bet Size: When I played 10NL I always bet full pot (I honestly believe that 10NL players view anything less than full pot as either weakness or "good odds" so they call it). As I have moved up in limit I got the brilliant advice from one of the better 2p2 contributors to vary cbet size based upon board texture so I started to do so (closer to 1/2 pot on neutral boards and closer to full pot on drawy boards).

Monotone Flops and Paired Boards: this becomes very read specific for me.

There are some villains, even ones that would typically call you down with an overcard that do not like the "scare flops", they think to themselves "I am holding A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and the flop just came down Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] or K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] so even if I hit my overcard I may lose the hand". It isn't necessarily a fit or fold strategy on their part, but can be a "I didn't fit, but I could be so far behind that I may never fit" strategy. I work very hard to identify these types of players early on in my sessions, and obviously bet into them mercilessly on scare flops.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the villains that think "I have A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and the flop is K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], Hero just led out but he would never do that if he really had the flush...he would slowplay it to try and extract value, cuz he is a tricky genius like me!!1!". I work hard to identify these players early on as well and will cbet into them when I have either hit or have something like 9+[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

In regards to bet size on these types of flops I usually go for 3/4 pot+, because I worry that anything less tends to convey weakness. Sometimes as an ultra-l33t, mastermind, fancy pants move I will throw in a 1/2 pot bet against the right (i.e., thinking) opponent as it makes them think "This asshat has been betting 3/4 pot+ all day and now he 1/2 pots me when he hits a monster?! Eff this, I fold! Pwned haha!"

Hand Strength: I do not let hand strength vary either my frequency or bet size, unless I am slow playing an absolute monster (which I rarely do). I think that, just in case one of these villains is watching me instead of "Access Hollywood" or "E! True Hollywood Stories" on TV they are unable to tell when I have a hand,and frustrated enough to raise me when I do hit.


So there it is. Please, please, please pick it apart and tell me any issues you see. I think cbetting is one of the largest leaks nubs like me have as they are learning the game.

Also, I posted all of this before reading any of the other input, so I apologize if I touched on any subjects that have already been beaten to death. I just wanted to be sure that my explanation was not influenced by any of the other information (i.e., I did not want to seem any smarter than I am). [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[DaycareInferno]

i dont understand how over half say that hand strength doesn't affect their cbetting frequency. i don't understand how that can possibly be true unless you were to just cbet 100% of the time.

[whyzze]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont understand how over half say that hand strength doesn't affect their cbetting frequency. i don't understand how that can possibly be true unless you were to just cbet 100% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]


When the board is dry I will frequently check with marginal hands and sometimes strong hands and sometimes air.

[DaycareInferno]

right, but if a board is super bad for cbetting, you're still gonna cbet it if you actually hooked up with it, whereas you're not if you didn't.