Preflop and Cbet sizing for NLTRN

[xSCWx]

I kind of neglect this area of my game, but I figure it is a pretty major aspect of our play styles.

Preflop - My raise is 3x BB. One definite plus of having the same raise every time is that your opponent can't get a read out of you. An issue I've had with this is that once the blinds hit 25/50, the 3x raise is dangerous for some of my hands.

My thinking is that the 3x raise is good at these stakes against a player who will fold to it, while a 2x raise would be better in general against the calling stations. My reasoning for this is that I can still build the pot while in position, but the pots are slightly smaller so variance isn't going to wipe me as easily. I'm not really losing much fold equity if they call everything anyways.

I figure some arguments against this are that I should be doing the 3x bet because it builds the pot BIGGER while I'm in position, but some hands I don't want to get in pots THAT big with. Another option is that I could use a mixture of 2x and 3x bets, and if they are continuously calling everything I may as well use the 3x bets (or bigger) for my hands that hold up well post flop.

Continuation Betting - I generally do 2/3 pot for this. It seems pretty standard. However, most of the top players I have watched seem to bet somewhere between 3/4 and 5/6 of the pot as their cbet. I haven't figured out if this is simply because it works better at higher stakes, or if there is some advantage to it at all stakes.

I've put some consideration into how it would affect metagame as a whole. I figure bigger cbets slightly reduces the amount of hands you are playing out and allows you to build pots easier when needed. The down side of course is that you are risking more chips. I've fooled around with the 5/6 betting but I can't really bring myself to do it continuously.

What do you guys think?

[PrimordialAA]

ok, IMO 25/50 3x'n even at 1500 stacks is very bad, and it gets worse as the effective stacks go down. I wish I had the paper cause I was doing some math on this exact situation in my hungarian language class lol ;p. Ok, so MAYBE my math is wrong with this... which is very possible, but let's say your staying fairly active, I belive this allows the villian to too easily reshove a ton of hands and have it be profitable. So let's say he begins to shove when your even stacked, if you would call only 1/4 hands (assuming you'll be raising hands like TJs, maybe 9T, Q9, A4, etc.), hands you won't call a push for full stacked, the math would go something like this:

.75(200) + .25( .3(1550) + .7(-1450) )

The 200 comes from the BB + 150 raise, the 1550 from your own BB + his 1500 chips, and the -1450 is for you remaining chips, so do this out and it comes out to a positive gain of 12.5 chips... not huge... but you also probably won't be only 30%, you'll probably be alot more, which swings it alot, and as the effective stacks go down, you have to tighten up ALOT, because if he can take 150 off you when your raising from 1100 chips, it's huge for you, >10% of your stack, I think this is a much larger mistake than most people realize, but then again, i've only thought about it briefly, so please, someone who knows math and thinks im an idiot correct me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

P.s. even if I was shoving cards I thought would be about 40% vs. the villians raising range, even if he called 40% of the time... which IMO is much more than any remotely aggro vill will (most aren't going to call a shove w/hands they are opening with almost every other hand) it's still a gain of 20 chips, if your only getting called 30% of the time it's a gain of 65 chips, so in a $110 + 5 it's like $2.38 won each time you shove (again, this is being 40% vs. his range)

[PrimordialAA]

lol... can ANYONE else say something on this? it's a discussion i've thought about alot and would love to hear some other opinions ;p

[shadyyy]

I always bet 3xBB in Position and 4xBB OOP, until the Blinds are large enough to shove.

I vary my C-bets from 1/2-5/6 Pot..pretty randomly.

[phatjeffrey]

i have no mathmetical background or calculations, i found what i do to be a decent approach..

On stars :

-10/20 level raise to 3x bb

-15/30 level raise to 2.5x bb - 3x bb ( depending on how the opponent is, if hes too aggro and 3 bets alot 2.5 if passive and will fold to bet on the flop 3x gets more chips out of him)

-25/50 level raise to 2.5x bb

-50/100 2xbb.

As to cbets i also realized that theyre almost always bigger than 2/3 pot size at the higher stakes ( not sure why though, probably makes 3 betting or check raising them difficult because villain would have to commit a big part of his stack in the process)..

Also value bets are almost always bigger than 1/2 pot.

[xSCWx]

Do you guys find that the 2x BB at 50/100 gets called too lightly? I've fooled with it a bit and I've found that although villains will actually begin to fold to a min-bet, they still call me with a lot of hands that are much looser than what I want to be up against.