Continuation Betting at LIMIT Low Stakes

[Grandma_DOG]

I'm asking the forum for advice when NOT to CB after a PF raise.

Ok, I'm playing LIMIT low stakes where I can find and plug my leaks cheaply.

There are some adjustments down at these lower levels. Obviously there are more callers in every pot, there are more calling stations amongst those callers. Worse, is the random new players who pop in whom you've never seen and have no idea on their play and PT has no stats for them.

On the positive side, I've found the CB to be quite effective down here HU or with 3 in the pot.

However, on average I have 5 callers in a pot. Even if I raise in EP, I'll often get 4 callers.

So I've had to make some rules when not to CB. Let's see if you agree...

1. If there are 2 or fewer in the pot, CB is a must. Its definitely +EV.
2. At 3 other players in pot, its Iffy, depends upon board texture and position.
3. With 4 or more, and the flop was terrible- don't bother, someone somewhere has something, and if he doesn't someone else has nothing and will call you down with it. A CB is just throwing money away.

[Buzz]

What does "CB" mean?

[Grandma_DOG]

CB = Continuation Bet

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
CB = Continuation Bet

[/ QUOTE ]Grandma - Thank you. Of course. If I had been thinking in terms of Texas hold 'em, CB probably would have been immediately obvious to me. But my thinking for Omaha-8 is somehow different. It's not that the CB principle cannot be applied, but just that I don't usually apply it. Maybe I should. I think it has to do with the difference in the frequency with which I raise PF in the two games. (In T.H.E. I usually raise. In O-8 I usually don't raise.)

After the flop I usually bet if I'm staying in a hand and nobody else has already bet. So if I have raised before the flop and am going to continue with the hand, it’s almost inevitable that I bet. In other words, a CB is more or less automatic if I’m going to play the hand.

If I check, I'm almost invariably going to fold to a bet. That's not always true, but only rarely do I check raise and then it's almost invariably for some tactical reason. But you didn’t ask about check-raising.

Heads-up play involves different thinking.

But otherwise, yes, I'm almost always making a continuation bet when I plan on continuing, regardless of the number of opponents.
[ QUOTE ]
1. If there are 2 or fewer in the pot, CB is a must. Its definitely +EV.
2. At 3 other players in pot, its Iffy, depends upon board texture and position.
3. With 4 or more, and the flop was terrible- don't bother, someone somewhere has something, and if he doesn't someone else has nothing and will call you down with it. A CB is just throwing money away.

[/ QUOTE ]I would not exactly think that way. Whether or not someone has a fit with the flop depends more on how many opponents saw the flop than on how many continue after the flop. The presumption is anyone who continues after the flop and who knows how to play the game either has a fit with the flop or is setting up for a steal. (I'm talking full ring game strategy. I think you probably should modify your strategy for six-max or short handed play).

When several opponents see my pre-flop raise, what to do after the flop depends almost entirely on who they are and where they are, rather than how many of them there are.

Buzz

[fishyak]

It looks like the OP is asking a Hold 'em question in an O/8 world. I've finally turned my O/8 play profitable YTD with the help of some Hold'em players that quickly lost their stacks at the O/8 tables Labor Day weekend.

When I switch games from Hold'em to O/8, I have to switch the way I think about the game. The mental "rules" for O/8 are VERY different then they are for Hold'em. CB's aren't on my radar screen at all in O/8. Instead, I'm counting outs to the nuts if the flopped missed. Just a blind continuation bet regardless of the flop strikes me as spew in O/8.

I play live at Commerce and people who complain that 4/8 Hold'em is "no fold 'em" should come to most O/8 games where, except for ultra scary flops, no fold 'em is standard. I don't see value in "CB's" in a true no fold 'em game, particularly O/8.

[RobNottsUk]

That's because CB's are bluffs, if you think you may have best hand then it's not really a CB but a value bet.

If you CB with many outs, then it may be a value semi-bluff, where you either like 0, or 1 weak calls or very many.

In loose-passive games, betting the flop into a field, who then check to you on turn, may allow you to draw cheaply, when you're in position, and fold to raises or turn bets into you with confidence that you're making the right decision.

[steamboatin]

[ QUOTE ]
The mental "rules" for O/8 are VERY different then they are for Hold'em.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

Quoted for truth, possibly the truest thing ever posted on 2+2.

[Truthiness24]

This feels like semantics to me.

I think that what we are talking about is the bet on the flop that we usually make with position and/or for value in O8. This bet that is often called a CB in LHE (because you are presumably betting with nothing, although often you are doing it with position and the best hand anyway). But in O8, you often have a piece, even if it isn't a perfect fit, and you bet out, both for value and to keep on the pressure (e.g. c-betting into a board of Q99 when you hold AAxx or KKxx). This seems to be to be both a CB and a value bet, and I think that its use separates the weak from the strong.

Perhaps we should call this bet something different. It is quite useful. One could probably write a book just about this bet that has no name.

The answer to the OP's question is player- and game- dependent. With position against a TAGgy field of 2-5 opponents, I think that you almost always "CB" if action checks around to you. But against a table of calling stations you can never bet without cards, lest you spew.