Noel Hayes continues his journey into PLO with a look at c-bets and pot control.
I’ve mentioned in previous articles that in the context of continuation betting whatever you do, make sure you do it smartly. As a player, particularly if you are one who errs on the side of aggression, you need to trade off the propensity to continuation bet with the requirement to control the size of the pot. You also need to measure your continuation betting frequency. If you continuation bet too much you are leaving yourself open to being exploited by good thinking players and it will end up costing you dearly. If you don’t continuation bet enough then you are leaving value behind you on the table. You need to strive for the happy place that lies in between.
KEY FACTORS
As a starting point you should arrive at your decision to continuation bet based on key factors, primarily the strength of your hand on the flop, the opportunity your hand presents for improvement and your relative position to your opponents in the hand with you.
Let us first consider the impact of the strength of your hand and particularly how you react to one of the likely subsequent plays by your opponent – a check-raise or raise. For this I consider that there are 3 categories of hands:
1. Strong hand, proceed with confidence and comfort.
YOUR HAND: Jh-Js-2d-As
FLOP: Jc-10d-5h
These are your top set (see hand above), top two-pair and flush draw, wrap, and flush draw type hands. You are confident that you can put the rest of your stack into the middle with decent equity against your opponents range. In normal playing circumstances the decision to continuation bet is a simple one as you are generally willing your opponent to make a mistake and commit himself to the pot.
2. Weak Hand – you have missed the flop completely.
YOUR HAND: 8d-8s-7d-7s
FLOP: Ah-Js-10c
Having raised it up in position with a hand like the one above, the flop has come down an annoying A-J-10 rainbow. When checked to you the only opportunity you have to win the pot is to bet and represent the broadway cards. Irrespective of your opponent’s next action you generally have a very easy time of it. He folds and you win the pot, he raises and you have an easy fold, he calls and you need a further read before you can fire the second barrel although it generally isn’t a fantastic idea.
3. Mediocre Hand – semi-decent holding with some strength but little nut potential.
YOUR HAND: Qd-10s-10d-8s
FLOP: Qs-Jd-2c
This is a small wrap on a flushing board or - as with the hand shown - one pair, a gutshot and a couple of back-door flush draws. The common theme here is that you begin to hate life when you bet and get raised as you generally have to ditch your hand and then get angry with yourself for denying yourself the opportunity to take a free card. Continuation betting too frequently with this type of holding will prove to be a major leak in your game and you should tread very carefully as not only will you destroy potential value by failing to see later streets which will lead to profit but you will also be leaking valuable portions of your stack in situations where you continuation bet and are forced to fold to the subsequent raise from your opponent.
ASSESS YOUR OPPONENT
Forgoing a potential future revenue stream and lending yourself to an immediate negative revenue stream magnifies your mistake greatly. For this reason the requirement to concentrate on your continuation betting decisions and ultimately make smart ones is of significant importance.
Whilst the above is a fundamentally strong starting point upon which to base your decisions I have warned in the past against playing poker like matching symbols – with that in mind you also need to consider your opponent and his tendencies.
Is he weak-tight and folds to continuation bets a lot? Is he a passive fool that check-calls to infinity with silly draws and weak made hands? Does he check-raise with frequency and what type of hands does he do this with? Is he a tricky player? Is he more aware of your play than you realise? Will he just call your continuation bet with top set in the hope of picking up further value from you on later streets? All of these are important things to consider, understand and add to your artillery.
POT CONTROL LESSONS
I don’t mean to scare people into not continuation betting enough, rather I am hoping that people will consider their decision to continuation bet a little more carefully. After all it is one of the best tools to use and it assists in putting pressure on your opponents and makes them ditch certain hands out of position that they could continue with in position and indeed against certain weaker opponents we sometimes get them to fold hands in position that they probably shouldn’t.
As we can see the decision of whether or not to continuation bet lends itself to pot control. I’m tempted to chuck in some cheesy cliché about them being similar to a horse and carriage or a hand and glove but in the interest of preserving this column from such atrocities I would ask you to just accept that they are highly interdependent.
The importance of pot control increases significantly depending on your relative position. When you are in position you can play inflated pots more comfortably with marginal holdings. As we have demonstrated before you are the one applying pressure and making life difficult for your opponent.
The corollary holds that when you are out of position the importance of trying to control the size of the pot increases. Strong hands can be played quite easily from any position but when holding a marginal hand life starts getting tough.
In Issue 42 I demonstrated at length the problems with continuation betting Ah Jh Jd 7s out of position on a Qc 9c 6d flop against a tricky opponent and it would be a worthwhile exercise for you to revisit that article yet again as it takes a comprehensive look at situations like this.
Top Tips for Continuation Betting
1. Do it smartly – pay particular attention to how you play post-flop with the mediocre holdings as you may be destroying value.
2. Get the balance right – make sure that your continuation bet frequency isn’t too high but also be sure that you are utilising this strong weapon enough.
3. Respect position – don’t go bloating those pots out of position when you are holding marginal hands. |
