**** The €1k Ticket Winner ****

One of the most important aspects of poker is being the aggressor. By betting and raising, you are creating decisions for your opponent, rather than making the decisions yourself. By forcing them to make decisions, you are essentially forcing them to make mistakes. And the more mistakes our opponents make, the more money we expect to make.

The continuation bet is a fundamental means of inducing mistakes from our opponents.

An example of how a continuation bet works is best looked at in a vacuum. Assume the following: the villain in the hand is a standard tight aggressive player. His range for calling a raise from the big blind is strong suited connectors such as JTs, low to mid range pocket pairs and two broadway cards such as AQo. If he hits, he will continue with the hand, but if he misses he will simply check fold.

An unpaired hand will hit a pair or better on the flop 32.4% of the time. A pocket pair will hit a set 11.8% of the time. Suited hole cards will flop a flush draw 11% of the time. The odds of flopping a straight, a flush, a full house or better are all less than 1%.

So in our example, the villain will hit the flop approximately 27% of the time with his given range. Thus, in a vacuum a bet will win the pot 73% of the time, resulting in instant profit.

Unfortunately, poker in reality is completely different. There are numerous factors that need to be taken into account when deciding whether or not to make a continuation bet. Player types, history and table conditions are all of paramount importance when deciding on the most appropriate action.

Four of the most common player types we encounter at the tables are the following:

1.The bad, passive player who calls down too much
2.The bad chip spewing LAG
3.The good LAG with good hand reading skills
4.The good TAG

If we continue to make continuation bets on 100% of flops, the following will happen:

The calling station will call too often and we'll need to shut down too early when they may have folded to a bet on the turn. We may also get too much action when he's calling us down with middle pair on all streets.

The bad LAG will notice our c-betting frequencies and adjust, playing back extremely light and with any two cards.

The good LAG will do a range of things. Sometimes calling and leading the turn, sometimes check raising and sometimes calling and check raising the turn, knowing that you'll be firing more 2nd barrels.

The TAG will let you hang yourself, check calling a lot and trying to get to showdown, forcing you to play poorly, understanding that when you bet the flop and shut down on the turn you usually have nothing or that when you double barrel, you usually have big hand. Essentially, this enables him to play perfect poker even though he is out of position.



That is the biggest problem with the continuation bet. Most people have no idea why they are doing it. They bet blindly and without thought on every flop. This one dimensional implementation of the continuation bet is extremely poor. A byproduct of this is that hand reading becomes more difficult as opponents stop playing their hands and start playing back against our aggression.

This is why the delayed continuation bet is crucial. This is when we make a continuation bet on the turn, rather than the flop. When we do this with both our made hands and air, our hand becomes almost unreadable. Varying our betting frequencies like this on each street is imperative in order to keep our opponents guessing. This deception serves a number of purpose; firstly, it induces bets from our opponents with weaker holdings who think their hand is ahead due to our passive line on the flop and secondly, our hand is more likely to be a bluff when we bet the turn or the river.

Our c-betting frequency should also correlate directly with the number of players in the hand. The greater the number of players that see the flop, the lesser our c-betting frequency should be as it stands to reason that the more players we're facing, the more likely it is that we'll be called.

Other significant factors that need to be considered are stack sizes, position and board textures, all of which are overlooked by weaker players.

When used correctly, the continuation bet is one of the most powerful weapons in a poker players arsenal and is a vital means of picking up pots on different streets.

Many players ignore the plethora of information they have before them at a poker table. Keeping a note on player types, their tendencies and our previous history with them, gives us a wealth of data to work with. It is of utmost necessity to scrutinise these particular elements when selecting the most appropriate action to take postflop.

When these things are disregarded, the continuation bet becomes extremely weak. It is too predictable and good players will adjust easily. It becomes a case of blind aggression which results in regular spewing. All of a sudden, we are facing decisions. Our play becomes readable and our range easily defined. Thus, the initial purpose of the c-bet has been reversed. It's purpose is to help define the villains range and to take down the pot uncontested. If it's not doing this, it becomes an almost worthless move.

It is for these reasons, the continuation bet is the most overused, poorly thought out bet in poker.