**** The €1k Ticket Winner ****

BigDragon

All the entrants were asked to submit a 1000 word essay on the following point:

''The continuation bet has to be the most overused, poorly thought out bet in poker. Discuss''

The following entry was deemed the 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.

The winner is IANMC38

Best of luck Ian.

The other entrants can post their entries if they want. Thanks to all who took part and a big thanks to the mystery backer.

StraddleFor6

Nice wan Kid!

Fatboydim

Congrats Ian.

And round of applause for Dave.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Lazare

Guessed it was you before I got to the end. Well done Ian.

cooker3

Congrats Ian

Bandana boy

Congrats Six killer

Dub13

Well done.

Glowingmind

Well done ian. Thank god it wasn't given to White Knight, he'd goober his chips away in minutes.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

gg wp

Marq

nh

biteme

congrats.

phantom_lord

wd sir

shoutman

Congrats Ian. I've learned a lot!

HalfBaked

Not a horrific essay, must work harder next term though. Final Grade B

Gholimoli

i see that you have finally learned something from me .
you are a bit slow as it should have taken alot less time but hey better late than never.
also a better article would have been "blowing a chip lead with 89 when down to 2 or 3 tables is bad ".
see you friday.

Mellor

congrats ian,

connie147

excellent essay Ian. A+ for effort. congratulations.

BigCityBanker

wd Ian

Juan Pablo

Congrats!

El Stuntman

what's a continuation bet?

best of luck Ian, look forward to seeing you and Gholi on da telly

El Stuntman

serious suggestion for BD - would you consider posting up the other entries in this (anonymous) as they would be interesting to compare and contrast?

BigDragon

El Stuntman wrote:

serious suggestion for BD - would you consider posting up the other entries in this (anonymous) as they would be interesting to compare and contrast?

Only if the players give permission. I'll ask.

fabsoul

nice1 GL in the event,

Ste05

Very nice Ian, well deserved. Best of luck in the tournament.

Flushdraw

Nice one Ian. Great read. I think you should be disqualified though because its only a 942 word essay

Seriously though, good luck in the event and i'll see you down there

Jesus Wept

Congrats Ian!


Below is the first image in google if you type in 'ianmc38' in google image search.






I'd consider starting a thread for all poker players to put their nicknames image (1st image) from google, mods might not like it tho?!

Lafortezza

Lafortezza, I'm a little bit better looking, but only just.

Jesus Wept

The-Rigger

Iago

surprisingly it's not far off!!!

ianmc38

Iago wrote:

surprisingly it's not far off!!!

Jesus, he's a Doppelganger!

Hitman Actual

Very well done Ian. I can't say I'm surprised; when I saw your name on the final 10 list, I thought you were a big favourite. Best of luck on Sunday!

phantom_lord

BigDragon

Coooolll Dragon sperm!

Iago

ianmc38 wrote:

Jesus, he's a Doppelganger!

i know how weird is that??

btw it's not me, I swear!

Jesus Wept

Iago wrote:

i know how weird is that??

btw it's not me, I swear!

do u have a photo of you so i can see the comparison??

Iago

The-Rigger wrote:

do u have a photo of you so i can see the comparison??

A/S/L?

i'll see if I can root one out but I don't have one handy

Jesus Wept

Iago wrote:

A/S/L?

i'll see if I can root one out but I don't have one handy

lol, male, ian and you just seem to think he is your twin

ianmc38

Iago wrote:

A/S/L?

i'll see if I can root one out but I don't have one handy

Lol. Thats wha i was thinking as well Gary. Beware of the rigger. First posting loads of his wallpapers such as Dale Winton et al, now asking for photos of you.

Be afraid... Be very afraid!

El Stuntman

I win

[IMG]http://www.lacoctelera.com/myfiles/quefuede/El Último Guerrero06.jpg[/IMG]

Jesus Wept

ianmc38 wrote:

Lol. Thats wha i was thinking as well Gary. Beware of the rigger. First posting loads of his wallpapers such as Dale Winton et al, now asking for photos of you.

Be afraid... Be very afraid!

rolfmao




Ianmc38's boardsie google image (see http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=53014119#post53014119)

Before you listen to Ian, keep this in mind...

Doc Farrell

Boo ! Shame!
Mc C ur a big girls blouse!
also you robbed that essay from one of the books I sold you.

Don't go calling better hands with nothing but hope!

and btw, good luck man, you'll do well if you stay off the beer and drugs.

http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.archives.upenn.edu/img/20050831014x200.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/people/1900s/farrell_edwd_stephen.html&h=296&w=200&sz=41&hl=en&start=9&tbnid=3Ij-rba6PoipFM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=78&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDoc%2BFarrell%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

califano

Pretty, Pretty, Pretty, Pretty, Pretty, Prettaayy good!

ianmc38

On a more serious note thanks a mill to the donator for the ticket.

I genuinely had very little expectation of winning it as the rest of the guys on the shortlist are all great posters and always have excellent responses in the threads they post in, so I was pleasantly surprised (and somewhat shocked)to hear the good news today.

And of course a big thanks to Dave(Big Dragon) for all the organisational work you did as well! Muchos appreciatos as they'd say in Spain...

White Knight

Congrats .. Good luck in the game. Be nice to make the charity a bob or two ... no pressure!

DeadParrot

Congrats Ian....very good read
I'm not even gonna look at my google image, I see John Cleese, lots of John Cleese

bohsman

Iago wrote:

A/S/L?

i'll see if I can root one out but I don't have one handy

was looking for the fistful of shamrock site but seems to be gone

Goodluck2me

lol

Nearly your man from Nip Tuck too....

careca

Well done Ian. Best of luck.

ionapaul

Well done Ian - can't wait to keep track of your progress in it - along with all the boardsters in the main event - good luck all!

ocallagh

well done Ian!

Mods, I'd suggest putting a link to this thread in that list you did up a while ago, and maybe put a link in the "Guide to Poker" to the Continuation Bet post.


Grass Grub