Continuation bet

The continuation bet is the bet that you almost automatically do on the flop when you raised preflop, it's the most important step toward good aggression. It's purpose is to steal many pots and hide the real strength of your hand. Poker is a game of partial information and making a continuation bet is a way to exploit it. I'll explain in more details, but let me start with an example first:

You have AQ on the button in a 1$/2$ full ring no limit game. There are 2 limpers, you raise to 10$, and 1 of the 2 limpers call. The flop comes 6 8 J and your opponent checks. Many people would check here because they did not hit the flop, but that's a huge mistake, let's compare the 2 options:

You bet 12$: You just bet 12$ to win the pot of 23$, suppose you get called or raised half the time, you still make a good profit (lose 12$ IF you lose the hand the time you get called, get the 23$ the other time, easy money!). Now, since you play tight, your opponent knows you have a good hand, but since you bet even if you don't hit, he can'T figure out if you got a piece of the flop. You might have something strong with this flop like AJ, AA, KK QQ or JJ, but it might be AK, AQ, AT, KQ. Since he can't take the chance every time, he will often call when he gets a pair. He will only have one pair only 1 time out of 3, you still benefit a lot from all those folds. Now, about that time he calls, you still have 6 cards in the deck that gives you top pair, which will often end up winning the hand.

Option #2, you check: Well, since you check when you don't hit, playing against you won't be very complicated, rest assured some players will understand and steal a lot of pots from you. You will hit 1 time out of 3, but those 2 other times, if you check, hope your opponent dose not steal the pot from you and hope that you will get lucky on the turn or river. There is nothing more to say to it, you checked, just hope you will get lucky and win because you opponent won't fold if you don't bet!

It's not a war on every hand

Now, understand a continuation bet does not mean you start a war every time. It's purpose is to steal many pots and hide the strength of your hand, but when your ace high gets reraised, you have to fold! But, you also get a compensation for this, and that is:

Since you make many continuation bets, but always with a strong preflop hand, you will have a strong hand on the flop pretty often and your opponent won't know! Now, when they reraise you on the flop, you will have to fold weak hands, but when you have a strong one, the hand is well on it's way to make a huge pot for you!

The first question: what are the odds that they will all fold?

Are the players folding often to flop bet? That is one of the most important thing to notice when you play online Texas holdem. You want to have opponents that either fold very often or call too often. Since the first reason to do a continuation bet is to steal many pots, the more often they fold on the flop, the more profitable your continuation bet is.

Lets say now they are calling 2 times out of 3, you should not make your continuation very big when you did not hit since it does not steal the pot very often. In this situation, make it smaller (like 50% of the size of the pot, maybe even 40% if you feel like it), but bet more when you have a strong hand! That may sound like telling your opponent the strength of your hand. In fact, it's exactly that, but players that call so often on the flop are usually gamblers, simply get the most of it when you have something strong, try to steal with a small bet the rest of the time. If they change strategy and start adapting to this, then you will have to adjust too.

Now, of course, the more people still in the hand when the flop comes, the less likely they will all fold. If there is 1 or 2 players other than you, you should make a continuation bet most of the time. But with more players, you should not try so often since it's very unlikely that they will all fold. The lower the odds that they will all fold, the lower your continuation need to be in order to be profitable in the long run.

The second question: Is your hand probably the best?

Even though you don't even have a pair on the flop, you will still have the best hand pretty often. Suppose you had AK and the flop is 2 5 8, if you are heads up, you will still have the best hand most of the time. If you have a pocket pair, you will also have the best hand very often when there is no Ace on the flop.

If your hand has good chances to still be the best even if it did not improve, you CAN bet some more. It's not because you can bet more that you have to. Lets say you often bet about 55-60% of the pot for a normal continuation bet, you can maybe bet 75% this time. Do not do it every time, you need to keep your opponents confused!

The third question: what are the odds that your hand will improve on the turn?

Lets say the flop did not improve your hand directly, but now you have a flush draw! Instead of only betting in order to steal and keep your opponents confused, now even if they don't give you the pot right now, you will still end up with a flush about 35% of the time. Now that allows you to bet some more if you want to. If you bet the size of the pot and your opponents fold half the time, you benefit already. Now imagine if on top of that you win about 35% of the time when they call! The other nice thing about betting a bit more on a flush draw like that is that you look like you have a strong hand and want to push a player with the flush draw out!

The same is valid for 2 over cards like AK, even though you don't have 35% odds of getting a strong hand, there are still 6 cards in the deck that gives you top pair with top kicker. No matter what the hand is, the better your odds of improving are, the more you can bet. On the other hand, if you raised with KQ and an Ace comes on the flop, you can't bet as much...

The fourth question: what are the odds that your opponents might improve into a better hand?

Now that is a bit more tricky! If you have a good hand and there are many possible draws, you have to bet big in order to either push the draws out and take the pot or make them do the mistake of paying too much for their draws. But if you have nothing, you can't bet big in case your opponent has a flush draw and lose big because he has top pair...

So, as a general rule, if the flop can easily have draws, bet some more to protect good hands and make a little bet to try to steal with nothing.

The last question: What do I do now?

Now you have cumulated your reasons to bet more or to bet less, you figured out some kind of betting range and you need to take a decision. Simply take this into consideration and take a decision:

You do your continuation bet to steal pots and hide the strength of your hand, but you size it to maximize your stronger hands! So, of course you need to bet more on stronger hands... but not every time. Follow this rule, but break it just often enough for your opponents to stay confused.

Lets say for an example that your bigger continuation bets on the flop are 75% of the time true and 25% of the time on a totally missed flop (like A38 when you have KQ), what can your opponents do? First of all, it will take A LOT of showdowns for them to figure out what you are doing and they will stay confused for a long time. Also, even if they figure it out, what can they do?

I personally go by feeling, when I feel like making my "little bigger" continuation bet on a weaker hand, I do it. I know that way, I bet more with with bigger hands about 70-75% of the time and I "fake" about 25-30% of the time. Just find a way that fits you.