Making a c-bet in NLHE

Is it always feasible to continuation bet in NLHE? Well one thing is for sure and this is that c-betting or continuation betting is a very common tactic in heads up situations. But yet blindly doing something simply because you have read about it is not good poker play. What you should be more interested in is the entire line that you are taking and a failure to do that will lead you into trouble. Let us look at an example here to show you want I mean. You raise pre-flop with Q-J and the big blind calls you. The game is NL100 and so your raise is to $3.50. The big blind calling makes the pot $7.50 and the flop comes 4-4-2 rainbow.

Your opponent checks and should you c-bet? Well the answer is that you likely should but it certainly isn’t definitive. What you need to be looking at are several other and equally important factors. Firstly the entire line is important here and not just what you do on the flop. Many people play poker as a series of individual decisions but you cannot play poker close to optimally doing this. Someone who played like this may think along the following lines. Right so I raised pre-flop and was only called, the flop has come low cards and so my opponent probably failed to connect. They checked the flop and so the automatic play is to c-bet into this single opponent…….result is……I make a c-bet. However a more advanced player may reason along the following lines.

My opponent is aggressive and so will be more likely to check-raise me here. They have also shown aggression in the past as well and have check-raised me in the past. They will not expect me to have connected with this flop and my c-bet looks somewhat automatic. You can see the difference in quality here between these two thought patterns. One is automatic and is being done in an ABC way and the other is adjusting to the specific differences in the playing dynamics. So clearly then c-betting is far more complex than simply “we raised pre-flop and were called and they checked and now we bet”. What you have to remember also is that if you bet then what is your plan for if you are called? Many really aggressive players will fire a second barrel but this is starting to escalate the pot.

What you have to remember is that in NLHE that every time that you steal before the flop that you are risking an amount of money that is more than what you stand to gain. So a $3.50 raise only stands to win an initial $1.50 in blind money. Also if your bet gets called and the pot becomes say $7.50 then a c-bet may be $5. Now it is correct to view money placed into the pot previously as no longer yours but this does not alter the fact that with $12.50 now in the pot that $8.50 of it has been put there by you……..if your opponent folds then you have risked $8.50 to increase your stack by $3.50. Because these odds are very short then two things have to be in place……..this is that you need to read the situation and the opponent very well and also that you must have other reasons for raising.