Poker Strategy: A Beginner’s Guide To Continuation Bets

Posted by The Marksman at 2 August, at 07 : 43 AM Print

When you start learning to play poker, you may find it difficult to know how to play hands after the flop.  Most beginning players will get dealt Ace Jack for example, and then the flop will come and they will not hit a pair.  Many beginning players are somewhat lost as to what do do, and that is where a continuation or C-bet comes into play.

When you follow up your pre-flop raise with a bet on the flop (whether you hit or not), it’s termed a continuation bet, or c-bet.  A continuation bet takes advantage of the initiative you gain by being the pre-flop aggressor, and carries it over onto the flop.

The basic idea is that when you raise before the flop you are telling the table “I like my hand, and I am willing to play for more money.” Then when the flop comes, your c-bet says “I still like my hand.” As the aggressor your opponent will usually fold, forfeiting the pot.

Continuation bets are very effective because most poker hands miss the flop most of the time. When your opponent just flat-calls he has no initiative in the hand. You are the aggressor; you are saying that your hand is better than his.

Since both of you are likely going to miss on the flop, when they check and you bet you have now told them twice you like your hand. They are going to fold pretty much every time they do not catch a piece of the board.

There is a lot of dead money in the average pot from players making pre-flop calls just to see if they hit something. These same players will fold the flop in the face of continued aggression.

They is why C-betting is profitable, a high percentage of the time.  That doesn’t mean every time, if your opponent knows you’re going to fire a c-bet every single time you raise before the flop.  They will be able to trap you very easily, certain that you are going to bet.  When you are firing a continuation bet, you want your opponent to fold. You want to take advantage of being the

The best flops to continuation bet are ones that are likely to have helped your hand. When you raise before the flop your opponent is likely to put you on big cards. When the big cards come on the flop your bet will often win you the pot. Boards with aces or kings on them always make great continuation-bet situations because most opponents are going to think that they hit the pre-flop raiser.

You can never know for sure which boards help your opponent and which do not. It is an educated guessing game: you have to think about what your opponent is likely to have called with and the likelihood that he will stick around. If either of those are high, then do not bet.

If you find yourself against multiple opponents you should be less and less likely to c-bet. Again, c-bets are meant to pick up the dead money without any trouble. The more people see the flop, the greater the chance someone will want to see a turn.

Knowing when not to continuation bet is just as important is knowing when to continuation bet. Think about the hands your opponents are likely to have, and bet when you think they’ll fold and check when you think they will call.

Since a continuation bet is really just a small bluff you want to be economical with your bet sizing. You want to bet enough to get your opponent to fold, but you don’t want to risk unnecessary chips those times that you do get called. Also, you have to risk becoming too predictable.

A bet of two-thirds the pot flop bet is a good standard to have. It is economical, as it will be more than enough to collect the dead money, and it will also be enough to start building the pot those times you do have a real hand – thus not giving out information unnecessarily.

Knowing when to continuation bet and when not to is one of the most fundamental skills you can learn when beginning your poker career. The average player will only bet on the flop after raising preflop if they actually have a hand, but that’s leaving a ton of dead money on the table.

The other thing you have to remember is you are not the only person who will be utilizing continuation bets, and as Poker has progressed people are more aware of them.  IF you are playing with a bunch of beginner’s then you should be find with your C-bets.  But as the game progresses players will start to call your bets on the flop to see how serious you are about your hand.  As with anything in Poker you will have to constantly adapt your strategy and style of play to win.

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