When NOT to C-Bet
A quick primer on when to put on the brakes and play your hand more passively on the flop.
Back in the early days of online poker the message was simple - always continuation bet when checked to. That would print money in 2005 but it doesn't work anymore.
Very aggressive players struggle with knowing when to put on the brakes, but thankfully the solvers have shown us when to check back as the in-position preflop aggressor when the out-of-position player checks to you. Let's look at some examples.
This is the Cutoff opening range with 40BBs effective:
This is the Big Blind's defending range:
I looked at the situations the Cutoff should be checking back as part of my research for GTO Poker Simplified and in this particular spot there was a common trend. The flops we should check back are:
- Flops with low pairs on like A44
- Middle connected flops like 654
- High monotone flops like A68
What these boards all have in common is that they favour the out-of-position player. In most cases the Big Blind hits these boards hard enough that they should actually lead out a lot of the time. C-betting these boards 100% of the time would be a disaster because you will run into monsters or get bluffed off your hands a lot.
Do not auto c-bet here
The A44 looks like it favours the Cutoff who has a lot of good Ax, but the Big Blind also has plenty of Ax and crucially a lot more 4x. Both players have A4s and 44, but the Big Blind has all the suited 4s and a few offsuit 4s too.
The 654 board will likely make the most sense to anyone reading this. Both players can make a straight here but the Big Blind has more combos of straights. They have 78 offsuit as well as 78 suited, they also have 32 and 73. In addition they have all the combinations of two pair and plenty of combo draw type hands. On this flop the Big Blind is so strong they should lead out a lot.
The A68 board looks like it favours the Cutoff because it is Ace high, but that Ace acts as a blocker. A big portion of the Cutoffs suited hands are Ax suited, so when the Ace of clubs is on a monotone board, the number of flushes the Cutoff can have a drastically reduced. The Big Blind, however, has every possible combination of suited hands that could make a flush.
There are still good bluffs and value hands to bet on every single one of these flops, but if you bet 100% of the time you are going to be in trouble.
Do you check back on these flops? Let us know in the comments:
