When should you fire a 2nd or 3rd barrel?
Introduction
In this article
- The looser the opponent, the more absurd multiple barrels are.
- Against a passive opponent a check is the best option
- Pokertracker-Stats and Timing Tells can be helpful
- Scarecards can be used
It's happened to everybody: you raise a good hand pre-flop and get one caller then hit nothing on the flop. Now what? A continuation bet of course! But this one is called too and the turn is no help. Mostly, this strong pre-flop hand must be folded now.
However, there are exceptions, situations in which you can bring your opponent to folding with a so-called second barrel or even a third barrel, that is, one or two more continuation bets. Finding the right spots for this is difficult. This article will explain the indicators for when multiple barrels make sense.
Different type of opponents
You can get a rough idea of things by examining the opponent. As a rule of thumb: The looser the opponent, the more you should restrain from firing the second barrel.
Multiple barrels are inappropriate for this type of opponent. He'll call us with marginal hands and can rarely be persuaded to relinquish his hand. Make value bets against this opponent type but not bluffs; multiple barrels are useless against him.
They too, are not good victims for further continuation bets. He'll not part with his hand and will probably force us to fold with bluff raises. If the continuation bet is called on the flop, you should try to get to the showdown as cheaply as possible with marginal hands like bottom pair or even ace high. It is worthwhile, depending on the board, to check-behind on the turn followed by a call on the river as long as you are in position.
You will find these guys on the higher limits a lot. These strong players know how to fold and don't pay us off with their weaker hands. Multiple barrels are appropriate against them in many situations, especially in position since hands like top pair/good kicker, middle pair or even a good draw are hard to play out of position. He'll often call them on the flop and give up against another bet on the turn.
It doesn't take much to get this guy to fold. They are the ideal targets for multiple barrels. Another advantage is that they play most draws passively and will not force us to fold by raising.
Unfortunately, we sometimes find ourselves in the unpleasant situation of playing against an unknown opponent. It is very difficult to say whether another barrel makes sense or not. Timing tells (see below) can help, but we cannot extrapolate the tendencies of the opposition from these. On lower limits, the average opponent will call much more, and for this reason I recommend abandoning second and third barrels against unknown opponents there.
The opposition will often call our flop bet even though they didn't hit anything on the flop. They do this hoping that we play check/fold in response and they'll then snap up the pot with a single bet. This is called floating. Most people only float when in position but there are exceptions.
As usual: remain vigilant, take notes and pay attention to which situations the opponent will float. Against these opponents a turn bet is usually +EV if we believe they have made a "bluff call" on the flop. A bluff check-raise can even be better against such opponents. Timing tells can also give an indication of whether the opponent is floating or has a good hand. This type of play can often be found in blind battles between the small and big blinds.
A lot of TAGs play on many tables at once on the lower limits. Most of them are winning players, but even so they are perfect victims for second and third barrels. Since their attention is split, they often go by the Pokertracker stats and and not the actual current table image of a player. Therefore, it will take a while before they realize we are bluffing. So if we have only just been caught in a bluff by another player it is often the case that they have not realized this and we can play against them in the same manner.
What pokertracker-Stats can be useful?
Not every opponent can be put into a box and each of them has their own peculiarities that cannot be fit into any category, in particular when it comes to betting patterns. Especially when asking whether a second or third barrel makes sense, your own notes on lines and bet sequences made by your opponent in different situations are irreplaceable.
Still, some Pokertracker values can help:
- Went to Showdown: You should usually not try a second or third barrel against opponents with high WTS since they will often call you down.
- Folded to Turn- / Riverbet: Many opponents will call a flop bet with a flush draw but then fold to a turn bet, or they'll call with top pair on both the flop and turn but then fold to a river bet. You can get such reads from remaining aware at the table, but the Pokerstracker value gives you a starting point. In general: the higher the value, the more barrels we should fire.
- Coldcall %: Opponents who cold call too much usually do it with hands like suited connectors or weak aces. These hands often hit something like TPWK or middle pair on the flop. Of course, these are vulnerable to multiple barrels. The more an opponent cold calls, the more barrels we should fire at him.
Note: The values folded to turn-/ riverbet need particularly large sample sizes to gain significance. You should therefore rely more on your own judgment and only use Pokertracker for opponents on whom you have collected many hands
Further decision guidance
After the opposition calls our flop bet, our first thoughts should turn to his range to answer the question of which hands he would call both a pre-flop raise and a flop bet. Pokertracker stats and opponent classification can give you bounds for the pre-flop game.
Which group of hands is he prepared to call on the flop depends on the flop itself. If there are enough hands that he will fold to a second or third bet, you should typically bet. What that means exactly will be clarified in the example hands. First, I would like to mention the factors that help to estimate the range.
The so-called "instacall": An opponent will often call our bet immediately and without consideration. This is usually a sign of weakness since he will consider a raise with a strong hand. Take note that this is valid when the opposition has position, since he could have already prepared a check/call. Here, too, it is helpful to make notes on which hands your opposition will instacall and then to consider whether he will fold to more bets or not.
It is unbelievably important to check the stack size before firing a second barrel since our fold equity stems not from the turn bet itself but from the money we have yet to bet. If an opponent has TPWK he will rarely fold to a bet of 3/4 potsize if it would put him all-in since he is guaranteed to see the showdown. If the stacks are deep enough, however, he'll often fold out of fear of having to call a large bet on the river.
The more often we use multiple barrels, the more important it is that we know our own table image. If we have been caught making bluffs recently then we should be more conservative with future moves and make thin value bets instead. By contrast if our image is solid, multiple barrels are an extremely potent weapon.
We must also note which limit and against which players we are playing. On lower limits the players are not very attentive anyway and we can neglect table limits. The same is true for playing against extreme multitablers. On higher limits, however, the image takes on increasing importance.
Using scarecards
Cards like ace or king on the turn or river that could lie well within our range as the pre-flop aggressor offer good chances for pushing our opponent out of the pot with another bet. This is true when the scarecard does not complete a draw that the opponent might hold.
For example, if an Ace provides the third diamond and we think that the opponent could have called with a flush draw, a timing tell might help. If he checks immediately without considering a donkbet, it's more likely that he does not have a flush and we should tend to bet more than if he gives pause to think.
Scarecards are not always good for barrels. An opponent will often know that we would tend to play check behind on a drawless board if we had hit the scarecard. We should therefore be certain of which opponents know us so well and then not fire further barrels at them when scarecards show up.
On higher limits with a smaller pool of players it is advisable to vary your game even more and bet the scarecard when we have hit something. This makes us harder to read.
But in other cases, too, when scarecards show up, we should take a moment to think before we bet about which hand our bet might represent. Then it will be easier to say which hands our opponent is likely to fold. If we come to the conclusion that it is enough to bet with a positive EV, we should do this most of the time.
The EV of a check
Even if a bet on the turn has a positive EV that doesn't mean we should do it. Often enough we will make it to the showdown with ace high against a passive opponent with a busted draw that he will not bluff, and we'll win some of these (or even hit an out).
Hence, the EV of a check on the turn is mostly positive. On close second barrel hands with some showdown value, we should refrain from the second bet against passive opponents. The same is true from third barrels on the river. If our opponent might have had a draw that we can beat with a check-behind, then a river bet is usually incorrect.
The EV of a bet on a street can be calculated with this formula:
EV = P(Fold)*Potsize - (1-P(Fold))*Betsize
Example hands
Villain is a TAG. We know that he usually plays 9 tables at a time so he doesn't pay much attention to the tables in which he is not involved. We haven't played against him much so he probably knows only our PT stats.
NL 100 6max
Stacks:
Hero: 130$
BB: 152$
Preflop: Hero is CO with 9
8
2 folds, Hero raises to 4$, 2 folds, BB calls.
We have another read that Villain always defends his BB against steal raises with strong aces, pocket pairs, suited connectors and suited broadways. He would re-raise with AQ+, TT+. We suspect his range is the following: AT, AJ, 65s-KQs, 22-99, KJs, QTs.
Flop: (8,5$) 3
22
BB checks, Hero bets 5$, BB calls.
Since he calls our continuation bet, we guess that he has a pocket pair. This flop would have missed anything else. Draws on his range are not possible. Either he has a full house or an overpair. A call with AJ or AT cannot be ruled out entirely since he could still believe himself to be ahead in these cases.
Turn: (18,5$) A
BB checks, Hero bets 11$, BB folds.
The ace is an ideal scarecard that we can use for a second barrel in this situation. Let's assume that our opponent will call with AJ and AT and check-raise with 22 or 33. Since he will not always call the flop with AJ or AT, we can further assume that he will do this with exactly half of the possible AJ/AT combinations. For AJo/ATo there are 8 combinations each and 2 for AJs/ATs. Furthermore, 22 is possible and there are 3 combinations for 33.
There are 6 combinations each for 44-77 and 3 combinations each for 88-99. We expect, therefore, that he will fold in 30 cases and not in 24. So 55,55% of the time, he will fold, and that makes our bet +EV since he will always fold the better hand.
A calculation:
EV = 0.5555*18.5$ - 0.4444*11$ = 10.27$ - 4.88$ = 5.39$
So on average we expect to make $5.39 with this bet. The proper bet size might even get more out of it. Of course, this calculation must be used with caution since we used so many reads to determine his range so precisely. It's fairly clear, however, that in this case we should fire the second barrel.
Since he's playing so many tables and doesn't know us well, we can neglect our image. We don't have to worry about whether out bet really represents an ace, which is not the case in hand 1b.
Same hand, different limit, somewhat different opponent. Villain is still a TAG, but this time somebody we have played many times. He knows our lines well and plays only 2-3 tables and is vigilant. We give him the same range as in hand 1a.
NL 1000 6max
Stacks:
Hero: 1300$
BB: 1520$
Preflop: Hero is CO with 98
2 folds, Hero raises to 40$, 2 folds, BB calls.
Flop: (85$) 322
BB checks, Hero bets 50$, BB calls.
Turn: (185$) A
BB checks, Hero?
Now the question is how we would play here if we really had an ace. The board is rather drawless and we could easily check-behind with our ace to keep the pot small. Since our opponent knows us, he knows that we would usually check-behind in these circumstances and so a second barrel is not sensible. It would arouse his suspicions and he make him likely to call with a pair or even to bluff check-raise.
Things are different if we usually bet the turn with hands like AT-AK. In this case, the second barrel would be good. Our hand has no showdown value and even if we hit an 8 or 9 on the river we cannot call a bet.
We have a very solid table image in this example and have always shown good hands at the showdown. Our stats are 18/13/3.2/23.
NL 200 5handed
Stacks:
Hero: 246,10$
SB: 269,67$
Preflop: Hero is BU with KJ
2 folds, Hero raises to 7$, SB calls, BB folds.
Flop: (16$) 859
SB checks, Hero bets 12$, SB calls.
Turn: (40$) 5
SB checks, Hero bets 29$, SB calls.
River: (98$) A
SB checks, Hero bets 66$...
We will analyze the game 4 different opponents:
- a) 69 vpip / 24 pfr / 2 af / 35 wts - 100 hands
- b) 21 vpip / 14 pfr / 3 af / 22 wts - 500 hands
- c) 26 vpip / 18 pfr / 4 af / 23 wts - 400 hands
- d) 14 vpip / 8 pfr / 1.5 af / 28 wts -350 hands
The fact that we have only PT stats and no reads makes the evaluation more difficult. But sometimes we have only mined hands on our opposition and do not know their style.
Case a) In my opinion, we could even dispute the continuation bet on the flop, but for our purposes we are interested only in the turn and river. Both Villain's VPIP and WtSD are huge. It is difficult to pin down his range after the flop call since he could do that with just overcards.
The 5 on the turn is a miserable card for a second barrel. Our opponent would fold only overcards. He would call any pair. On the other hand, we might still be ahead with our K high if he's on a draw. We should check behind and hope to hit a jack or king on the river or to see a free showdown.
The ace on the river seems at first to be a good card for us. No draws appeared and the ace fits in our range. This opponent will call us often enough with an 8 or 9, however, and he will only fold busted draws here. Even these he will sometimes have hit the ace, since he calls from the SB with suited aces. We should take the free showdown with our K-high since we still have good chances of winning if he's playing a draw.
The EV of a check here is definitely positive whereas the EV of a bet is difficult to determine since we cannot estimate the opposition's range with 70 VPIP and no reads. The tendency, however, is toward us being called by almost all superior hands.
Case b) and c) I will address cases b and c together since the post-flop game of TAGs and LAGs is similar. In contrast to the TAG, the LAG will 3bet more hands against our open raise. It isn't so easy to give them a pre-flop calling range but we can guess it looks something like this:
- b) TAG: 22-88, AJ, AT, KQ
- c) LAG: 22-88, AJ, AT, Axs x
Many LAGs 3bet here with any pocket pair or suited connectors. That we've been playing tight up to this point makes this less likely.
With which hands will this opponent call us on the flop? Really only these hands are possible:
- b) 55-88, A
T, AJ, KQ - c) 55-88, AT, AJ, KQ, QT, QJ, 65s - T9s (22-44 might also be possible)
Our opponent will not choose the line check/call flop with all of these. Above all, he will play flush draws aggressively on this board. It is hard to say, however, which hands he'll hold as opposed to another without special reads on him.
The 5 on the turn doesn't seem to change much at first. Our renewed bet represents an overpair or full house. Other strong hands hardly fit within our range. Which hands might our opponent fold to another bet from us?
- b) 66, 77, AT, AJ, KQ
A TAG could fold all of these hands to a large turn bet. He'll have poor odds for a call and could also be drawing dead. Furthermore, he'll often fold 66 and 77. We can't say for sure, however, whether he will really fold to a turn bet so often. If this is the case, though, the turn bet is definitely good since he's ahead of us with all of these hands.
- c) 66, 77, AT, AJ, KQ, QT, QJ, 87s - T9s
The same arguments can be used to make the LAG fold. 98 weakened a possible two pair. The situation is similar. A second barrel seems sensible here, too, even if it's certain that not every LAG will fold all these hands here.
Now the question on the river: which hands called us on the turn but would now fold to a river bet? 55 and 88 can be ruled out since they would have raised on the turn at the latest. AJ and AT have now hit TPGK but it's possible that he would fold these to a third barrel. 66 and 77 will definitely not call again, same goes for KQ.
The EV of a check can be considered 0 since there is no hand that we could beat on the river in his range. The question is whether a $66 bet has a +EV. This is exactly positive when our opponent folds $66/$44~.4 or more than 40% of his range.
There are 6 possibile combinations for the pocket pairs each, so even if he calls AJ and AT every time he'll still fold 13 of 15 possible hands. This is clearly more than the 40% threshold. Even if the calculation suffers in its reflection of reality because of mistaken or missing reads, a third barrel is advisable in this case since the opposition will fold many possible hands.
Fall d) This time we're playing against a very tight opponent. Both VPiP and PFR are minimal. Furthermore, he's rather passive with a high Went to Showdown value. This means he would 3bet only seldom. We could give him a calling range here of 22-JJ, AQ,AK.
A second barrel on the turn is not warranted against this range. With the exceptions of AK and AQ he won't fold anything and even these are not guaranteed.
The same calculation can be made on the river as in the previous hands. He must fold 40% of his range to make a bet +EV. The opposition will often hold a strong ace. His WtSD is high and his small AF indicates that he would prefer c/c flop, c/c turn for a line.
Despite the high WtSD, it will be hard for him to call with 66,77,TT,JJ, which fit well with his style of play. These hands make up the bulk of his range. Whether he'll fold often enough is difficult to say just from the PT stats. Its a much closer decision here than in b and c. Timing tells will be helpful here. If you see an instacheck, I would tend to bet since this makes it less likely that he holds a hand like AK.
Summary
The proper use of second and third barrels can increase your winrate, but it is not so simple to find good spots for them. It takes experience, more than anything, and good reads.
If you're planning to add bluffs to your repertoire, I recommend not playing too many tables at once and to pay attention to how your opponents play. As we saw in the examples, the deciding whether to fire the second or third barrel depends strongly on your opponent.
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