Short Stack Strategy: Continuation Bets for Advanced Players

Video: Click here

Especially on the higher limits, you know your opponents very well and they probably know how you play too; you rarely meet completely new players. However, if your opponent knows you, you have to ask yourself: is the standard game always the best solution?

This article deals with two typical problems: the question of whether you should always make a continuation bet and the question of whether a second barrel (a second bet on the turn) makes sense.

Unlike other articles which deal with easier material, it is impossible to give detailed instructions for all types of situations. Instead you will have to concentrate a lot on your individual opponents in order to make good decisions.

How big should your continuation bet be?

The first part of this article deals with how often a continuation bet has to work in order to be profitable, meaning that it leads to a fold from the opponent. You'll also read a brief explanation of why the bet size should never be above 1/2 to 2/3 of the pot size.

First of all, you have to take a look at the mathematics behind the continuation bet, because it is important to know how often a continuation bet needs to work for it to be profitable. The size of the continuation bet on the higher limits (starting at NL200/400) should be around 1/2 to 2/3 of the pot size. Bigger bets are the main exception, as you are either playing against several opponents (in which case you almost always have a made hand) or in heads-up (where a bigger bet would be out of place).

The solution is actually very simple and easy to explain: for every bet you make, you win two bets if successful, so it only has to work every third time to be profitable.

Here you get a value of 40%. If your opponent folds in 40% of the cases after a bet of 2/3 the pot size, the bet is also profitable. But why bet so little? To answer this, we'll have to take a quick look at the maths behind this.

If the board is drawless, such as a K72 rainbow and you hold AK off-suit, then your opponent will have 5 outs against you at best. Backdoor draws can only be counted as outs if players go all-in, as they require two cards (turn and river) to improve. In this case a further bet comes on the turn.

With 5 outs, your opponent hits the turn about 12% of the time. However, with a bet of 1/2 the pot size, he pays 3:1. This is a significant difference, because even with the implied odds, when he hits he hardly wins enough to justify his call.

If the board is draw-heavy, you simply increase your bet to 2/3 of the pot. However if you are heads-up, the board should have more than just one straight or flush draw in order for you to increase the bet amount. Otherwise it is rather unlikely that your opponent is holding the draw.

Now that you have read how to size the continuation bet correctly, as well as how to calculate the necessary fold equity, the next part deals with another important issue: when should or shouldn't you make a continuation bet?

When to make a Continuation Bet

Certainly you have already heard about balancing your lines (playing style).This should prevent your opponent from recognising the hand you hold by checking your betting sequence. You do however need to consider against what kind of opponent you are playing. If you are playing against fish who concentrate more on themselves than on their cards, it is often not necessary to balance your lines.

Remember: balancing lines is necessary against attentive opponents, but it decreases your profits against absent-minded opponents, as you deviate from best practice and the best EV. Your plays also balance out if you play line A against opponent 1 and line B against opponent 2, since by checking your bet sequence, neither of your opponents would be able to figure out what cards you have.

This situation certainly doesn't cross your path very often in the higher limits; however it will happen from time to time. You could say that there is nothing wrong with making a conti-bet. As you saw earlier, a conti-bet only has to work sometimes to be profitable and since you don't know anything about the opponent, it is not a mistake to make this bet.

This is the only situation in which you should consider not making a continuation bet. It is important to remember that your continuation bet only has to work sometimes, average of 33% of the time, to be profitable. This is proof enough to show that the situations in which you don't make a continuation bet are rare.

Whether you bet or not depends on your opponent's playing style and on your position. Let's take a look at the most important Elephant values which you have to consider when making your decision:

You need to know which stats you have to pay attention to and we are essentially talking about the following four values:

• Aggression Factor AF

  The AF shows how aggressively your opponent plays after the flop. At the same time, the Flop/Turn AF shows how aggressively your opponent plays on the flop and the turn betting rounds respectively.

• Cold Call Range and Limp/Call Range

  These two values show with what range your opponent calls after your raise.

• Fold to Conti-bet

  How often does the opponent fold in response to your continuation bet?

• Raise Conti-bet and Call Conti-bet

  How often does the opponent raise or call your continuation bet?

Based on these four values you can get an impression on how your opponent will react to a potential continuation bet.

When you are out of position, you make a continuation bet far more often than when you're in position. This is partly because you can't take a free card, or check previous play when facing a very aggressive opponent. The question here is: when can you dismiss the continuation bet, being out of position? Here's an example of such a situation, where the opponent played limp/call.

NL $1,000
Hero: $200

Hero is SB/ BB with KQ
Preflop: UTG+1 calls $10, 8 folds, Hero raises to $50, UTG+1 calls

Flop: 234
Hero???

Let's assume three different player types:

• Player x: 20/10/2/20 (VPIP/PFR/AF/WtSD)
• Player y: 10/7/2,5/23
• Player z: 40/20/0,8/28

Against opponent x, you should make a conti-bet above, as it only has to work in 33.3% of cases. This opponent has a wide range with which he plays limp/call. This includes pockets, sometimes monster hands and also connectors. You should definitely consider this opponent capable of laying down connectors and also weak pockets in some cases (not always though). All in all he will fold more than 33% of his range.

How do you play opponent y? This situation looks different. The player is very tight and will rarely have connectors in his range, so he will mainly hold pocket pairs or even the occasional monsters. Even if he has Ax hands, he will rarely fold as he has a gutshot and overcards. With a small range, he will call you with pockets, Ax type hands and monsters. Making a continuation bet is therefore not advisable here.

Since your KQ isn't even ahead against an ace high bluff, this is one of the few situations (given we have ample stats) in which you can forget your continuation bet OoP every now and then (but not always!). In this case, you would simply play check/fold.

With opponent z it is obvious right away that you cannot leave the continuation bet out. His range is so wide that he often has to fold, despite his high WtSD. By the way, if he calls the flop, this would definitely be a good chance for you to continue betting on the turn.

There are of course further moments when it makes sense to disregard a continuation bet, but they should not be over-generalised. Other possible situations are:

• You have a hand with outs against an opponent who rarely bets; you should perhaps try to take the free card. In this case you would only leave out the continuation bet if it has a negative or remotely positive expected value. The advantage of not playing the continuation bet, despite a slightly positive expected value, is that you will win more money against the 'still-call-happy' opponent.

• You balance your lines with a strong hand. It makes sense against aggressive opponents to play check/call or check/raise instead of making a bet.

Conclusion: When you are Out of Position, there are very few situations in which you can leave out your continuation bet. Consider which range your opponent could have and determine whether you can get your opponent to fold in the necessary number of cases. This is often possible, depending on the range of an opponent. A further situation is when your opponent is passive, but hardly ever folds. The latter is also an oportunity to check if you have ample outs for improving your hand.

While the game out of position was rather simple, being in position offers many more possibilities to vary your game. Since you now have different possible courses of action, you can also choose to take free cards when they help you the most.

You should play the present situation while in position, although there is no clear chart which tells you when to bet or when not to. Exactly when should you play check behind and when should you bet?

The above sentence goes to the core of the matter: either you play check behind because you don't get enough fold equity with your continuation bet, or you do it because you get more value by getting an opponent to bluff than with the continuation bet. In every other case, you simply bet the flop.

As we said above, you don't make a conti-bet if your opponent doesn't fold often enough. Examples here are similar to those from the chapter about playing out of position. You should pay attention to certain of your opponents values. If your opponent has a very high Flop AF and raises the conti-bet very often, it might make sense to disregard the conti-bet. But keep in mind that the conti-bet only has to be successful in a few cases to have a positive expected value.

If the conti-bet only has a slightly positive expected value (because an opponent only folds in 40% of the time), it might make sense to only check back with good outs, especially against aggressive opponents. With a hit, you will be paid very well and the EV will increase. Here's an example:

NL $1,000
Hero: $200

Hero is BU with KQ
Pre-flop: 5 folds, MP 3 calls $10, CO folds, Hero raises to $50, 2 folds, MP3 calls $40

Flop: J92

On this flop you can certainly give yourself 8-9 outs and it might make sense to just check back, depending on the opponent. Let's assume that the opponent only folds in 40% of the cases. Your conti-bet of 1/2 of the pot size is +EV, but the check back option may possibly have an even higher EV. Here's a more detailed calculation:

Say the pot is roughly $100. The conti-bet costs you $50 and wins the pot in 40% of cases.

EV= Fold equity * Pot – (100-Fold equity) * Costs
EV= 40% * $100 - 60% * $50
EV= $40 - $30
EV= $10

Therefore if you make a conti-bet, your average profit is $10.

Let's see what the situation against an aggressive opponent looks like. On this board, you can certainly give yourself 8 discounted outs. 8 outs hit on the turn in about 17% of cases. In every other case, you fold on the turn after a bet, or call depending on the odds and outs respectively. To make it simpler, Villain will bet on the turn in every case. As a general rule Villain's bet will be 2/3 of the pot size.

EV = 17 % * $166 + 83% * $0

The first part of the calculation shows your EV if you hit, while the second part describes the EV when you fold on the turn (this would be 0 because you are not investing any money). Villain might go all-in after your raise in which case you can assume even higher implied odds. To simplify matters we're using the bet of 2/3 the pot size as your average profit. This is an offset to situations in which you are not ahead, despite having hit on the turn.

EV = 17% * $166 + 0
EV = $28.22

You see that in this case, the EV of a check back is bigger than that of a continuation bet, meaning there are cases in which a check back is the more profitable option. On average, the expected profit of a 2/3 pot size bet is a sensible assumption. In reality however, you have to consider that the opponent will not bet every time.

Naturally, there are many further situations in which a check back might make sense. Try to figure out some of these based on the previously considered lines of thought. However, keep this in mind: it is impossible to be 100% certain about the best choice, because a large number of factors are being considered at the same time. With time however, you should be able to develop a feel for it. Your goal is not to simply make a move with a positive win expectation, but to make the move with the highest win expectation.

When does a Second Barrel make sense?

Another question you've certainly asked yourself is: when can I place a second barrel on the turn? This all depends on how often the opponent folds on the turn. On the one hand, it depends on the opponent himself and on the other, it depends on the turn card and the board texture in general.

The 'Fold to Conti-bet' and the 'Fold to Turn bet' values are good pointers, because there are opponents who often call on the flop just to see your reaction on the turn. However, if the 'Fold to Turn bet' value is very high, a second bet is clearly advisable. If you identify a player with a FBS (Fixed Betting Sequence) and always calls on the flop, then you should continue betting on the turn. Against this type of opponent, the turn is practically the true flop.

It is significantly more difficult when you aren't playing against such an opponent. If he doesn't fold often enough on the turn, it is important to pay heed to the card that appears on the turn, since if it is a blank your fold equity will certainly not increase. However, if it is a card from your range, you can gain further fold equity and can turn the second barrel into a profitable move.

The fold equity can be calculated like with the conti-bet on the flop. Initially determine what range your opponent has and which hands he will fold on the turn, then calculate if your opponent folds often enough for it to be worth betting on the turn. If this is not the case, you check and hope for a free card.

An interesting exception to this is a passive opponent who only calls; in this case you have to include your outs in the calculation. If say he only folds 30% of the time and you have 5 outs, meaning that you hit about 12% of the time, the EV is positive. You would receive the remaining EV you require through your outs.

In general, you can determine the EV of the second barrel as follows:

EV = Fold equity * Pot – (1-Fold equity) * Costs + (1-Fold equity) * (Outs * 0.02) * Pot

The first term tells you how much you win with the conti-bet, while the second term tells you how often the opponent calls. Then there's a third term to consider: how often do you hit and what do you win when you do hit? Here we give every out a 2% probability of winning the hand, hence the 0.02 multiplier.

Conclusion

One of the core points that this article makes is the following: continuation bets as bluffs don't have to work that often to be profitable. If you make a continuation bet of 1/2 the pot, the opponent only has to fold in 33.33% of cases for the move to be profitable. This means that, especially against unknown players, you should continue to make conti-bets. Against known opponents, it occasionally makes sense to leave out your continuation bet, especially if a check has a higher EV than a bet.

Such a situation can occur when you have outs and an advantageous position over an opponent who rarely folds. If you are out of position, there are also situations in which you should simply forget about the conti-bet, especially if the opponent bets rarely, or if you want to balance your lines against an aggressive opponent. In these cases you can throw in some check/calls or check/raises instead of always betting out.

In any case, the continuation bet remains one of your most effective weapons: you should only refrain from making such a bet when you have a very good reason to do so, and you should carefully examine the situations in which you do this.

LINKS
Related articles: Stats (1) - Basics Stats (2) - Interpretation Discussion forum: Discuss the content of this article here