Playing Postflop (2): Against the Preflop Aggressor
Before reading this lesson, you should have read through:
- Playing Preflop (1): Open Raising
- Preflop Strategy (1): Open Raising Charts
- Playing Postflop (1): As the Preflop Aggressor
In the previous lesson, you have learned how to play postflop if you have the initiative on your side. However, it is crucial to understand how postflop works when it is the other player who raised before the flop, or when no one did. This lesson will focus on playing against your opponents' continuation bets. A scenario when the preflop aggressor doesn't make a c-bet (including spots when you don't let him to do this by donk betting), will be explained in the next lesson.
It will be assumed that the pot is heads-up. If the pot is multiway and you have no initiative, you should play very cautiously and straightforward (according to your hand strength), and so it does not make much sense to analyse this in detail.
It will also be assumed that your opponent is a regular player. If he is not, your default play without the initiative should be straightforward as well, and the exceptions to that rule are too specific to be generalised.
Your perceived range and the board texture
The most common scenario is that someone open raised and you called. The first thing you should ask yourself is how the other player perceives your range.
As it was assumed, your opponent is a thinking regular, which means it is very possible that he will be capable of putting you on a reasonable range of hands in general. For this reason, your perceived range in these spots is often what your actual range is. The common denominator in all spots where you defend by flatting is that your range is weighted much more towards suited and connected cards and less towards high cards. In most cases, it is capped, meaning you rarely just flat with a high pocket pair or an ace-king type hand. On the other hand, your opponent's range contains high cards with a higher relative frequency, but has less connected type hands.
As a result, the lower and the more coordinated a board is, the more you should perceive it as a good one for your range. You are able to take over many pots in such instances, as your range connects with these kinds of boards better than your opponent's range. Note: those are exactly the same boards that were mentioned in the previous lesson as the ones which are bad to c-bet on. This is for the exact same reason.
An example of a bad board for the flatter:
An example of a good board for the flatter:
Responding to a continuation bet
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Assume you are in a situation where your opponent c-bets on the flop.
On a dry board
On a dry board, you should not raise as a bluff. This is because your line needs to be selling a consistent story. Remember, on a dry board you don't represent much by raising as you rarely have a monster hand, and most of your hits are weak to mid-strength one pair hands. Even if you somehow hit a monster, you would rarely raise it for value on a dry flop as there is nothing to protect against, and you get more value under-representing your hand and letting your opponent continue on the turn either as a bluff or with worse value hands. As you would not raise your value hands, it is important not to do it with air. You can still call his c-bet with a plan to take down the pot on later streets - this play is called a float.
So when the preflop raiser bets out on a dry flop, you should normally only consider calling and folding. There are several types of calls you should make.
To start with, there are so called "value calls". A value call is a call with a made hand that has sufficient equity against the hands your opponent bets for value. In most cases this happens when you have a monster or a good top pair / overpair.
The second category contains bluff catchers. These are made hands with insufficient equity against your opponent's value range, but just enough to warrant a call after taking into account all the bluffs that he can be making. A bluff catcher can be anything from a top pair to ace high.
The third option involves draws. They typically have enough equity to warrant a call at least on the flop, unless you have a mere gutshot, the c-bet size is on the larger side, and the opponent plays well on later streets.
Everything else is just a pure float. You can call these hands with a frequency depending on your opponent's tendencies on later streets. If your opponent is likely to give up at some point in the hand, you can float every time. If he is unlikely to give up, you should almost never float with no additional equity.
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On a dry board, you should in general only consider calling and folding. |
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You should call a c-bet with any value calling hand, any bluff catcher, most draws (but there aren't many on a dry board), and some air hands, depending on reads. |
On a wet board
On the other hand, on a wet board, you should typically consider all three available options. You should call with bluff catchers (although your opponent shouldn't be bluffing that often on a wet board), and you can sometimes call with draws or value hands. However, most often, you should be looking to raise or fold.
This is because raising is the play that is most consistent with your value range. If you hit a wet flop after defending preflop, you have a lot of monster hands (sets, two pairs, flushes, and straights) with which you should raise to get value and to protect from draws to an even stronger hand. You also have a lot of draws in your range, which benefit from raising as well because you realise your fold equity together with your chance to draw out. As previously mentioned, your bluffs (if any) should be played in the same way that you would play your good hands.
You should raise with all your value hands (which now means hands that beat your opponent's likely continuation range), most of your draws (semibluffing), and some of your air, with a frequency depending on villain's likeliness to give up.
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On a wet board, you should generally consider raising and folding. You can call with a bluff catcher or sometimes with a value hand as a trap, or with a draw if you don't think your opponent would fold to your raise. |
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You should raise a c-bet with any value raising hand, most draws, and some air hands, depending on reads. |
Summary
In this lesson, you have learned that:
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