Continuation Betting for Advanced Players

The continuation bet has evolved a lot since Volume One of Harrington on Hold ‘Em first introduced the concept to the poker-playing public. The general idea, as Harrington explained it, was that most flops miss most hands. If you don’t start with a pair in the hole, it’s hard to flop one, meaning that even if the flop didn’t help you, it probably didn’t help your opponent either. Thus, Harrington recommends that when you raise pre-flop with an unpaired hand and miss the flop, you should usually bluff at it anyway, at least if only one opponent saw the flop with you. This is a “continuation” of the pre-flop action, where you’ve already represented strength by raising, whereas your opponent has shown weakness by just calling.

That works just fine when your opponent does not understand this concept himself, which you could pretty much count on back when Harrington on Hold ‘Em was first published. Nowadays, thanks in no small part to that book, the continuation bet is a widely understood and employed concept. Even weaker players will often fire a bluff at the flop if they raised pre-flop, and they’ll expect you to do the same.

Does this mean you should stop continuation betting? Certainly not! The premises underlying Harrington’s original argument haven’t changed: most flops still miss most hands, and the pre-flop raiser usually has a stronger range than the pre-flop caller. As with anything in poker, you simply need to understand this concept better than your opponents do in order to make money with it. This article will suggest a number of nuances to consider when deciding whether to follow up your pre-flop raise with a continuation bet on the flop.

Opponent Tendencies  – This one factor swamps all of the others combined, so you need to consider it first. You can have a strong range, great barreling opportunities, and tons of outs, but if your opponent shoves all-in anytime anyone bets the flop, then you shouldn’t try to bluff him. Similarly, against a nit who won’t call a bet with less than top pair, you should bluff even when nothing stronger than the 18th nuts is in your range, you have no outs, and you are out of position.

In other words, all of the advice here is subject to your judgment and may even be irrelevant if your opponent is as blatantly exploitable as those above. If you are playing online and using a HUD, the most important statistic to look for here is your opponent’s Fold to Continuation Bet %. If the number is high, you should bluff often.

If it’s low, bluffing could still be correct. You should look next at how often he folds to turn bets. If he rarely folds the flop but often folds the turn, then he is a good candidate for a double barrel bluff, which could prove to be even more profitable than if you had simply succeeded in your flop bluff. We’ll talk more about setting up multi-barrel bluffs in a moment.

It is important to realize that these numbers don’t take any situational factors into account, so they are not a complete substitute for your own judgment. Just because your opponent has folded to 18 of the last 25 continuation bets you’ve seen him face doesn’t mean he will fold a 9 [spade] 8 [spade] 7 [diamond] flop when he called your small blind raise on his big blind. Consider opponent tendencies first and foremost, but consider them in light of the other factors discussed here.

Board Texture– What are the best kinds of flops to bluff? The cop-out answer is that it depends on your opponent’s tendencies. Against a level-one thinker who will fold if he doesn’t have a pair or a good draw, then the driest flops are the best to bluff. You can expect such an opponent to fold almost always on a 3 [diamond] 3 [spade] 3 [club] flop.

A level-two thinker will realize that this flop probably didn’t help you either. He isn’t going to fold an Ace, and he may even bluff-raise you with weaker hands.

That said, if you forced me to give you an answer other than “It depends,” I’d tell you that the best flop to continuation bet has one big card and two little cards, with no obvious flush or straight draws. K [heart] 7 [club] 2 [spade] is a good example. This is a particularly tough flop for your opponent to hit, since he can’t have a draw and he probably isn’t playing too many hands with a 2 or a 7 in them. At the same time, the K gives him something to be afraid of. If he decides randomly to peel the flop with T9, he could be drawing nearly dead if you have the hand you are representing.

Conversely, continuation bets tend to be least successful on very coordinated flops. A board of 8 [club] 7 [club] 6 [diamond] gives your opponent plenty of ways to have flopped a pair, a flush draw, or an open-ended straight draw, none of which is likely to fold to a single bet.

For the record, I should tell you that third-level thinkers may realize all of this and adjust their ranges accordingly. In other words, they will probably realize that you expect them to miss a dry flop more often, and consequently they may call with Ace-high or attempt to re-bluff you. Similarly, they will give a continuation bet on a coordinated flop more respect and may fold hands like bottom pair with no re-draw on the assumption that you will not be bluffing too often. Poker is a complicated head game.

Pre-Flop Ranges– Poker is also a math game, and the best way to resolve those “But what if he knows that I know that he knows that I know…” paradoxes is to look for some mathematical grounding for your strategy. In this case, if you can make an educated guess about your opponent’s pre-flop calling range, and if you can honestly identify your own pre-flop range, then you can determine which of you a particular flop is more likely to help.

Suppose that you open raise from first position at a nine-handed table, the opponent to your immediate left calls, and everyone else folds. You know your own range to be your top 7% of hands, which is {88+,ATs+,KTs+,AQo+}. You believe your opponent will call here pre-flop with any pair, most of his suited connectors, and his strongest Broadway hands, and that he doesn’t usually re-raise a first position raiser. Thus, you put him on something like {22+,AJs+,KQs,QJs,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,76s,65s,AKo}.

Using a tool like Poker Stove, we can evaluate how these ranges fare on various flops. On the K [heart] 7 [club] 2 [spade] flop we mentioned before, your range is a 58-42 favorite over his. Thus, this flop is better for you than for your opponent, and you should lean towards betting it no matter which two cards you happen to have this time around. No matter how suspicious your opponent is, there is a mathematical limit to how much he can do about it. His only options are to start calling or raising with weaker hands, which is to your benefit since your range is generally stronger than his, or he can just give up with his weaker hands, which is to your benefit the times that you have nothing.

On the 8 [club] 7 [club] 6 [diamond] flop, however, your opponent’s range is favored over yours 56-44. This time your options are limited. If you just blindly bet with anything, a smart opponent will be able to call or raise often enough to exploit your weak range. Betting only your very strong hands will also be exploitable, so you’ll need to be selective with your bluffs, taking into consideration some of the factors below.

There’s one last thing to realize here: if you’re going to base your continuation betting frequency on the strength of your pre-flop range, then on any given flop texture you should continuation bet more often the earlier your position at the table. Since you are presumably raising a stronger range from Under-The-Gun than from the Button, your equity on the flop will almost always be higher, suggesting that you ought to bluff more often.

Equity vs. Calling Range– In most situations, against most opponents, the correct strategy will be to bet some but not all of your made hands and bluff some but not all of your misses. Deciding which hands to bet and which to check is where we really get into playing poker.

All other things being equal, it is better to make a continuation bet on an 8 [club] 7 [club] 6 [diamond] flop with 3 [club] 2 [club] than with 3 [spade] 2 [spade]. The former will often have 9 outs to make the best hand when called, whereas the latter will usually be drawing nearly dead. Against an opponent who never raises, if you know you want to bluff 60% of the time that you don’t flop a pair, then you should simply bet the best 60% of your range that isn’t good enough to bet for value.

The possibility of a raise complicates matters, though. When you have a good draw, you would prefer not to set yourself up for a raise that you cannot profitably call. Against an opponent who will check if you check but will always either fold or raise three times the pot if you bet, then you would actually be better off bluffing with your weakest hands and checking your strong draws. This is because your equity when called doesn’t matter: your opponent will never call, and when he raises, the size is too large for you to call.

Your hand does matter when the action is checked around on the flop, though. You have a lot more to gain from seeing a turn when you have a draw than when you don’t. Thus, against this opponent, it is better to bluff with hands that have nothing going for them and to take a free card with your draws.

Unfortunately, you will not always know with such precision whether your opponent will call or raise. It is generally better to have equity versus your opponent’s calling range when bluffing, but you should be alert for situations where you are likely to get raised off your hand and adapt your ranges accordingly.

Multi-Barrel Bluffs – There are many situations where a willingness to fire multiple barrels can turn an unprofitable flop bluff into a very profitable one. You don’t have to plan on bluffing every possible turn card, but it’s good to have an idea of which cards will produce profitable double-barreling opportunities. Usually, you’ll be looking for cards that are scary for your opponent’s range (e.g. big cards likes A’s and K’s or cards that complete obvious draws) and/or that improve your range (e.g. cards that give you a draw you could complete on the river if your turn bluff gets called). Thus, hands with backdoor draws become good candidates for a flop continuation bet, since they will often turn a draw with which you can fire a second barrel.

Realize that if you plan on bluffing more than 50% of turns, then you want your flop bet to get called. Every time your opponent calls the flop with a hand that will fold to a turn bet, you profit, even if that hand is far stronger than yours. Thus, you may want to choose a smaller size for your flop bet.

Conclusion
As you can see, there’s a lot to think about. In fact, there are still more factors that could influence your decision to fire a continuation bet, but this should be more than enough to keep you busy for a while. Now that the continuation bet has become widespread knowledge, there are new opportunities for profit in understanding this play better than your opponents do. They can try to adapt to your continuation betting, but if you are adapting to their adaptations, then you’ll still come out ahead.