Today, instead of using examples with dollar figures, I'm going to talk in terms of "bets". Let's say the amount of the big blind is "one bet" and the small blind, therefore, is a "half-bet". It doesn't matter if the big blind is $500 or $2, for the sake of the examples we are going to use. A bet is a bet. Thinking of the size of pots as bets rather than actual dollar amounts is a good practice to get into because you are more likely to make proper poker decisions when you see things mathematically, rather than emotionally. People tend to get emotional when they see the size of the call they have to make as, say, a mortgage payment. Generally in poker, what is true is true regardless the size of the blinds.
As promised I'm going to look at when a continuation bet bluff is most profitable and when it is least profitable. Please bear in mind I'm making general statements here - I'm talking about what works and doesn't work most of the time.
That said, you want to make a continuation bet bluff in situations you feel your opponent is most likely to fold. This sounds obvious, but it is not always easy to identify the situations where you are most likely to get your opponent to lay their cards down. By far the biggest single factor to consider is:
How much money has my opponent already put into the pot?
The more he or she has put in, the harder it will be to get them to fold.
Let's say you raised the pot 4 times the big blind, get one caller, and the blinds both fold. Now their are 9.5 bets in the pot; the 4 you put in, the 4 the caller put in, 0.5 from the small blind and 1 from the big blind.
The flop comes without an Ace or a King, so you feel fairly confident your opponent missed, which his good because you missed too. At 8.5 bets, this is a nice pot (if the big blind was $10, for example, the pot is $85) so the question you have to answer is;
Should you try to take the pot right here with a continuation bet bluff?
If we only consider the math behind this puzzle, then I'm afraid the answer is no. Let's do the math:
I have previously stated that continuation bets (whether you have a hand or not), cause opponents to fold 70% of the time, and I think this is true on average, but the bigger the pot, the harder it gets to push people off it and when you opponent has already put up 4 bets, he is not likely to fold very easily. With a pot this big, I think a 65% success rate is more realistic. So let's say you make your continuation bet of 3/4 the pot - that's another 6.5 bets you are putting at risk to win 8.5 bets. With a 65% chance of success, this seems worthwhile until you run the numbers.
If your opponent folds, you have only won an additional 4.5 bets more than you started the hand with. True the pot you stole was 8.5 bets, but remember you put in 4 of those bets in the first place.
If we imagine running this situation 100 times, then 65 times you should win 4.5 bets. You can therefore expect to win 65 x 4.5, or 292.5 bets over 100 hands.
But what if the opponent doesn't fold, as he won't do 35% of the time? Well, to put it rather bluntly, you are probably going to lose most of those hands. And not only are going to lose the 4 bets you made before the flop, you are going to lose the 6.5 bets you made the continuation bet with, that's 10.5 bets you lose.
If we imagine running this situation 100 times, then 35 times you should lose 10.5 bets. You can therefore expect to lose 35 x 10.5 or 367.5 bets over 100 hands. Subtract 367.5 bets from your winnings of 292.5 and....oh my, you lose 75 bets over 100 hands.
Okay I've maybe simplified things a little too much to make a point. But I believe the point is valid - how much you have to put at risk to win a pot, and what percentage of the time you can expect your move to work, are vital considerations you can't ignore if you want to show a profit in the long run.
My next post will show a much better time to use the continuation bet bluff. One that is profitable.
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