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The Continuation Bet Quiz, Part 2
In an earlier InsidePoker quiz, we looked at three situations in which you had raised before the flop, and discussed whether it was correct to make a continuation bet in each situation.
But the hand doesn’t always end with your continuation bet – sometimes you get called, and you have a difficult decision to make on the turn. Could your opponent be floating, calling to bluff you? Could they be slowplaying a big hand? Should you follow up with another bet or should you give up and move on to the next hand?
In this quiz we’ll look at three different turn decisions and talk them through.
The Scenario
You’re playing $1/$2 No Limit Hold’em online. You’re on the button, holding As-Ks and with a $200 stack. A player in middle position, who also has $200, raises to $6, and you reraise to $18. He calls and you see a flop, which comes Qh 7d 2s. Your opponent checks, you bet $25, and your opponent calls. The turn is dealt, and your opponent checks again. There is $64 in the pot, and you have $157 remaining.
Question 1 – The Blank
The turn is the 5c. Should you...?
- Check
- Bet $40
- Bet $64
- Bet All-In ($157)
Analysis
The first thing to do is realize that this is a bad turn card for you. However, it probably didn’t help your opponent either. Should you fire the second barrel?
That greatly depends on your opponent. If they are clever enough to recognise that you were making a continuation bet on the flop, and are capable of calling with nothing just to take the pot away from you on the turn or the river, then you should at least consider betting again.
These days, many more players are aware of the continuation bet and how to defend against it. It’s also possible that your opponent called you with something like J-J on the flop, and would fold to another bet on the turn, so you do need to bet here occasionally. However, to do so, you need to be very confident that your opponent either floated the flop (called to bluff you), or is weak enough to fold the best hand to another bet.
Assuming you do bet, how big should you make it? Although moving all-in is perhaps the most likely to make your opponent fold, it’s not a smart play because on the occasions that you get caught, you’ll lose your entire stack – and there’s no need to put it all on the line. $64 is a pot-sized bet, a size that is rarely optimal in No Limit Hold’em. In this case, a smaller bet should have just as much fold equity as a pot-sized bet, while risking less.
Answer
If you know a lot about your opponent and you’re confident that you’re still winning or that you can force them to fold, you can bet again – in which case, about $40 is the best bet size.
Against an unknown opponent, following up with a second bet a small percentage of the time is reasonable. However the vast majority of the time, you should probably just accept that you are beat and check – maybe you can catch a king on the river and show it down.
Question 2 – The Pair
The turn is the Ac. Should you...?
- Check
- Bet $40
- Bet $64
- Bet All-In ($157)
Analysis
The ace could be a great card for you, but it’s also a scare card for your opponent. Let’s consider the action so far, and think about what they might have.
They could have you beat, with a hand like A-A, Q-Q, or A-Q. All three hands fit the preflop and flop action well, and against these hands you certainly don’t want to bet because you’re drawing dead or close to it.
They could hold absolutely nothing, and may have been planning to bluff the turn until the ace arrived. If that is the case, you don’t want to bet either, because a complete bluff is drawing dead against you and will simply fold. You’d like such a hand to try a bluff on the river.
They could have a medium strength hand, like pocket jacks or K-Q. This type of hand is unlikely to draw out on you, and will probably fold if you bet. You don’t want to bet against this type of hand either. If you check, it looks like you have made a continuation bet on the flop with nothing and have given up. Your opponent might bet for value on the river, or check and call your bet. Either way, your check allows your opponent to make a mistake later in the hand, whereas betting will probably just drive them out.
Answer
No matter what your opponent holds, it’s better to check. If they have nothing, you want to show weakness and encourage them to bluff bet the river (which you will call). If they have a medium-strength hand, you want to make them suspicious and encourage them to bet for value or call your bet on the river. If they have a huge hand, checking keeps the pot small and saves you money.
Check, and hope the river is a blank.
Question 3 – The Draw
The turn is the 9s. Should you...?
- Check
- Bet $40
- Bet $64
- Bet All-In ($157)
Analysis
The turn is a reasonable card for you, giving you a flush draw to go with your two overcards to the board. Once again, we have a difficult choice between checking and betting.
First of all, let’s rule out the all-in bet. Although it’s not as bad as it would have been in Question 1, because you have many more outs to make the best hand if you get called, betting your entire stack is still an unnecessary risk.
There are two key things to bear in mind when making this decision. First, you don’t want to bet so much so that if your opponent calls and bets the river, you are forced to call.
For example, let’s say that you bet $64, and your opponent calls. Your opponent then moves all-in on the river. You’ll have to call $93 into a $285 pot, and you’ll be receiving pot odds of over 3/1. You’re essentially pot committed, and if you have made any semblance of a hand on the river you’ll have to call.
There is a saying in No Limit poker – ‘Big hand, big pot; Small hand, small pot’. Here, although you started with a strong holding, you now have a small hand, and it’s a huge mistake to commit all of your chips to the pot if you don’t have to.
The situation is slightly more favourable if you bet $40. Then the pot on the river will be $231, and you’ll have to call $117. That’s less than 2/1 pot odds, so you may not feel compelled to call a bet.
But what about checking? The downside to that is that if you miss on the river, you’ll probably have to give up the pot. But is that such a downside? After all it’s rarely a bad play to just fold when you have nothing. The upsides to checking are significant – you don’t commit yourself to a pot as an underdog, and you get a free card to hit your flush (your ace or king might also be outs). Getting a free card is an excellent result, equivalent to receiving infinite pot odds on your draw.
Answer
Betting $40 as a semi-bluff is not an awful play, particularly if you think that your opponent is very likely to fold to another bet. But most of the time, it is best to take the free card by checking, and hope to make something on the river with which you can extract value.
Summary
In this quiz, we’ve seen three different turn cards and three very different follow-up decisions, and yet in each case the best play was to check.
Checking isn’t always a weak, passive play. Often, it’s an important defensive tool. In each of the preceding situations we checked, but for very different reasons – first, we checked because we were probably beat and didn’t want to put any more money into the pot drawing so slim. Secondly, we checked because we didn’t want to pay off our opponent if he held a great hand, but wanted to put him to a tough decision on the river if he had something mediocre or a bluffing hand. Lastly, we checked to take a free card.
In all three cases, we also checked to keep the pot small, and avoid committing ourselves to the pot with a weak hand.
Don’t be mindlessly aggressive on the turn after making a continuation bet. Instead, take time to think through your options – your wallet will thank you.
