Jared Devlin-Scherer

There are so many sources of poker information out there that it's easy to
become confused about what's right or wrong. Our goal at pokerdynasty.net is
to teach you how to think critically about poker without focusing on "What's
the correct continuation bet size? Should I continuation bet ½ pot, 2/3rds
pot or full pot?" The answer, of course, is that "it depends."

Poker is never a game of absolutes as it's a game of imperfect information. Deciding
what you bet after each flop shouldn't be a standardized, automatic
decision. There are important factors that change with each hand and they
require your attention. Factors such as how deep you are, what your image is
and what the play has been like with each opponent, are all important.

The long established reasoning in the poker community has been to size your
continuation bet in proportion to the pot size, such that you offer yourself
good odds on the bet. You want to bet as small as possible to give yourself
an overlay against your opponent. However, you don't want to bet too little
to give your opponent odds to draw or improve. Poker players reason, if they
bet between one-half and two-thirds the pot size, they maximize the value of
their continuation bet by giving themselves the greatest overlay possible
without giving their opponents good odds to continue. The goal is to find
the balance. Does this mean that by betting between one-half and two-thirds
pot, your continuation bets are going to show more profit? Not at all!

This is a shortsighted and inflexible way of looking at why we continuation
bet after every flop. Instead of focusing our logic on the hands we end up
playing versus opponents, we focus it on how we can maximize our value based
on how likely they are to have missed and then fold the flop. Continuation
bets are not a bet that can be examined in a vacuum. When we continuation
bet we cannot just consider the profitability of the bet based on the
percentage of the time our opponents fold, instead, we must also consider
what happens when they continue in the hand. The hands that our opponents
continue in are far more important than the ones they fold, they contain
more money, more decisions, and are a larger part of your profit margin. We
must consider a broader perspective using continuation bets as a piece to
the larger puzzle. We want to put our opponents in tough spots when they
continue after the flop instead of maximizing our "missed flop" value. We
want the later streets of each hand to be easier and higher Expected Value
(EV) for us, because those streets give us far more EV than the continuation
bet.

The goal of a continuation bet is to maximize the EV of the entire hand, and
that often means betting more then 2/3rds pot and sometimes continuation
betting larger than the pot. The most important factor to consider when
making your continuation bets is that they be of similar size in similar
situations. Your goal on the flop, in your own raised pots, is to keep your
hand disguised from your opponent as long as possible. The more disguised
your hand, the more mistakes and misreads your opponents make. Your
continuation bet size cannot give off information on your hand in any way.
So what factors will change our continuation bet size?

Flop texture is always what I first analyze when considering my continuation
bet. Larger bets are for "wetter" boards and smaller bets are for "drier"
boards. You want to charge more on boards with more draws, and allow more
hands to call on boards where you have more equity versus an opponent's
calling range. On drier boards, opponents have less outs, less equity and
bigger bets force opponents to define their hand earlier.

Another important factor to consider when making a continuation bet, is the
size of your stack and your opponents. If you're the preflop raiser, it's
often your goal to have the option to triple barrel your opponent (bet flop,
turn, and river where he would call all three) whether bluffing or value
betting for their entire stack. You want to be able to size your river bets
in larger proportions of your opponents stack. Instead of value betting most
of their stack, your river bets should be a push. To accomplish this you
need to bet larger then ½ or 2/3rds a continuation bet on the flop. Here is
the math behind continuation bets and stack sizes:

Reason why you bet close to the full pot:

This can be adapted to any limit, but I find $100 or $1000NL the easiest to
use since it's a multiple of 10.

So 1000 NL, 5/10 blinds, both players have just bought in.
SITUATION 1:
If we continuation bet full pot:

Preflop
Player 1 raises pot to 35
Player 2 calls

Flop (pot size: 35+35+10+5=85)
Player 1 bets pot
Player 2 calls

Turn (pot size=85*3=255)
Player 1 bets pots
Player 2 calls

River (pot size=255*3=765)

Stack sizes remaining of players are:
1000-35-85-255=625, yay we can push!
SITUATION 2:
If we continuation bet 2/3rds pot:

Flop (pot size=85)
Player 1 bets 2/3rds pot
Player 2 calls

Turn (pot size=85+2*(2/3*85)=198)
Player 1 bets pot
Player 2 calls

River (pot size=198*3=576)

Stacks remaining:
1000-35-57-198=710, NO CAN"T PUSH ITS AN OVERBET

This is why, if you watch High Stakes games, they're betting much closer to
the pot. Generally, these people can calculate well and want to be able to
put 100 BBs in the pot by the river if their opponents are going to go call,
call, call. This also increases the proportion of your opponent's playback
amount. For example, if your opponent likes to playback by minraising the
flop, a larger bet by you on the flop increases the % of his stack he needs
to put in play to make a move. The goal is to maximize your EV for later
action and this is the perfect example. You may lose a little EV from your
continuation bets not getting enough bang for their buck, but you also lose
a ton of EV in latter stages of the hand. As shown when an opponent makes a
playback on the flop, they're now forced to commit a larger portion of their
stack. Opponents that like to raise larger will have to put an even higher %
of their stack into play.

A lot of resources advise betting smaller amounts, because usually when
continuation betting you're doing it without a hand and are not looking to
get called, but this is circular logic. Consider this argument from the
opponent's perspective. If you're betting less with your continuation bet
they must risk a smaller % of their stack to make a move. While you're
getting good odds on the continuation bet you're also laying good odds for
your opponent to playback. Only the bravest of opponents will want to make
moves against you when they have to risk a large % of their stack. When you
show up with a real hand and your opponents decides to make a play, you're
now in prime position to trap him for his entire stack, where if he were
playing back at a smaller bet, he could easily get away on the turn. Getting
less playback and more value on your made hands makes up for the slightly
worse continuation bet odds, by a significant margin.

That covers the numerous factors to consider when sizing your continuation
bet. There's a lot to analyze and think about here for such a simple and
often used bet. So what do I do? I just say screw it and bet the full pot
every time

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