Continuation betting is the classic approach to winning pots, we will often have the stronger range and therefore be able to win a lot of the pots on the flop with a C-Bet, however against good players we can get exploited by check-raises or floats that will look to steal the bloated pot on later streets.
We can use a Delayed C-bet to achieve a few things in our long term game:
- It will add strength to our checking range
This means that when we check back on flops it doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t have a strong hand. Players that only check back with weak holdings cannot stand the heat of calling two bets on the turn and river usually and will get bluffed off their hands by waving the white flag on the flop.
- It will stop us from C-Betting too much and with too wide of a range
This can also be a problem as if we just bet all our marginal hands we will be betting too much and we won’t have strong enough hands to call check-raises and we will be overplaying a lot of our holdings on later streets of action.
- We get more information about our opponents’ hand strength
If our opponent calls our C-Bet on the flop then their hand is pretty strong already, however, if they check the flop and turn card their range is still very wide and thus more likely to be weak, so we can get away with more bluffs with Delayed bets.
When Should We Delay our C-Bet?
When our hand cannot get three streets of value
There are going to be times when we flop a decent hand but our opponent could either easily get away from the hand when we bet or they will just have a better hand than us and continue, so in both those cases betting here is not optimal.
For example:
We are playing at $1/$2 with deep stacks
We are dealt A♠ 4♠ raise the button to $6
SB: folds
BB: (Villian) calls $6
The Flop is A♣ 7♠ 9♥
The benefits of not C-Betting here are:
- We won’t get called by a hand we beat over three streets
- We are miles ahead of hands that will fold if we bet
- We can catch bluffs from our opponent if they think that us checking back the flop means we don’t have an Ace in this spot
This is not to say that there aren’t top pair flops where we should bet…
If we have a top pair hand like J♠ T♠ on a T♣ 7♦ 2♦ board for example…
We should be just C-betting as we can get value from a tonne of hands like straight and flush draws as well as worse pairs, but the difference is our hand is vulnerable to just random overcards giving us the worst hand if we check.
Checking Back When We Have the Board Locked Up
There are going to be times when we just have such as a strong hand that there is little our opponent can have that will either have equity against us, or that could ever call a bet. These spots are perfect for slowing down and checking back and looking for our opponent to either pick up some equity on the turn or maybe try and bluff.
For example:
We are playing at $1/$2 with deep stacks
We are dealt T♠ T♣ raise the button to $6
SB: folds
BB: (Villian) calls $6
The Flop is T♥ 2♦ 6♠
Now we could bet very small here as there are a couple of gutshots on this board that our opponent might be able to call a bet with, however we could win a huge pot if they hit their gutshot and the board pairs on the river… so betting here with our monster is very hard to get called by anything.
Checking this back allows some hands with overcards to catch up and then we could win a sizable pot with a raise on the turn, so spots like this are where we should look to check and give our opponent some rope.
When we have a decent holding but the board is wet
This is when we get to a crossroad with our strategy, because on wet boards with a good holding like a strong top pair we can gain a lot of value by betting and our opponent calling us with their draws.
However, we don’t want to get blown off our equity at any point, so with a borderline strong holding, we will want to try and get to showdown… A good start to this plan is taking a card off and checking back the flop.
For example:
We are playing at $1/$2 with deep stacks
We are dealt A♠ 8♣ raise the button to $6
SB: folds
BB: (Villian) calls $6
The Flop is 8♥ 7♦ 6♠
Now in this hand, we have a good holding! Top pair, top kicker… however, this board is super wet, so we can benefit from seeing a safe turn card and seeing what our opponent does after we check the flop.
If we bet here and a bad turn card comes we just lose a bigger pot and if we bet and get raised we are in a terrible spot where we even have poor equity against overcards and a straight draw for example.
Sum Up
Delayed C-Bets are an important part of a balanced strategy they will help:
Strengthen our checking range
Give us correct C-Betting percentages that cannot be easily exploited
Make our bluffs more effective as ranges stay wide from no bet being called on the flop
& Remember good spots for Delayed C-Bets include:
When our hand cannot get three streets of value
When we have the strong hands locked up and our opponent can’t have a good hand easily
When we have a decent holding but the board is a wet one
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