Continuation betting in no limit holdem

This hand was played at $10-$20 NL Texas Holdem level but once again this principle could apply to any level of play that you encounter. Here I want to talk about continuation betting because it is such an important part of No limit holdem and also because there seems to be a lot of misconceptions about it in my opinion.

In this hand I held the Ah-10s in the cut off and open raised to $60 and both blinds called making a $180 pot with three players. The flop came 7s-6s-5c missing me totally and both of my opponents checked to me.

In this situation against two opponents then I don’t think that it is profitable to continuation bet even if both of them check to me which they happened to do in this particular hand. What I find in my experience is that at least one of the players will not believe that I have connected with a flop like this and be looking to play back.

The flop is very co-ordinated and while I do not like the play of the small blind all that much, I am now in a situation where I must respect the fact that the board is dangerous and I have two opponents in this hand. The texture of the flop dramatically affects your level of continuation betting as does the number of opponents in the hand.

But many players tend not to believe you when you bet flops like this and two players checking to me does not mean that they are both weak and that I can simply bet and take it. They could easily be checking to the raiser and waiting for me to simply do what they are expecting me to do and that is continuation bet. I could easily get check raised here and the main player for such a move would be the big blind.

My pre-flop raise followed by the small blinds call gave the big blind pot odds to be able to call with a much wider range of hands so they literally could be sitting there with anything. A continuation bet by me on the flop would put the small blind in the middle and this could induce a fold from them which would open the door for the big blind to make a play at me.

There are so many question marks associated with continuation betting this board and to make a decent sized continuation bet would mean betting in the region of at least $120. Also another reason not to make the automatic bet is so that your game does not drift into predictability. My opponents are expecting me to continuation bet and most of the time I will not disappoint them.

A combination of having perhaps only one opponent, the strength of my hand coupled with the board and the likely reaction from my opponent when I bet all go together into deciding if a continuation bet is acceptable or not.

In this instance then I simply do not think that it is acceptable with the connected board and having two opponents and the fact that a pre-flop raiser is unlikely to have connected with this board. For the sake of completion then I will play out the rest of the hand. I checked it back on the flop and the turn card paired my ten with the 10c making a board of 7s-6s-5c-10c. The small blind bet out around two thirds of the pot and the big blind raised and my fold was simple and straight forward. The big blind ended up taking this pot with a flopped straight with the 9c-8h.

My decision not to continuation bet worked in my favour here and it saved me in the region of $120 to $150 as this would be the amount that I would have roughly bet on the flop.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”
Come and talk about your bad beat on the bwin poker blog.

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