POTD #204, #205 and #206: A Trio of C-bet Spots

In a POTD first we look at three hands in one post.

NB: Today’s post is footnote heavy and might be easier to read in the Substack App or in your browser. Here’s a link for the e-mail readers: click here.

One of the most common questions I get from people who have just started using solvers is a version of what a user asked in the POTD Discord, which I’ll quote below:

I’d love to see something on the thought process behind determining your c-bet sizing in situations where you don’t know from study what it’s “supposed” to be. How you determine and categorize what your c-bet strategy is on the fly?

As people have started studying with solvers. c-betting has gone from being one of the easiest strategies to implement— when you raise preflop, follow up with a continuation bet— to something slightly more complex, given how frequent a node it is. What sizes should I play? Do I mix checks? Looking at a solver output of LJ vs. BB on T63 with a flush draw can look like a Rothko exhibition, several rectangles filled with various colours. [If you’re ever in Houston, check out the Rothko chapel! -ed.] An abstraction that, if you look at it just right, can unlock the mysteries of the universe, or can be utterly confounding.

The reality is, unless you do something crazy like check back 55 on AA5 or go all-in with 22 on QJT, no individual c-bet decision you make as the preflop aggressor is going to lose that much EV. Sometimes looking at sims, especially ones that have not fully converged, can make an individual’s understanding of a spot worse. If every size is used some of the time, why does it even matter?

This week, I will be looking at six different c-bet spots from a three-week span of live poker when I played the PGT event at the Onyx Club in Cyprus followed by EPT Barcelona. It was a good trip for me; I cashed 7/30 tournaments I played and made six final tables, but there were not many interesting c-bet situations at any of the FTs I made, because they were mostly shallow-stacked FTs where most of the action was preflop. So I will be reaching into the vault for a FT Friday where I blundered my c-bet decision. I wanted to pick a variety of hands from a short period of time to show that even in a short period of time, it’s easy to make a lot of small c-bet mistakes. I did not need to search high and low to find a period where my c-bet game was off; it happens to everyone.

2024 Super High Roller Series Cyprus $51,500 NLHE
(1k/2k/2k) (SB/BB/BBA) 150k Starting Stack. Registration is open, but is a freezeout

It folds to me (150k) in the HJ, I make it 4500 with 7♣️7♠️, Sorel Mizzi (covers me) calls in the BB.

Flop (12k) T♥️6♦️3♥️: Sorel checks, I bet 8500, Sorel? (I only wrote down the c-bet decision in this hand)

Exactly one orbit later

2024 Super High Roller Series Cyprus $51,500 NLHE
(1k/2k/2k) (SB/BB/BBA) 150k Starting Stack. Registration is open, but is a freezeout

It folds to me (150k)¹ in the HJ, I make it 4500 with 6♣️6♠️, Sorel Mizzi (covers me) calls in the BB.

Flop (12k) 7♠️5♦️2♠️: Sorel checks, I bet 9000, Sorel? Once again I only wrote down the c-bet decision for this hand, but I distinctly remember seeing a river in this hand, what happened? I can’t recall.

Approximately three weeks later

2024 EPT Barcelona #52 €10,300 High Roller

Level 10: 600/1.2k/1.2k (SB/BB/BBA) 50k Starting Stack.
I (300k) make it 2.5k in the HJ with K♥️9♥️, the BB (36k) calls.

Flop (6800) 8♣️6♥️3♣️: BB checks, I bet 4500, they snap fold (I remember this result correctly).

What I Was Thinking and What I Got Wrong

Some of the hands today saw turns and rivers, but to be honest, I forget. When checking my notes I only wrote down the flop action, but we will still have three decisions to write about today, just from three different hands.

My internal thought process when c-betting usually goes like this. Step 1: Before the flop comes out, I generate a random number to determine where in the aforementioned colour block will I pick my c-bet size from. If you’re going to randomize, I think it’s important when possible to randomize early. I’ve found that if I see a flop that’s bad for my range and then randomize an aggressive number, I might talk myself out of playing aggressively, whereas if I randomize early, I am more prepared for whatever flop, turn, or river may come.

Once I randomize, I ask myself this question: Did I roll a bet or a check? Sometimes I know a board is one where the PFR never checks, and I can immediately knock out that part of the game tree. The follow up question I ask myself is: Do I play multiple bet sizes on this flop? Sometimes through studying (or actually playing) I know certain boards don’t play multiple sizes. I know AA8 rainbow doesn’t play checks and doesn’t play big bets. So I c-bet small when I see it.

So what happens when I have less certainty? When I need to play multiple sizes and checks, I try to set bounds for myself. What’s the smallest/biggest size I get to bet on the flop? What hands are a big bet trying to get to fold? If I am betting big with 55 on AKQ flush draw and the solver is supposed to fold some top pair combos right away, should I still bet big vs. a player who will never fold top pair? Does that mean I need to keep blasting off on the turn and the river because they will be too loose on the flop? Keep in mind, we are now in paragraph three of me discussing how I execute c-bet strategies in games, and in most games I play, I have less than 20 seconds to decide what size I want to c-bet. The reality of this is, when I am playing, many of these processes are subconscious for me. What I am trying to do this week is to manually explain how every cog in my brain spins, and that won’t always be perfect. Sometimes I know something as I am playing a hand. It’s a bit of magic where I remember a technical detail about a hand or gain a live read and the hand plays out easily. There are many other hands that require more work.

This week, I am going to do the best to help you get inside my brain, so we can learn the fundamentals of c-betting and also why I might fail to execute. When I am locked in, I try to think of my entire range, but sometimes, like the hands today, I can just focus on the actual hands in front of me. When you’re playing vs. an actual opponent, you’re only playing one combo, not the hundreds of hypothetical combos you could have, but marrying what to do with your range and how to play your actual hand is what every poker player should be striving to do.

I am going to try to do something a little different today, since I am writing about three different hands and keeping track of them all is a little convoluted. I am going to share the structure I used for the Sunday Special and share “What I Got Wrong” in the footnotes.