Quick disclaimer: I'm talking exclusively about 10NL Full Ring Rush poker.
Over the last 185000 hands my flop c-bet success rate is 49%. Given that my standard c-bet size is 75% of pot then I can bet my entire range if my opponents fold more than X = 0.75/1.75 = 42.9% of the time. Since my opponents are folding a good deal more than they should, it is probably profitable - given this conclusion - to c-bet on the flop a very high percentage of the time. OK nothing new here we all know c-betting on the flop is profitable. But tonight I decided to create a statistic in Poker Tracker 3 which told me what my turn c-bet success % was and over 185000 hands my average turn c-bet success rate is only 33.8%!! I did not expect this at all. I expected to have somewhere around a break even number, maybe around 40%. This tells me that once my opponents have caught a piece of the board, they get very stubborn. So firing a turn barrel should therefore be very value heavy; top pair good kicker or better and strong draws only. Recently I'd been barrelling a pretty wide range and it's obviously not profitable to bluff a lot on the turn unless we have good equity. So the strategy is : Bet a huge bluff heavy range on the flop and a small value heavy range on the turn. But beware, because there will be regulars who know all this already and will float you on every flop because they know that you'll define your range on the turn. GL!
Partially - there's more than just mathematics here.
ReplyDeleteYou can turn a +ev move into a -ev move just by doing it too frequently. CBet 80% of the time with some showdowns making it obvious your cbets are FOS & it's not just the regs who will spot that. As soon as an opponent starts feeling run-over (cbets, stealing whatever) they'll change tack. Two options - change gear again to exploit them trying to play back at you, or don't create that situation in the first place. I'd prefer the latter I think, since it's too easy to think someone's playing back when really they've hit a monster.
Also 2 barrels are a lot more about their range & the board (and your perceived range if they're a good player, but not so much generally at microstakes). It's more likely you're picking bad spots to bluff rather than the fact you're bluffing.
Not that I'm any good at this either, but it's really worth putting some research in...
oh, and when I say 'don't create that situation in the first place' I don't mean don't cbet bluff, I just mean tone it down a bit.
ReplyDeleteThere is definite truth in your reply; I'm sure a better player than I could manage a better turn barrel success % - and I'm trying to follow your advice and do research to improve this. Overall I've been c-betting 67% of the time on the flop and 48% of the time on the turn (too much?). But my point was really that I've spotted a trend in the playing field that shows that opponents get very sticky after calling a flop c-bet. This makes sense since they are defending the flop less and therefore have a stronger range when they get to the turn. This quirk may not exist in other forms of the game, but it seems to be true in 10NL Rush. As far as betting 80% of flops I'm just targeting those players who haven't played many hands with me (the vast vast majority of the playing pool in 10NL Rush). Another factor that helps me in this regard is my playing style. If I'm only playing 14-15% of hands then it's hard for someone to start relentlessly raising my c-bets because I have a pretty strong range to begin with. Anyway it was just meant as an observation. If I feel that my increased flop c-bet % is making players begin to start playing back then I'll just fall back to value town and hopefully they'll decide to stack with second pair! If I improve my double barrel game to a point where I'm better than indifferent then I'll post about it here and out this blog post as being complete garbage (which in truth it probably is lol!) Hope you're still pwning the HUSNGs. Simon
ReplyDeleteps one thing I could do is bet half pot on the turn every time I double barrel and then I'd be indifferent... but I'd then lose value with my made hands unless I use two different bet sizes which would cause problems of it's own I guess. Thoughts?!
half pot is probably good - on the turn you're still denying odds to draws and is still big enough to make a check raise a significant size for the opponent to think twice about trying a c-r bluff (although I'm starting to get pissed off with the amount of 'click it back' min-checkraises - so polarised as to whether these represent strength or a cheap 'lets see if your bluffing' tactic).
ReplyDeleteAlso I remember reading this; http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=6106069&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1 and after thinking that's all nice and neat, but really if the money's going in, then it's probably going to be due to reraises or checkraising, and you have to work out how much effective stack is left on the fly rather than think you're opponent is just going to c-c down to the river. Often the name of the game with value hands is all about inducing pot commitment than simple 'what's the largest bet he'll call on this street?'.
With rush I can't imagine anyone's getting any reads from your betsizing. Anyway I'm of the school of having a continuous range of betsizes rather than sticking to set amounts, just because it's more wheeling&dealing like that. Always awesome when you can make someone fold with minbet...
Good advice, and thanks for the link :)
ReplyDelete