Beginner Series Part 6 - Postflop

You've seen 3 of the 5 community cards. What now?

Editor’s Note: There is a lot to cover in the beginner postflop¹ conversation. I will do my best to keep it beginner.

History of the C-bet

For old school poker players (especially ones that love seeing a flop), this is the point in the hand where they decide to release their inferior holdings.

“If I don’t flop to it, I’m done with it.” - T.J. Cloutier (legendary old school pro)

The Flop

If you think about it in terms of numbers, it makes sense. If you didn’t hit your pair with your big card or a set with your small pocket pair, why call a bet when you only have 2 cards left to catch up and you will likely face further aggression on the turn and river?

However there are flaws in this mentality and the pros had the experience and reps to use this mentality to their favor.

Inexperienced players were consistently giving up after missing the flop and facing a continuation bet. It didn’t take long for professionals to figure out that betting the flop EVERY time when they were the preflop aggressor, was a profitable play.

These grinders surmised that a given hand is only going to pair on the flop less than 30% of the time with a random hand. Because not every random hand is calling preflop (think 62o), there will be more shared (dominated) cards in the callers range preflop (think AJo vs QJo) the percentage for hitting the flop will actually be lower than the estimate for the random hand.

What was really figured out is that the range of the player with initiative (the preflop aggressor) has a range advantage and therefore an equity advantage. This is to say that the player with the initiative will, more often, win the hand because he is likely to have better holdings than his opponent.

So the “Continuation Bet” (C-Bet) was born. Well this worked beautifully for a long time and made a lot of people a lot of money. However, much like everything in the world of economics and war, countermeasures were found.

Countermeasures

Here are a few examples of what the passive player in the hand (Callers) began doing preflop in order to play more balance postflop:

1. Callers began tightening their preflop unsuited range from out of position
   (typically BB) to avoid domination.

2. Callers widened their preflop button range to play more hands from in position.

3. Callers implemented a 3-bet (3!) or fold strategy from the small blind to fold out more equity from the BB and to press the issue with the opener in an effort to not have to play the rest of the hand from out of position. Perhaps against a late position opener, the small blind will 3! 17% of hands, fold 80% and call with only 3% of hands.

The Caller would implement these 3 preflop strategies so she would have a range that could defend more efficiently against a player who C-bets at a high frequency.

Here are the post flop strategies that could now be implemented by her because of the 3 (and others) listed above:

1. Check raising on favorable boards. If the board runs out 8, 5, 4, the caller in the big blind vs. an UTG open will be the only player that likely has 55, 44, 67s in her range. The UTG opener may have 88 but lacks the other nutted type hands in his range. By check raising on this flop (even with a hand like 7,5s) the caller is putting a lot of pressure on the aggressor’s range.

2. Floating the flop. This concept involves calling the C-bet of the aggressor post flop in order to see if the aggressor continues to bet the turn. This is to exploit the players that over C-bet the flop but will not fire again on the future streets if they don’t improve. The caller is essentially saying “I know you miss the flop as often as I do so I am calling your bluff and see if you have the gall to continue your aggressive ways after you have been called.” Typically, if the turn goes check check, the caller will then bet (value or bluff) to try to take down the pot.

3. Showing “Stickiness”. A sticky player is one that doesn’t go away easily. Sticky players can be frustrating to play against from any position. They have gathered that their play frustrates other players. This frustration causes other players to avoid playing pots against these sticky players in marginal spots. As you can imagine, this is +EV for the caller.

Countermeasures to the countermeasures

Therefore, a player that C-Bets 100% of the time is burning money in the modern game.

The following points should be considered before C-Betting in order to counter the counter action:²³

1. Position: The pre flop aggressor should C-bet approximately 80% of flops from in position. This same player should C-bet only around 60% of flops from out of position.⁴

2. Stack Sizes: In a tournament, if the player with aggression flops a nutted hand and the stacks are short, it is often correct to slow the play down to allow the opponent to “catch up” to a better losing hand that will call a bet on a future street. The idea behind this is that since stacks are short, it shouldn’t be difficult to get it in by the river so why rush it and run off the opponent.

3. Flop texture: This is one of the biggest indicators of how to act post flop. A flop that is very good for the preflop aggressor such as A, 8, 3 rainbow is a C-bet at 100% frequency. Weigh that against the 6, 5, 4. This second flop example favors the range of the preflop caller. If you don’t believe me, check out the preflop raising and defending ranges of early position vs big blind respectively.⁵

This is as comfortable as I feel I can go and still call this beginner content. To be sure we probably crossed that line a few times even with these simple heuristics.

As always, if you want to start a conversation, please hit me up in the comment section below. I do appreciate the feedback even if it is a simple “like” by clicking the heart shape below.

1. I’m not positive if the diction is “Postflop” or “Post Flop”. The more I look it up, the more I see each used almost equally. I am going to choose to use Postflop as I seem to favor Preflop and am aiming for consistency.

2. These suggestions infer that we are against an unknown or difficult to exploit opponent. Player reads and exploits will typically trump trying to play GTO as the opponent is likely to make a larger mistake when lead in a certain direction.

3. These suggestions assume that both opponents are getting to this point using preflop ranges that make sense in GTO land. If ranges aren’t up to standards, the whole thing falls apart. This is part of the game that lends itself to those who say fallacies like “It’s hard to play against players who are ignorant or don’t care about money”. The truth is, these players are easier to beat but as they risk all, they force you to risk as well which drives up the variance.

4. This guideline is for Single Raised Pots (SRPs) only. Three bet (3!) pots are another story as ranges are more defined and a lot more value heavy.

5. An entire long essay could be written about flop texture, equity advantage, and nut advantage. I encourage you all to read up or Youtube some videos on the subject.