Continuation betting is definitely one of the most universally understood poker strategy concepts among players. After all, c-betting simply involves following up your pre-flop raise with another raise after the flop to show hand strength and steal the pot (even if you missed the flop completely). But just understanding c-betting doesn’t mean that players always understand when to make quality c-bets – especially when it comes to poker tournaments. This being the case, it’s worth looking at some of the basics of making c-bets in tournaments.
Difference between Cash Game and Poker Tournament C-bets
While the fundamentals behind making a c-bet are always the same, it’s important to note that the quantity of c-bets you make in cash games and poker tournaments will differ. The reason why is because you’ll be dealing with different stack sizes in poker tournaments, so it’s not always wise to make c-bets when you’re short-stacked.
After all, if you get re-raised, folding could take a huge chunk of your stack, and you can’t get it back. Cash games, on the other hand, give you the option to re-fill your stack when it gets low; so if you see an +EV c-betting situation, you can always go for it. Long story short, most tournament c-bets can’t be made lightly.
In-game Factors that go into C-betting
Now that we’ve established how important each c-bet you make in a tournament will be, you need to think about all of the factors that go into successful c-bets. For one, stack sizes will play a big part since you have more of a c-bet luxury when your stack is bigger; couple this with your opponent having a short stack, and this creates a more favorable c-betting situation.
It’s also important to understand your opponent’s pre-flop betting range based on how they’ve been playing. You can then couple this range with the board texture to figure out how likely an opponent is to have hit anything on the flop. To illustrate this with an obvious example, if you’re playing against someone who only raises preflop with premium pocket pairs like AA through JJ and the board shows A-J-K, this is not a good time to c-bet if you’ve got undercards.
In an overall sense, you need to take several factors into consideration before making a c-bet.
