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The C-Bet

The continuation bet, also known as the c-bet, is an aggressive strategy that is characterized by successive raises. Specifically, a c-bet is when you raise pre-flop then follow that up by raising again on the flop, regardless of whether your hand was improved or not.

The pre-flop raise is a move that tells your opponents that you believe your hand is good or that you think your chances are big with your hand. The flop c-bet is a follow up of that move and shows that after the flop has dropped, you still like think you have the best chance to win. Your goal is to represent a strong hand by showing aggression and avoiding showdown by getting your opponents to fold.

Is is profitable?

In the lower stages of the game, where a lot of starters and beginners play, players usually make a lot of mistakes. One of these mistakes is not giving up on weak and marginal hands and always wanting to see the flop, thus leading to a lot of players calling your raise. The good thing about this is most of them are going to miss the flop, leaving a lot of dead money on the table. A good strong c-bet will usually get these players to fold and get the money to you.

Good Situations

The best time to c-bet is when the flop has helped your hand – or when it seems that the flop has helped your hand. When you raise pre-flop, the opponent is likely putting you on big cards. When these big cards appear on the flop, you can represent a strong hand and induce your opponents to fold by c-betting.

Flops that also seem like they do not help your opponent are good for this strategy. Basically, flops that do not help you both are most likely in your favor as you have shown aggression before the flop, meaning you were most likely ahead by then.

Heads-up play is also good for c-betting. The reason being that your opponent will not hit the flop as much as he’ll miss, making this an ideal situation for a raise.

Bad Situations

A c-bet will not be a good strategy when the flop has improved your opponent’s hand and gives him a good reason to call. The post-flop raise is made for the main reason of avoiding showdown and taking the flop. When the opponent has a better hand and a reason to not let go of it, then a c-bet will be a bad strategy.

Another bad situation is when the flop gives opponents a lot of draws, like when the flop gives someone a combo straight and flush draw. There is a very big chance that your opponent has hit something with this hand that raising him will probably be a bad play.

A multi-way pot is also not an ideal spot for a c-bet. The more players there are, the lesser your chances of having the best hand. Additionally, the raise that you will make will have to go through a lot of players and someone is bound to call it.

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Read the villain!

Poker tells are clues on how well your opponents play. They give you a slight idea on what type of opponent you have and on what type of cards he probably has. It allows you to make good reads on your opponents and allow you to make better decisions with your hands.

This is easier to spot in live poker as you can see your opponent right in front of you. But in online poker, tells are much harder to come by and very much harder to spot, especially for beginners. Knowing this, I have compiled some of the easier and transparent online poker tells for you!

Basic Poker Tells

The guy who must always see the flop

This player always wants to see the flop, no matter what kind of hand he has. He will call or limp in frequently to try and see if he can improve his bad hand on the flop. This guy lacks caution and experience and can be very easily taken advantage of.

The Nit

This player always wants to make sure that he has a good hand before betting to see the flop. He doesn’t like betting on draws and he almost never bluffs. He doesn’t like taking chances and only bets big when he has a monster. If you are heads up and this player bets aggressively, it is very likely that he has a very good hand. It would be best for you to fold against him, unless you’re also holding a very strong hand of course.

Observe Your Villain’s Habits!

In poker, live or online, you have to make good reads and predictions on your opponents. Using poker tells helps make this easier. This knowledge may help improve your poker game in leaps and bounds. You have to read your opponent’s behavior, assign him to a range, then make informed decisions based on that. This will help you become a better player in no time!

There are a lot more poker tels you can use online. And they all involve observing your opponent’s behavior including the speed of his action, the size of his bets, and how it all compares to his previous betting patterns. It also helps to see if your opponent makes use of check boxes. Like if a player instantly raises you, it probably means he used the bet/raise all button and that he has a very strong hand.

You have to have the right poker mentality to improve and be a winning poker player today!

I wonder what serious poker players expect to gain by hiding their faces behind huge shades, wearing hats covering unshaven faces, and generally appearing as sinister and menacing as possible. Do they think that will promote fewer tells, or does the bully act actually represent who they are? One thing is sure, they are oblivious to how their appearance affects those around them.

There has got to be some kind of method to their madness. Undoubtedly some of them think they can confuse and deflate opponents by their intimidation and arrogance, thereby, discouraging them from any sound play against them. Theirs is a sullen, bullying persona, which may be the only one they have the imagination to pull off. Some of them may actually be that dark, insolent person, but I rather think that they are hiding behind a lack of creativity.

You should think carefully about the image you project. The bully persona, even if done well, is probably not effective. It may work on some opponents, but mostly it works against you. It may also attract the type of opponents that you want to steer clear of – the experts. If you sit there looking like a hawk, your prey will run in the opposite direction.

It the first place, it may attract the rare professional player who is actually naturally moody and dark to an extent which may intimidate you. After a few such uncomfortable encounters you may find it difficult to get rid of these grim reapers who – with cynical glee – sense in you the weaker prey and grimly reap the rewards. Subsequent games might then grow unnecessarily complicated by your suspicions of how serious some of the sulky opponents at the table actually are.

You may be putting on that stern impassive face to make you appear like a more serious and focused professional, more concentrated than the rest of the players at the table. The problem is, though, that anyone who plays poker, whether rookie or expert, is not going to be able to hang on to an impassive demeanor. If your image is not projecting any of what is really you, it may quash your ability to be conversational and enjoy the game. And, in fact, your energy may be expended on maintaining that phony image rather than on winning at poker.

Though one is not advised to be fully natural in poker, one had better create an image which is the most natural to impersonate. A more “openly” social image may take some practice to maintain, but it will result in your greater enjoyment of the game and greater focus, since your mind will be busy doing what it more or less enjoys.

It takes too much concentration to hold on to a persona that is not at all natural to you. It’s like playing from a locked cage or straightjacket. Your focus will be scattered and your game will lack that robust quality.

Thus, shades and a baseball cap in the dimly lit poker room may only seem to require less effort. It may be better, for the professional player, to spend some time observing one’s own ways and selectively organizing them into the poker player you wish to be and actually can be at the table.

The author of this article plays online poker and gets Rakeback at Cake Poker where they offer the highest Cake Rakeback.

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To be good at poker “psychology” – to effectively predict your opponent’s likely thought processes – there is no need to take a seminar on Card Games and their Relation to the Unconscious. Your opponent is not your patient, and even if he/she is, no matter how well you apply Jacques Lacan to their neurosis, you are still not guaranteed to win.

When thinking of poker, one would think of it as a game of strategy rather than one of psychoanalysis. Strategy is only one of the components of winning play, however. Getting into your opponent’s head is the essence of smart play. This does not mean that you must suffer while he goes over the details of his life story ad nauseum.

Once thing for sure about great artists and great players is they did not reach this status by reading an instruction book. They got there by trusting their intuition, an intuition borne out of a natively keen talent of observation which they rehearsed and developed individually over a long period of time.

This is not merely the reason why so few good technical manuals on poker psychology exist. This is also possibly the most key point about the issue: whatever tips you may find on the net or in books, you will never be able to put them to much good use unless you have that touch of intuition which puts your thought processes beyond the reach of your opponents.

If everyone played according to strict principles, the games would be no different than relatively complex computer simulations and prediction would be relatively simple, depending on the number of variables. This is in fact more or less how novices and people without much gift for games generally play, and it is why they generally loose more than they win.

The talented player, on the other hand, disdains crude cribs. Instead, they make their own observations about their own play and about that of others. Guided by their own intuition, they then combine those observations into principles according to their own whim and fancy. The resulting strategy is known only to them. The more talented the player is, the more complex (or ingeniously simple, which is basically the same thing) and idiosyncratic his secret strategy, making him less vulnerable.

You will never find a great artist or a great player divulging his secrets. They may write books, give lectures, advice and tips, but not on the really good stuff. It seems like a great service they perform by letting us mere mortals in on such tidbits. But don’t be fooled. They did not rise to the top of their professions by reading and heeding someone else’s great tips.

It is then most vital to commit yourself to the intense study of personal observation from your own practice to develop your observational skills as well as your imagination. Do this and you will independently create ways of acquiring a manner of play that is unique to you in its every detail.

Everyone is familiar with the common concept of bluffing, for example; but the best bluffers are those who do it consistently in a way which other players, no matter how smart or experienced, have no way of “reading.” And the only way to be able to do that is to employ a well muscled intuition which only you have access to.

While hard work and persistence are involved here, they are of little benefit unless you have the courage and independence to use your imagination in some cases that make you seem less than sane but are innovative and demand a curious nature and the soul of an explorer which puts you way out in front.

All of us have intuition. Few of us have the persistence and wherewithal to aggressively fine tune it and use it, and use it often. This is something everyone has to work on by himself. While everyone has intuition, that intuition is unique to the individual.

Be prepared for a lifetime commitment: nobody who was ever great at anything, was somehow mysteriously and effortlessly great – they worked hard; and they worked independently.

If you enjoyed this article you may also like to read the poker articles at Random Poker Blog or Poker Chips Pro

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