button in Safari888poker Gives Continuation-Betting Tips for Pot Growth
Being able to grow a pot in a cash game or tournament is a fundamental skill every poker player must learn. Growing the pot is one of the key reasons why we make a continuation bet on the flop. According to the 888poker Blog, "pot growth is one of the most critical principles for players looking to heavily boost their winrate." So how do you grow pots and bolster your winrate?
In an ideal world, you would play for a large pot every time you had a strong hand and a small pot whenever you were much weaker. If that happened, your winrate would be sky-high. The 888poker Blog asks, "What is stopping us from playing this way?" The answer is often nothing.
Building a pot when you're strong and limiting the pot's size when you're weak will see you essentially print money. However, theoretically, your opponents should prevent you from doing this by:
- Getting out of the way if you only grow the pot when you are strong.
- Aggressively bluffing when you play passively if your passivity means you are weak.
This is a major reason why Game Theory Optimal (GTO) strategy requires you to sometimes trap and slowplay with strong holdings and play larger pots when you are far weaker than expected.
In reality, especially in cash games and tournaments at the lower stakes, most opponents aren't capable of exploiting a very basic poker strategy based purely on pot growth. According to the 888poker Blog, most opponents "will continue to pay off our big bets while allowing us to routinely play small pots with our weaker holdings."
Therefore, if our opponents play like this, we should be able to make larger continuation bets when we are strong and want action, and size them purely based on the strength of our hands.
If you choose to play like this, you are essentially turning the value of your hand face up, but if your opponents don't make an effort to actively exploit this strategy, it could turn out to be rather profitable.
The 888Poker Blog published a table showing an oversimplified continuation-betting strategy for pot growth based only on the strength of your hand. That table is replicated below:
| Hand Strength | Action |
|---|---|
| Nutted holdings (Sets, Straights, etc.) | Overbet |
| Good made hands (Top Pair, etc.) | C-bet 75% pot |
| Nutted draws (Flush Draws, OESD) | C-bet 75% pot |
| Nut Gutshots, some good made hands | C-bet 50% pot |
| Mid-strength made hands | C-bet 33% pot or check |
| Dominated draws | C-bet 33% pot or check |
| Decent backdoor equity | C-bet 33% or check |
| Trash | Always check |
Before you throw your current continuation betting strategy out of the window and start to follow these 888poker tips, the online poker site's blog gives the following warning.
"It's crucial to understand that this strategy is heavily exploitative. However, it will perform well against weak opposition. It completely ignores essential theoretical variables such as how formation or board texture impacts correct c-bet frequencies and sizing. It will not usually be the right approach if our opponent is a competent regular."
