How often do you cbet the flop? If you’re a live player, just estimate this. Is it 25% of the time, 50% or even 80% of the time?
And if you’re an online player, just take a look at your statistics. This is one of the things I love about playing online: PokerTracker 4 tells me exactly how often I make every play.
Through 15K hands played so far this year, I’ve cbet the flop 65.77% of the time with a win rate of +216bb/100 hands.
In real world terms, I cbet about 2 out of every 3 flops and I earn 2.16bb on average each time.
You generally want to cbet the flop around 60% to 70% of the time. In order to cbet this frequently, though, you must be capable of making both value and bluff cbets.
Value cbetting is often easy; hit a top pair or better… no brainer decision to pull the trigger, yeah?
However, you may find it tough to bluff cbet on the flop with your underpair (33 on A84), your missed suited-connector (JsTs on Kc8d3h) or your no-pair hand (A5 on J73). If you find it hard to cbet bluff in these spots, your flop cbet is probably less than 50%.
Bluff Cbet These Flops
If that’s the case, you must work in more flop bluff cbets. And, the easiest flops to bluff at are the single big card and dry flops. Some great examples:
- Ace-high and dry: A93r, A84r, A72r
- King-high and dry: K94r, K83r
- Queen-high and dry: Q84r, Q72r
- Even Jack-high and dry: J73r, J62r
Critical Thought: Why are the above flops good for cbet bluffing? Look at the flops and answer that question for yourself before reading on.
These are great for bluff cbets because:
- They’re all dry (the “r” stands for rainbow), so flush draws aren’t available. Plus, the best draws are gutshots which most players quickly fold with a big card on the flop.
- You have a preflop raising range, so all of your strong broadway hands like AK-AT, KQ-KT and QJ-QT hit top pair on these boards. Plus, you’ve got JJ+ which they should always keep in mind.
- They’re preflop calling range has lots of AX that can find a fold on K-high, Q-high and J-high flops. Same goes for their KX, QX and JX hands on A-high flops and so on.
Hand Example: BTN vs BB Calling Range
You’re on the BTN and opened with XX and a BB player called. The flop comes K83r. You completely missed the flop (think hands like 75s, Q9s or 22).
The only way you can win the pot right now is by cbet bluffing.
Generally, the BB player will fold most non-King and non-8 hands because he’s out of position and the only draws available are back-door draws. Plus, as the preflop BTN raiser, you’ve got loads of KX and big pair hands in your range. Why would he fight back with a nothing hand?
So how often is our opponent folding here?
Let’s whip out Flopzilla Pro (the best range analysis and hand reading software) to analyze this. This is a great study exercise to do (not in-game) to see how much of his preflop calling range is folding on this flop.
The BB Preflop Calling Range
Here’s a likely BB calling range:
He defends the BB with 32.3% of hands (428 combos). He likely would’ve 3bet with QQ+ and AKs (depending on the player).
Look at the range above and visualize the hands that connected with the K83r flop. He has some sets in his range as well as a single 2pair hand of K8s. He’s got some decent Broadway hands that hit top pair and some 2nd pair hands like A8s and J8s.
But, look at all the hands that completely whiffed. Most of his AX hands have nothing better than just an over card and maybe a backdoor flush draw. All those middle card hands that don’t contain an 8, they all missed as well. And a lot of his pocket pairs like 55 and 22 are 3rd or even 4th pair hands.
Enter Flop for Analysis
Let’s now enter the flop cards into Flopzilla Pro:
Only 27.5% of his range hits the flop with mid-pair or better and gutshot or better draws.
Wow! Because he hits mid-pair or better with only 27.5% of his range, he’s likely folding the remaining 72.5%.
That’s great news for us and makes for a profitable bluff cbet, so let’s pull the trigger and bluff him!
And there are loads of other flops just like this that you may have missed profitable bluffs on… until now.
Take Action
Run more calling range and flop analyses right now with Flopzilla Pro.
Use the same calling range above with all the other single big card and dry flops mentioned earlier in the article. Which of those flops does this caller hit the least frequently, and which does he hit the most frequently? Are they all good for flop cbet bluffing?
After that exercise, use different calling ranges on the same flops. Imagine your opponent is a tight player who called out of the SB. What is his calling range and how often does it hit these flops? Are all of these flops good for bluffing the tight SB player?
What if a mega-whale defended his BB with a 60% calling range? What is that range (you’ll have to build this for yourself) and how well does it hit these flops? Which flops are best for bluffing the mega-whale?
Do you want to learn how to use Flopzilla Pro to beef up your skills and exploit players more than ever? Get the Flopzilla Pro Course from Smart Poker Study.
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