Small Stakes Super Star

In the first part of the article I looked over my turn c-bet success rate on various boards and turn cards. I’m going to continue with that train of thought here.

A high flop – I would expect these to have a good success rate from earlier positions and a lower one from later positions, due to the relative value of top pair. Overall my success rate was between 38-42 for all positions, averaging 39%. It looks like these boards are slightly better than average to double barrel as a bluff.

K high flop – My turn c-bet success averaged out to be 34%. I filtered for boards where no striaght was possible and the turn was still king high.

Q or J high flop – My turn c-bet success was 35% for these boards. Overall it looks like J-K high flops are good to c-bet on the flop as a bluff, but the fold equity goes way down on the turn.

Paired flops vs unpaired flops – I would expect to have higher success on paired boards because they are a lot harder to hit than unpaired flops. On the other hand, calling flop and raising the turn is a common bluff and value line for paired boards. On unpaired boards, my turn c-bet success was 38%. On paired boards my success was 36%. These looks like another situation where the flop c-bet narrows ranges significantly.

Turn cards that pair the board – Common thought says that turn cards that pair the board are the worst to double barrel as a bluff. On turns where the board paired, my success was 38%. When the board didn’t pair, my success was 38%. This seems like a pretty small factor in c-betting as a bluff.

Monotone boards that the turn brings a fourth flush card – I would expect these boards to be pretty decent to bluff on because it’s easy to represent the nuts. Over a small sample my success was 62%. However, my turn c-bet was only 17%. Overall this is inconclusive.

Monotone boards that the turn doesn’t bring a 4 flush – I would expect these boards to be pretty good to bluff on because most people are going to raise a c-bet with a flush on the flop. My success rate for river bets was 34%, so apparently these boards are worse than average to bluff. My river cbet success was only 20%, so it looks like these boards are bad for barreling.

Low boards where the turn doesn’t bring a high card – My success on these boards was only 34%, so it looks like these boards are not great to double barrel as a bluff.

Boards where the turn makes a possible straight – I would expect these boards to be worse to barrel because it gives many hands pair + draws. When the turn brought at least 1 possible straight, my success was 33%. When it brought at least 2 possible straights, my c-bet success was 29%. When it didn’t have any possible straights, my c-bet success was 40%.

Boards that bring a possible flush draw vs. boards that are rainbow – On boards that brought a possible backdoor flush draw on the turn, my success was 35%. On boards that were rainbow, my success was 42%. Similarly, on a single suited board, my turn c-bet success was 32% when the turn brought a possible backdoor draw, and on boards where the board remained only 2 to one suit, my success was 39%.

In the first article I pointed out that position and scare cards provide significant bonuses to your turn c-bet success. In this article, it looks like an additional factor is whether the turn brings a possible flush draw or a possible straight. Those boards have a significantly lower c-bet success. In situations where the high card on the board doesn’t change, it looks like turn c-bet success rates are significantly lower. Ace high boards look a little better to c-bet as a bluff than other boards, possibly because when someone floats on those boards it is with a hand with low equity.

In conclusion, it looks in the games that I have played turn c-betting as a bluff is a very strong strategy. Combined with the knowledge that I posted in my entry “Turn C-betting Math,” it looks like any time we have at least 3 good outs, we should be firing the turn out of position, and with 4 good outs, we should fire the turn in position. Currently my turn c-bet percentage is somewhere in the 42% range, so I am going to look into increasing that number significantly.