Hand Review: A C-Bet on a Dry Flop, Street by Street

A common spot, played well. Follow the thinking on each street.

Game: 6-max No-Limit Hold’em, 100 big blind stacks.

Preflop

Folded to us on the button with A♠ Q♦. We raise to 2.5bb. The big blind calls.

Pot: 5.5bb.

A clear open — AQo is near the top of the button range.

Flop: Q♥ 7♣ 2♠

We have top pair with the best kicker.

This board is dry: rainbow, with only backdoor straight draws. It also favours the preflop raiser. We have all the strong queens and big pairs (AA, KK, QQ); the big blind usually 3-bets those preflop.

When the board suits your range this well, a small c-bet — about a third of the pot — is a good default. It gets value from weaker queens and sevens, and it makes hands like ace-high and small pairs pay to continue.

We bet 2bb. The big blind calls. Pot: 9.5bb.

Turn: 4♦

A blank. The board is still dry. The big blind’s range is now mostly weaker queens, sevens and pocket pairs, plus the odd hand like 65 or 53 that just picked up an open-ended straight draw.

We’re ahead of nearly all of that, so we keep betting for value and grow the pot. Now a bigger bet — about two-thirds of the pot — makes sense, because worse queens will still call.

We bet 6.5bb. The big blind calls. Pot: 22.5bb.

River: 9♣

Another mostly harmless card. The straight draws missed; only 99 (a set) and 97 (two pair) have passed us, and they are a small part of the big blind’s range.

Do worse hands still call? Yes — KQ, QJ, QT and some sevens. A medium bet, around half the pot, gets called by those without over-committing.

We bet 11bb. The big blind calls with K♣ Q♠. We win a 44.5bb pot.

Takeaways

Dry board + range advantage = small c-bet. You don’t need a big bet to get value or fold out air.
Build the pot on blank turns when worse hands keep calling.
Size the river for the hands that call. Ask “what worse hands pay me?” before you pick a size.

Go deeper in Continuation Betting, Board Texture and Turn and River Play.

#hand-review#c-bet#postflop