How lightly can you call a continuation bet?

2024-09-04

Let's talk about just how lightly you can call a continuation bet. I'll start with a hand where you folded to a c-bet on the flop:

The preflop action looks fine. You can mix between limping and raising with K6s, and in response to the raise from the BB, you can mix between folding, calling, and re-raising. You decide to call and see a flop.

On this particular flop, the BB gets to c-bet with 60% of his range, mixing between small and large bets when he does. Incidentally, the BB's decision should be very flop dependent. On flops that favor you, such as those that are more connected and more suited, he should c-bet less often. For example, on a Jh8h7c flop, he should check 77% of the time. This flop is one of the better ones for him, and he chooses to c-bet 6 into a pot of 20.

Now you're faced with the decision of whether to continue with K6s, which really has no redeeming qualities other than a three-flush, also known as a backdoor flush draw, and an overcard. Can you really call with such sparse redeeming qualities? The chart below shows your range distribution for this decision. Yellow means fold, blue means call, and red means raise. In this situation, you can actually call with every single one of your three-flushes. Even a hand like 87s can call here when it gives you a backdoor flush draw. Only those hands with no made hands and no draws should consider folding here. By folding, you actually lose about 3.2 in EV.

The hand ended with you folding, but let's do some more thinking. Can backdoor flush draws always call c-bets? Let's change some variables to get the lay of the land. To start, what if the BB had gone with a larger bet of 15 into the pot of 20? The chart below shows the updated range distribution for the decision of whether to continue when facing the larger c-bet size. Notably, all of your backdoor flush draws should still call.

So is it a hard and fast rule that you should call continuation bets with three-flushes after limp-calling from the BN preflop? It is not. You should start to think about not continuing with three-flushes as the flop becomes 2-suited and more connected, and as the c-bet size grows. As an extreme example, facing a c-bet of 15 into a pot of 20 on a Th8h7s board, you should fold almost all of your three-flushes 100% of the time, whether they are spade three-flushes or heart three-flushes (assuming you have no other draws). The only exception in this case is AQo with a heart, which should never fold. The chart below shows how your AQo combos should respond to the large c-bet on the Th8h7s flop.

I hope you enjoyed this analysis. Stay tuned for more!