The Price Of The Carry On Bet

When you were the aggressor on the previous betting round, you will sometimes be able to take down the pot even when you have missed, simply by carrying on betting. This is one of the reasons why aggression pays. But it has to be done with finesse. Overdoing the carry on bet is one of the most typical mistakes I make when my game is out of balance. Because the carry on bet is not an automatic win-win proposition. Carrying on the betting when you have missed also has a cost, namely that you miss out on the free cards you could have gotten when someone plays back at you and you have to give it up. If you have one live overcard, you are giving up three outs in this spot, and with two live overcards you have five outs, which in some situations actually is enough to justify a call. Three outs with one card to come equals 6.5% which might not sound like much, but when you think about how often the situation come up, you should start to realize that this might be a huge leak in your game. Add to this the fact that if you always carry on the betting people will start to pick up on this and check-raise you with weaker hands and even bluff check-raise you. This is very bad. So when should you carry on the betting and when should you take a free card? There are several things to take into account when making up your mind:

The number of opponents in the pot. The more opponents that are in the pot with you, the less likely it is that nobody have hit a hand. The frequency with which you can take down the pot by carry on the betting decreases with the number of opponents, and this should make you decrease the frequency with which you are trying to accomplish just that.

The nature of the board. The lower the cards on the board, the less your opponents will be inclined to give you credit for holding a hand. High cards are the scare cards you own due to your early aggression. On the up side chances are that a ragged board hasn't helped anybody else, which might justify carrying on the betting. And on a flop like 763, your AK might easily end up being the best hand. A bet on the flop, a check on the turn and a call on the river is not a bad play here. But mix it up. On a well coordinated board with cards in the playing zone like i.e. J108 AK belongs straight in the muck. If you carry on the betting on a flop like this, the only thing you will accomplish is to ruin your table image. Take a free card and hope you turn a Broadway straight.

The frequency with which you carry on the betting. The more you check after raising on a previous betting round, the more respect you will get when you carry on the betting.

Implied odds. Often when you check, somebody will bet on the next street no matter what. If you hit you will be able to raise right there, making the pot the same size it would have been if you had carried on the betting on the previous street, but this time with a real hand to back it up. If you are overaggressive and always lead the betting, you will never get a chance to trap people. If you mix it up by checking sometimes when you miss, you will be able to raise more late in the hand when the bets are double the size of the early rounds.

Thanks to Leigh Lightfoot-Martin for proof reading this article.

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