If on the previous round you were the last person to bet or raise, or re – raise, and the next round you place a bet as well, it is called a continuation bet. This indicator shows how often your opponent who last raised on the pre – flop, makes a continuation bet on the flop. The indicator usually is expressed as a percentage and the maximum is 65-75 %. In case your opponent shows lower percentage than the aforementioned, most probably he places bets with strong hands and you need to be very careful with him. In case the percentage is higher, most probably he is bluffing too often.

Why do you need a continuation bet? At this stage of the game it is not very important why made a raise or re – raise during the pre – flop, the only important thing now is that you did not win the pot i.e. the amount of money you have bet is not yours anymore and you are enter the flop as a leader! Of course, if you have a strong combination such as over pair, top pair or higher, it is obvious why you need a contbet – you have every reason in the world. The problem occurs in case you don’t improve your hand on the flop or the flop looks dangerous. On the other hand, your opponents do not know how strong is your hand at the moment and after the pre – flop raise, the contbet will really disturb them and they will allow you to win the pot even if they have better hands than yours. If you place bets only when the flop improves your hand and you don’t bet when it doesn’t or it looks dangerous, your opponents will read your strategy very easy and every time you don’t bet on the flop, they will try to steal the pot, since they will know that you don’t have anything. This way the contbet may be used to make your game less readable. Of course, the opponents should have very good reasons to answer your contbet since they know that they are playing against hand which strength is already declared on the pre – flop and confirmed on the flop.