2nd and 3d Barrelling Betting Strategy

May 09 2009, Julien Nuijten

Lately I've been on the lookout for some good 2- and 3-barrel situations. When playing at a certain level, all of your opponents will be familiar with the principle of continuation bets and won't pay much respect when confronted with one. As a result, you will be called more often when c-betting the flop, and if you don't have a hand in those situations, you might end up losing these pots against a marginal hand.

In order to avoid this, there are two possibilities. You either decide to c-bet fewer flops, or you keep on 'barrelling' on the turn and river. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages and many situations will allow you to go either way. But as I said before, I've been looking for spots to keep on barrelling, because I think that this is the more profitable option against most opponents, rather than just giving up the hand. If you decide to give up your hand too often because you think you are creating too much action with your continuation bet, it will become easier to play against you if you don't adjust your preflop game. If you maintain your wide open raising range in late position, opponents can call you with almost any hand in position and exploit your weak-tight game. As a result, you will have to start playing more passive before the flop, as our decision to play rags is mainly based on fold equity. This sounds like a subordinate strategy, and for most online games that is also the case. In live games it's often a different story as you often play full ring and the average player will also see more flops, which leads to a lot of multi-way action, even if you raise preflop. Consequently, it will be a lot harder to make money from the fold equity that you create by playing aggressive, because in multi-way pots there will often be a player who actually has a real hand.

Most of my winnings in online poker are made by playing aggressive and winning more hands than my opponents, instead of just waiting to hit a hand. However, you do have to be careful not to start playing too aggressive. Your variance will skyrocket and the really good players will crush you. Always make sure to pick the right spots and control your aggression; don't just keep firing out bets if you think your opponent might not have a hand. There are 4 factors I take into consideration when deciding to keep going on the turn (and river).

First of all I take a look at the calling range from my opponent on previous streets. If this range is wide, he is less likely to have a strong hand, which will make it easier to get him off his hand. The texture of the board will have a big influence on his calling range on the flop: on a Q-8-7 flush draw flop he can call with a lot more hands than on a A-7-2 rainbow flop. Then again it will obviously also depend on the type of opponent. Many players like to call the flop every now and then but will give up their hand on the turn. Looking at the "folded to continuation bet" stats from your opponents can be a great help when trying to identify some ones postflop game and will have a big influence on your decision.

You didn't have much on the flop, but on the turn you can hit all kinds of draws that give you more outs to win the hand. If your hand suddenly has some drawing value, but still no showdown value, you will have to win the hand less often by making your opponent fold on the turn as you will still make the winning hand on the river in some cases.

Furthermore, I also look at the gameflow against a certain opponent at that moment. With this I mean that I look at how the session has gone so far against this player. If I think he will become suspicious after I fire out a 2nd barrel on the turn for the fourth hand in a row, I will think twice before doing so. Many players will react to this gameflow: they think you're making the same play for the fourth time in a row and decide to play back at you the next time you do so, so you better make sure you got 'the goods' the next time you make that play against that player. This is less important for online games as it is for live games, because the game is a lot faster online which makes the gameflow more dynamic, and players are less aware because they pay less attention online as they would in a live game. Nonetheless, it is an aspect of online poker that, in my opinion, is underestimated and seldom used.

Another important point is whether or not scarecards appear that make the board unfavourable for your opponent. That is to say: a card that may very well hit your range but is less likely to help out your opponent and has a bad influence on the strength of his hand with respect to the board.

Against weak players it is very easy to make out which cards 'allow' you to keep betting. Your opponent will be focussing on his own hand too much with respect to the board, rather than thinking about whether or not your range hit a certain card and if you are using this card to keep betting. You can therefore make great use of scarecards against weak opponents who call the flop with a wide range without really having to think about it.

When playing against a good player this becomes less obvious. Often when an obvious scarecard appears, both players will be aware of the effect that this card has on the situation: you will often keep on betting, and as a result your opponent will call you more often. Of course there is a reason that it's a scarecard; you will hit it more often than your opponent, and this is what you need to exploit, even if you don't actually hit the card. To prevent making it easy for our opponent to defend himself in these situations we have to be unpredictable. Our opponent can never know exactly how often and when we keep betting. You can't always check if you miss and bet if you hit, but should make each move a certain percentage of the time. It is impossible to come up with strict rules for these situations as it depends heavily on your history with the player and the gameflow at that moment. The most important thing is to have a good thinking process for these situations. You need to know which factors are important and in what way they affect the hand, analyse these factors for every new situation and act accordingly. I will try to describe my thinking process for a turn and river continuation bet situation using two examples.

Hand 1: $10/$20 NL, $2800 effective stacks, 6-handed game.

This villain is playing a very loose-aggressive style, namely 36/24. He calls with all kinds of hands in position and is always looking for spots to outplay you after the flop. Nonetheless, he is a winning player who knows how to analyse situations. This was one of the first hands of the session and I hadn't played many hands against this opponent yet.

in the SB. 4 Players fold and I open to $80, villain calls.

This doesn't say a lot about his range yet. He plays a lot of hands in position against preflop raises anyway, but in the BB against the SB he doesn't have to worry about squeeze plays and will always see a flop heads-up, so his range is even bigger. On average, he doesn't re-raise many hands preflop (about 4%), so I predict his call-range to be 40% of all hands and his re-raise range to be 10%.

(Pot = $160) Flop: . Hero bets $120. Villain calls.

The flop is very dry and misses both of our hand ranges a great deal of the time, although I tend to have a hand here more often seeing as my preflop game is tighter. He will also be aware of this, but his positional advantage compensates for a lot here because he can do more with his missed hands later on in the hand. Therefore he is most likely to call here with a great deal of his hands, and I'm not really expecting to win the hand with this flop bet, but there are a lot of turn cards on which I want to keep on barrelling.

(Pot = $400) Turn: . Hero bets $290, villain folds.

This is the best possible turn card that doesn't give me a made hand but makes sure I can keep on bluffing. Although the King will regularly hit a part of his range here, seeing as he will regularly float the flop, the chance that I made the best hand here is much more likely. Additionally, I just picked up a lot of outs that are most likely to give me the best hand. Although this took place at the start of a session, it was a good gameflow, as I think that you often get too much respect at the start of a session.

Hand 2: $10/$20 NL, $4000 effective stacks, 6-handed game.

The villain in this hand is a winning tight aggressive player (22/18 stats) with whom I have a lot of aggressive history.

in the cutoff. 2 players fold and I raise to $70. Button and SB fold and BB calls.

The first thing I need to think about here is his calling range out of position when we are both 200BB deep. I don't think that there are many hands that he can play profitably in this situation, so I'm assuming he has a hand that can develop into a monster. Something like suited hands and pocket pairs. Still, it's strange that he doesn't re-raise here. In my eyes, this means that he is likely to have a hand that can also do well in 2-bet pots if he hits. So his most likely holding is a middle pocket pair or suited hands that can make strong pairs.

(Pot = $150) Flop: . Villain checks and hero c-bets $115. Villain calls.

Standard continuation bet here. We have the nut flush draw with an overpair, he will often have missed this flop, and if not we can put him on a medium made hand against which we have many outs. He could, of course, also have a worse flush draw, against which our hand is a big favourite.

(Pot $380) Turn: . Villain checks and hero bets $320. Villain calls.

If he has a middle pair-style hand here, like 66-99 or Tx, it will be difficult for him to continue in the hand with another overcard on the board. It's a shame that many worse flush draws will fold here, but often enough you will make hands fold that have you beat here while you wouldn't be able to bluff them out on the river anymore if you check the turn.

(Pot $1020) River: . Villain checks.

One of the best rivers that I miss but still want to bet. Villain will often have a weak pair or pair+draw here, and my range with which I can 3-barrel for value here is relatively large. AK made a straight and all my overpairs are good enough on this board. TT-QQ of course but also KK-AA look good against his range, seeing as the board is paired at the bottom and I can most likely expect a call from QT, JT, QcJc here, taking into account our aggressive history.

Now the question is whether or not villain thinks that I will often bluff here. There are a number of hands I can valuebet here, but there are also a number of made hands with which I would valuebet the flop and turn but check the river. With hands like AT-AJ-AQ, KT-KJ-KQ I will often just go for the showdown. That doesn't leave very many hands from my preflop opening range with which I can bluff, seeing as there is a lot on the board that I could've hit.

He could of course be holding JJ or slowplayed a monster, but I think that, seeing as he was out of position and we were both relatively deep, he would've tried to get more money into the pot early in the hand to then check-raise the river. And checking behind here to then lose to a hand like 88 would be a horrible result for this hand.

(Pot $1020) River: . Villain checks. Hero bets $785. Villain open-folds after some time .

Villain could have thought about turning his made hand into a check-raise bluff on the river in this situation, but I don't think many players would have done this. Seeing as we will have hit this board very often, his line would come across extra strong, but because he only called preflop, the monster hands are more in our range than in his.

Aggressive 2nd- and 3rd barrelling is something I've only really gotten into over the past couple of months. If you choose your spots carefully and consider all the important factors, instead of just applying uncontrolled aggression, this will have a positive effect on your winrate. Of course it's going to fail every once in a while and your bluff gets called, but I think that once you become good at recognising the spots, there is more profit than loss in this move. And as most things in poker, this is something you will get better at if you apply the thinking process behind it while playing. So try it out, and if you're unsure about something, just post it on the forum.

Success at the tables and the 2nd and 3rd barrel shot.

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