When to c-bet and how big: ten flop textures, solved

You raise the button, the big blind calls, and the flop comes down. Every player who has read anything about poker knows the next move is a continuation bet, the c-bet (or cbet). The question nobody answers with numbers is how often — and the honest answer is that it swings more than most people would believe.

We ran the same spot — 6-max cash, 100 big blinds, button opens 2.5bb, big blind calls and checks — across ten flop textures and read the button's flop strategy straight out of the solver. The c-bet frequency ranges from 44% on one board to 99% on another. Not a nudge. More than double.

And the frequency is only half of it. On some of the boards where the button bets almost everything, it bets tiny; on others it bets almost everything large. Those two decisions are driven by different things, and separating them is most of the skill.

Everything below is decoded from solver output for this exact tree, not from theory. The button has two sizes available: a 25%-pot bet of 1.38bb and an 80%-pot bet of 4.4bb into a 5.5bb pot.

Ten flops, one spot, wildly different answers

Here is the whole picture at once. Bar length is how often the button bets at all; the split inside each bar is which size it uses.

Three things jump out before any theory.

The spread is enormous. On J♠ J♦ 4♣ the button bets 99% of its range. On 7♠ 6♦ 5♣ it bets 44%. If you c-bet "about two thirds of the time" as a blanket rule, you are badly over-betting the second board and badly under-betting the first.

Frequency and size move independently. J♠ J♦ 4♣ and Q♠ J♦ T♣ are both near-universal c-bets — 99% and 97% — but the first uses the small size 97% of the time and the second uses the large size 71% of the time. Same frequency, opposite sizing.

Low boards invert everything. 6♠ 4♦ 2♣ and 7♠ 6♦ 5♣ are the two lowest c-bet frequencies on the list, and on both of them the button uses the large size for the clear majority of the bets it does make. It bets rarely, and when it bets it hammers.

The same ten flops in a 3-bet pot

Everything above is a single-raised pot. The same tree also solves the two common 3-bet pots, small blind 3-bets the button and big blind 3-bets the button, and the ten flops line up for a direct comparison. The 3-bettor is out of position with a range condensed around big pairs and broadways, and the pot is about four times bigger (23.5 or 22.5 big blinds against 5.5), so the pattern shifts in a specific way: on the high and paired boards the 3-bettor bets as much as the button or more, and on the low connected boards it checks far more.

On 7♠ 6♦ 5♣ the button c-bets 44% but the 3-bettors only 15% and 14%: the hands that called a 3-bet in position are exactly the pairs and suited connectors that hit a low board, while the 3-bettor's overpairs and broadways are either vulnerable or missed it entirely. On K♠ 7♦ 2♣ the small blind 3-bettor bets 97% against the button's 84%, because a king-high dry board hits a 3-bet range harder than an opening range. The two 3-bettors also differ from each other: the 3-bet study shows the big blind's 3-bets lean on suited connectors and offsuit broadways while the small blind's lean on pairs, and that is visible on 8♠ 8♦ 3♣ (59% against 90%) and K♠ 7♦ 2♣ (97% against 76%).

Why frequency and size are two separate questions

The two decisions answer two different questions about the board.

How often to bet is a question about range advantage. Whose overall range is stronger on this texture? The button opened roughly 42% of hands; the big blind called with a range built to defend against that. On an ace-high board the button holds far more aces, because it opens every ace and the big blind folds most of the weak ones preflop. It can bet nearly everything, because nearly everything is either good or has a cheap excuse to represent something good.

How big to bet is a question about nut advantage. Who holds the very top of the range on this board? A big bet only makes sense if you have enough hands that genuinely want to build a huge pot, and enough credible bluffs to balance them. On a dry ace-high board almost nobody has two pair or better, so there is nothing worth blowing up the pot for — the button bets small with everything instead. On a connected broadway board the button holds all the straights and two pairs, so it can polarise.

That is why the two axes come apart. Range advantage says bet. Nut advantage says bet big. A board can hand you one without the other.

Board one: A♠ 7♦ 2♣ — bet everything, bet tiny

The textbook range-advantage board. The button opens every ace and the big blind has folded most of the bad ones, so the button's range simply contains more top pair. But nobody has much better than top pair on a disconnected ace-high rainbow flop, which removes the reason to bet large.

The numbers behind that picture: the button bets 88% of the time, and 84 of those 88 points use the small size. The large size is used 4% of the time — essentially never.

Pocket aces here bet 1.38bb 99% of the time. Not because the solver is scared of the pot, but because there is nothing on this board that can call a large bet and still be behind. Betting small lets every single hand in the range bet, which is the actual goal: the big blind cannot profitably raise a bet this size, and cannot profitably fold enough either.

Only two hand classes check more than half the time — K9s and K8s — and they are the exact hands that flopped nothing, have no ace, and would rather keep a pair-outs hand alive than burn a bet.

Board two: Q♠ J♦ T♣ — bet everything, bet huge

Now the button has both advantages at once, and the sizing flips completely.

The button c-bets 97% here — the second-highest on the list — but 71 of those points are the 80%-pot size. The reason is nut advantage: AK makes the nut straight, and the button opens every AK while the big blind three-bets many of them preflop. Add KQ, QJ, JT, K9, 98 and every set, and the button's range is stacked with hands that want a huge pot.

Pocket aces, which bet tiny on the last board, now bet 4.4bb 97% of the time. Same hand, same seat, opposite sizing — because on this board a large bet has hands to protect and hands to represent.

Board three: 7♠ 6♦ 5♣ — and now check your aces

This is the board that makes the point properly, and it is the one most players get wrong by the widest margin.

The button c-bets only 44% here, the lowest of the ten. And look at what it does with the hands you would expect to bet:

• Pocket aces check 99.7% of the time.
• Pocket kings check 99%, queens 98%, ace-king suited 97%.
• Meanwhile pocket fives bet 4.4bb 77% of the time, eights 84%, and T9 suited 89%.

The button is checking aces and shoving chips in with fives. That is not a quirk of one solve; it is what happens when the board belongs to the other player.

Three low connected cards hit the big blind's calling range far harder than the button's raising range. The big blind called preflop with 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s, 44, 55, 66 — hands that now hold straights, two pair and sets. The button's aces are one pair on a board where one pair is close to worthless, and every card that comes after this flop can make things worse. Checking keeps the pot small with a hand that cannot stand much heat and cannot get called by worse.

The hands that do bet are the ones with something to gain: the middling pairs that flopped a set or an open-ender, the connectors that hold a straight or a draw to one. They want the pot big because they are either already ahead of everything or have the equity to justify the pressure.

The same hand, three boards

Put it in one table and the lesson is unavoidable. Each cell is the percentage of the time that hand takes that action. Bold marks anything above half.

Read the aces row left to right: bet small 99%, bet large 97%, check 100%. The hand never changed. The board did all the work.

Now read the fives row: 99% small, 95% large, 77% large. On the third board the fives are betting bigger than the aces, because on that board the fives are the stronger hand.

This is what people mean when they say to play the board, not the hand — except it is usually said as a slogan and here it is a set of frequencies you can check.

What to actually do at the table

You cannot memorise ten grids. You can memorise the questions that produce them, asked in this order.

1. Does this board hit my opening range harder than their calling range? High and disconnected means yes. Low and connected means no. That answers how often to bet.
2. Do I hold the top of the range here? Straights, sets, two pairs that they cannot have as often as I can. That answers how big.
3. Yes to both — coordinated broadway boards — bet nearly always, and bet large.
4. Yes to the first, no to the second — dry ace or king-high boards — bet nearly always, and bet tiny.
5. No to the first — low connected boards — check a lot, including hands that feel far too strong to check, and use the large size when you do bet.

The single highest-value adjustment for most players is the fifth one. Checking an overpair feels like a mistake every time you do it, which is exactly why it is where the money is.

Four common mistakes, and what they cost

Questions

Does this apply to live games and other stack depths? The principles do; the exact frequencies are for 100bb 6-max cash with a 2.5bb open. Shallower stacks push toward smaller bets and more checking, because there is less room to build a pot. Against opponents who never fold, the frequencies stop being the right target at all — see our piece on tables that never fold.

What about the big blind's side? The big blind checks close to every flop in this spot, which is why the button's strategy is the interesting half. What the big blind does after facing the bet is a separate and equally large subject.

Why only two bet sizes? That is the tree this solve uses. Real play has more, but the two-size tree captures the important distinction — small-and-wide versus large-and-polar — without splitting the data so thinly that nothing is readable.

Are the checked hands really giving up? No. A check on the flop keeps the pot manageable and leaves the option to bet later, in position, once a turn card has moved things. Checking is not surrender; it is declining to build a pot you do not want to be in.

Go deeper

Every board in this article has a full page on this site with the complete per-hand grid, and there are dozens more textures besides: the flop c-bet charts cover button-versus-big-blind single-raised pots and small-blind-versus-button three-bet pots, sorted by texture. The preflop ranges that feed into all of it are on the opening ranges pages, every starting hand has its own page, and short-stack play collapses into the push/fold charts. All free, no account.

Method: all figures are decoded from solver output for a single tree — 6-max cash, 100bb effective, button opens 2.5bb, big blind calls and checks the flop — from our solver database on 24 September 2026. Frequencies at the range level are read from the button's decision node after the big blind checks; per-hand figures are decoded from the per-action combo weights and normalised so each hand's row sums to 100%. The grids show all 169 starting-hand classes: navy covers both checks and hands the button never opened preflop, so they never reach the flop. Percentages are rounded, so rows may not total exactly 100.