A continuation bet continues your preflop aggression with a bet on the flop,
regardless of the context of the flop.
Many times when you raise with
Ace Queen preflop you will miss the flop (around 70%). With a continuation bet
you are representing a big hand like Aces or Queen, and there is always a good chance
your opponent missed the flop too and folds.
Example
You are sitting in mid position with Ace King of diamonds and you
decide to make a raise. Your opponent, sitting on the button in late position, calls your raise with
99.
The flop comes Queen, Queen, Jack with no diamonds. You missed the flop but it is
likely your opponent missed the flop too. You make a continuation bet and you
opponent now has a decision to make, because there are three overcards on the
flop.
After some consideration he decides to fold the best poker hand,
because a Queen or a Jack fits easily in the range of hands you would raise.
The idea behind the continuation bet is to let your opponent not draw out on
you or to let your opponent fold a better
hand. It works best when you have
position on your opponents.
However, many advanced poker players know what a continuation bet is and will
often call or raise to see where they stand. Sometimes, they even do this if they
do not have a hand themselves. They will try to take the pot away from you on the turn if a
blank comes up.
There are some factors that need to be considered when to use or not to use the continuation bet.
The player style of the opponent, if the opponent is capable of bluffraising a continuation
bet, how likely the opponent is going to call and many more factors should be
considered every time you make a continuation bet.
