A delayed cbet (continuation bet) happens when both players check the flop, then on the turn, the preflop aggressor bets the turn, whether in position or out of position. This is a delayed cbet.
You want to look at range vs range to find out who has the equity advantage.
Different situations will tell us whether or not we should use a delayed cbet. For example:
- Position
- Stack size
- Ranges
- Cards on the flop
- Cards on the turn
Why use a delayed cbet?
There are many different reasons to use a delayed cbet.
I was recently listening to a YouTube video by Chip Leader Coaching which is led by some absolute crushers of the game, Chance Kornuth and Alex Foxen as well as some other big names. The video had a small interesting note that I clipped here below about delayed cbets and how one of their friends studied poker databases.
One of the most folded spots is the big blind folding to a delayed Cbet. So, when the big blind checks twice into the preflop aggressor after the in-position player checks the flop as well.
Meaning that if you are on the button and you raise into the big blind and they call, they check the flop, you check the flop, and then they check the turn, you can absolutely exploit this spot vs. the general population by being extremely aggressive and betting profitably with a wide margin of hands.
Some of the other main reasons to use a delayed cbet include:
Strengthens Flop Check-Back Range
The first reason is that it strengthens your check-back range on the flop. If you are checking a top pair weak kicker-type hand on the flop, your opponents have less incentive to bet the turn 100% of the time.
If you NEVER check a decent hand on the flop then your opponents can just fire away on the turn with any hand and print money because they know you never check with any marginal holdings.
More Information when In-Position
If you’re in position then you have the advantage of seeing two actions from your opponent. They might check twice, in which case you can go ahead and fire a delayed cbet with strong confidence because they are generally going to be weak.
Information is king in poker, so the more info the more confident you can be in your decision.
Also, when your opponent checks, this keeps their range wider meaning your bluff will work more often.
When to use a delayed cbet?
One of my favorite is to delay your cbet when you are out of position as the preflop aggressor because it can stop your opponent from making a probe bet on the turn.
If you check the flop and check the turn, you are giving the in-position player more information and you generally look weaker with two checks, giving your opponent more incentive to bet the turn with a wide range of hands.
When you can’t triple barrel for value
If you have a decent but marginal hand that can’t bet all three streets on the flop, turn, and river for value then you can make a case for delaying your cbet.
Examples of Using a Delayed Cbet in Action
Let’s go through some examples of a delayed cbet using the GTO Wizard solver.
Parameters:
- 100 BB Stacks
- Cutoff vs Big Blind
- MTT
We are the Hero in this scenario and we raise the Cutoff position to 2.2 Big Blinds with
Offsuit.
Big blind calls and we go to a flop.
The flop comes
The Big Blind checks to us in the Cutoff Position.
Whtat you can see from this graphic above in the solver is that in this exact positions you should check this hand about 80% of the time.
Even with top pair here we need to protect some of our other holdings so that opponents can believe that we can have top pair and check back sometimes.
So let’s say we take that action and check.
The turn comes a 
The big blind checks.
This is what we would considered a delayed cbet spot to consider.
In this spot GTOWizard solver wants us bet about 70% of the time and use a delayed cbet.
This is a great example of a spot to use this strategy. You can’t expect to reasonably get 3 streets of value so a flop check is a great way to delay your betting action for the next round. You disguise your top pair and possibly induce a bet/bluff by the big blind as well.
