The obvious way to quantify future betting is to put a number on it, and see how varying that number changes the decision. When you are the preflop aggressor, there are three possible flops, ones you hit, ones it’s likely no one hit and ones you miss that have danger cards.

There are various plausible strategies that you want to compare. Say you want to consider c-betting half the pot in the first two cases, and c-betting half the pot half the time in the last one. For each of these cases, there’s a chance the other players will reraise, call or fold. Suppose you reraise a reraise if you hit the flop, and fold otherwise.

Let P be the pre-flop pot and all profits are stated relative to your stack just before the flop is dealt. Now you’ve got seven possible scenarios:

Hit flop – C-bet – players fold – Win P
Hit flop – C-bet – players call – Expected win 0.5P
Hit flop – C-bet – multiple raises – Expected win 0.25P
Miss flop – C-bet – players fold – Win P
Miss flop – C-bet – players call – Expected win -0.25P
Miss flop – C-bet – players reraise – Win -0.5P
Miss flop – don’t C-bet – Expected win 0.5P

In three of them you know your outcome, in the other four you have to guess (I stuck in some sample values). You can compute the probability of hitting or not hitting the flop, and making a c-bet or not; the other players’ reactions and your expected win in the four cases in which play continues have to be estimated either by analysis or sampling.

Now, I do think it is worthwhile to try to calculate our chances for the opponent to fold right away to our c-bet on the flop, not to a double or triple barrel.

But then “How often you need to win when called” is problematic because it gets right back into future action.

I’m not sure what to do with this, but I feel that the second variable is always going to be a pretty rough estimate.

And of course, you don’t have to do it. I’m just trying to figure out what conditions make it favorable to do so.

Oh,and again, the two variables I’ve used in my analysis are quite ‘high-level’, in terms of hierarchy in the thought process. Whether you hit the flop, how likely it is that your opponents hit the flop – those are all things that lead to the two variables I used.

Therefore, you have to consider three types of flops, the ones you hit, the ones you miss but have danger cards, and the ones it's likely no-one hit.

One major benefit to c-betting that you left out is it protects your strong hands. When you do hit, you can raise and get called. Of course, the other benefit is you get a lot of folds when everyone misses.

On the other side, you left out the major risk of a c-bet, when it is reraised. The other player doesn't have to call and then check to showdown.

I don't think it's wrong to always c-bet, because you're not trying to deceive. Whether you want to mix things up or not, either by varying the amount or by sometimes not c-betting, depends on the circumstances and your style. But you don't have to do it.

And yeah, definitely board texture plays a part. But if you think about it, board texture is an underlying factor that leads to the first two variables (equity against an opponent's range, and his fold equity). If you're bluffing at a wet board, you're assuming your opponent is more likely to fold because of the board texture, etc, doesn't it?

I dunno, I could be wrong, but I feel like equity against opponent's range, and opponent's fold equity, are the two most important *end* variables. But how you arrive at the values of those variables is where the subtleties comes in – what range you put them on, what range they put you on (which affects how often they'll fold), etc etc. And I feel like board texture is one of those subtleties. In a way it's like a chain. Board texture (and reads, etc) impact the two variables I mentioned, which impact whether you should c-bet. I've only looked at the surface of the chain, though.

So yeah, thanks for bringing up board texture. =). It's a really important point, definitely. I'm actually trying to figure out a way to quantify that, so that I can start looking further down the chain. Any ideas?