Whenever you raise pre-flop and then end up missing the flop in NL Hold’em (especially with hands like AK/AQ), you can get into lots of trouble. When in multi-way pots, the value of AK can be worth nothing on missed flops. By slow-playing or just check-calling, you can lose lots of chips. You can be caught behind a range of hands, like flush draws, straight draws and low pocket pairs. Because of this, you’ve got to be more aggressive.

It’s important that you keep the initiative when missing the flop with strong pre-flop hands. This will make you harder to play against. You need a Plan B to win back the pots you put lots of money in since you’re going to miss the flop 2/3rds of the time with AJ and better. Hence, you can continuation bet to keep yourself ahead in the hand. By continuation betting, you’re basically betting into missed flops after being the last raiser on the pre-flop.

So how much should you bet? A standard continuation bet should be around 50-75% of the pot. This is dependent on the quality of the hand and the images around the table. Weak tight-aggressive opponents in micro-stakes games generally fold easier when they’re behind, so you just need to bet about 50% to push them away from the pot. The more loose-aggressive opponents won’t fold so easily, so you need to be open to raising anywhere from 75% to even 100% of the pot. Just don’t forget that you only need success one out of three times to be successful for half-pot continuation bets to break even.

The best flops to continuation bet are dry boards that can bring unconnected and rainbow cards, such as Q 8 2 or A 5 3. These are very good for continuation bets because they are so hard for your opponent to make a good hand with them. There are no straight or flush draw possibilities, so it’s much harder for your opponent to call. You also give yourself strong hand range by bluffing such boards.

In general terms, the better the board, the more unprofitable continuation bets become. The worst boards to continuation bet on are of course, the boards that give your opponents a good shot at hitting a good hand. In stricter terms, the absolute worst flops to continuation bet on would be ones with plenty of high connected broadway cards with a flush draw, like Q J 10 or K Q 10. There’s a huge chance of these hitting your opponent’s pre-flop range and it’s worsened because your opponent could have so many outs to make it profitable to float or call your raise with.