When you decide to raise a group of limpers preflop, more often than not you are hoping to take the pot down there and then. As with most things in poker, however, no play is guaranteed to work 100% of the time, and you will often find yourself facing a postflop decision. The default tactic that nearly every poker player has been told time and time again is to fire out a continuation bet. However, blindly betting just because you were the preflop aggressor is a huge mistake.
First and foremost you need to know what the tendencies of your opponents are. What kind of hands do they limp in and then call a large reraise with? Did the board help this range of hands? If it did, you might want to err on the side of caution and check and see what they do on the turn. If they check again, you could fire a delayed continuation bet, a play that has a higher probability of success because your opponent has shown weakness by checking twice. If you don’t think the flop helped their range of hands then a continuation bet is likely the correct play.
Pot sizing
Another important factor is the size of the pot. Too often, players will end up over-committing themselves in bad spots because they feel they have to follow through on their bluff. For example, let’s say there are four limpers and you decide to make it eight big blinds to go with 7d-9d. You get two callers. The flop comes Qc-8d-5h, giving you a gutshot and backdoor flush draw. The two callers check to you. There are approximately 25 big blinds in the pot. A standard continuation bet is going to be around 12-20 big blinds. If you’re playing in a typical tournament, this could be 25% or more of your stack. Is this really a place you want to be risking a large chunk of your stack?
On the other hand, just because you were called doesn’t mean you should automatically be scared of firing out a bet. Your opponents are the ones who have shown fear and you should take advantage of that most of the time. If there is a high probability that your opponent will fold if you bet, despite the fact that they might have the best hand, then you should do just that.