One of the most common moves in online poker these days is the c-bet, where players follow their preflop raise with another raise after the flop. The whole idea here is to show strength in your hand, even if it misses the flop, in hopes of forcing a fold. Seeing as how continuation bets are designed to force folds and provoke uncertainty, many people don't always know what to do when facing a c-bet. More specifically, they want to know if folding or calling is the best course of action on a regular basis.
As with anything in poker, the answer depends on a host of factors, as well as the specific situation you're in. Some of the factors include looking at what happens when you fold/call a c-bet, how much money you're making based on these decisions, and what type of players you believe you're calling/folding to in these situations.
Now the common statistic regarding continuation bets involves looking at what percentage of wagers you fold to/call. The thinking here is that you don't want to call a lot of c-bets or fold to many either; instead, the idea is to remain balanced. For example, you don't want to be calling 70% of opponents' c-bets or folding to 80% of them because this is too skewed one way or the other.
However, the truth is all in the results, meaning you can't decide based on percentages alone. You have to dive deeper into the results by looking at hand histories to decide when your decisions are profitable or not. Even if you are doing well when facing continuation wagers, you can always improve by dissecting hand histories and figuring out where you could do better.
Obviously your table image, as well as the opponent's image will play a big factor in c-bet success. For instance, if you are playing a loose-aggressive fish and you have a tight image, there's a strong chance that the c-bet has little meaning behind it. In some cases, it can even be to your advantage to raise the opponent. Of course, this doesn't give you the green light to call or raise with any kind of holdings because you also have to keep the cards in mind too.
In the end, you just have to look at every detail and study hands to learn how to deal with continuation bets. The more work you put into the subject, the more successful you'll be in these scenarios.
