I am not going to lay out an entire strategy after the flop, but I think it's important that you understand some of the concepts. A TON of the game should be played after the flop. When you really learn to master poker after the flop and pay attention to your opponents you can have a huge edge to the point where you will want to be seeing a lot of flops.
The "maximum patience" on the flop of course depends on whether or not you get action when you have a hand. If you do, you can be incredibly patient.
If you can only get a single half pot bet twice on average and raise 3 big blinds preflop you will have a 7.5x big blind pot preflop (6.5 if big blind calls) and thus a 3.75x bet and then a 7.5x bet. You have to count the chips you add to the pot, not the total pot when you look at it this way. You risk 3 big blinds to see the flop then 11.25 on average to see until the river.
In other words 11.25/3 You can see 3.75 flops, and on the next one win it all back. This means you can call on 1/4.75 flops and break even. BUT you also have to pay the blinds and opponent will occasionally outdraw you. So EITHER you have to make a little bit more from the occasional hand while avoiding opponent charging you OR you have to call more often. I think to be safe you should call 1/4 or 25% of all flops as a general rule of thumb. The way to approach it is not on a hand by hand basis, (i.e. if you have 88 preflop either have a set, an overpair to the board, a 9 high flop, or a 567, 679,79T flop) but given the FLOP what hands are in the top 25% of your preflop raising range.
That is something that requires a lot of work and requires a lot of simplification and generalization to make the work something that you can accomplish. If you see the flop with 10% of all hands, the top 25% of that range would make up 2.5% of all preflop starting hands. You can then pick and choose which are the best hands given that flop that roughly meet that criteria so that you continue 25% of the time.
Simply flop cards as "low card, mid card, high card or ace". LOW:2345,mid:6789,high:TJQK. Ace=A. In other words a 259 flop would be Low Low Mid or LLM. MAP out all possible flops like this and then go through each one of them one at a time given maybe 3 hand ranges, about the mid position range, late position range and early position. You can come up with the top 25% of hands given the flop. Of course you would rank it like all sets, all two pair, all hands that will be pair with straight draw (OR made straight), then all overpairs, gutshot with overcards, AK,AQ,ACE and card in the hand range that either connects or potentially makes straight draw etc until you come up with the 25% of the preflop range.
Another thing you will want to do is come up with the top 50%. This is because that is the "Basic" flop strategy to be max patient in another form. The form is the most you can wait to be "not exploitable" That means you are basically playing HALF the flops, continuing half the time on the turn, and half the time on the river. In other words when faced with a bet you see 50% of all flops you see, 25% of all turns, 12.5% of all rivers. If you face a pot bet on every street this allows you to make up for it by just calling. If you face a half a pot bet you will have to raise and get called often enough when opponent has a worse hand to make up for the loss from folding, which may not happen but I think it will often enough from exploitative perspective to make it worth it.
Preferred postflop play
In reality if I am exploiting opponents, my PREFERRED method is coming out with the upper 50% of opponent's preflop range and continuing aggressively on NEARLY every flop. Technically min3bet raising preflop with that range is probably an awesome strategy and folding very frequently when he 4bets all in, but I don't use that really. You basically are increasing the pot that he will have to call with those odds with a better hand and a spot where it will be very easy to extract chips after the flop.
Most likely you will also continue aggressively on maybe half of all turns OR rivers. Only very occasionally all 3 streets. The idea is simple, start with a much better hand then the opponent, and continue with it and rarely fold... At times you might minimize the damage and of course if you have to fold it's certainly not the end of the world. But basically don't massively increase bet sizes as then you risk a smart opponent being able to fold a lot of flops continue on draws and big hands and get a lot out of it to make up for coming from behind. Instead you are looking for small bets and only a couple bets.
Instead bet for both value and for bluffing. If opponent calls the flop too much that is fine, if he folds too much that is fine. Without knowing how much he continues, I probably will actually check the turn, or check the flop and bet the turn or check the flop, call any bets and bet the river. Since I start with a hand better than opponent it's very difficult for me to make a mistake being too aggressive, I occasionally will run into a hand, but that's okay. Particularly if I don't go crazy beyond the first bet and really only get two reasonably sized bets into it overall with the occasional third. Typically I want 3 bets total when I have a draw.
Maximally exploitative postflop play
So once you have played a LOT of hands with someone and you know what percentage they call continuation bets and how often they continuation bet how often they fold to a double barrel and how often they double barrel and 3bet stats as well, you can basically play every hand vs this guy and seek to make profitable bets. You will bet and get opponent to fold often enough for it to be profitable. The equation changes depending upon whether or not you call preflop because if you just call you are not betting to win what's in the middle but only win the 3 big blinds from opponent plus the small and big blind. So you can't look at a pot bet as something that only needs to win 50% of the time but much more than that since you are not winning the same amount you lose when called or raised, but risking like 7.5 big blinds to only win about 4.5. Thus, the POT bet has to work I believe 62.5% of the time. Instead you should bet about 4.5/7.5=60% of the pot, THEN it only needs to work 50% of the time given you just called preflop. If you raised and raise attempt preflop was profitable with any two, then the pot bet winning 50% of the time is fine. Most likely though it is not profitable with any two, but will still gain a few folds preflop. The pot bet then needs to work somewhere between 50% and 62.5%. Overall I like to go with the 60% of the pot bet. But against the big blind there is a pot of 6.5 and only 3 is mine opponents so I continue with only half pot against these.
The one thing missing is if opponent just calls and also folds a lot on the turn to the point where it's profitable, or just calls and checks the turn often enough for me to get to the river and potentially add equity via drawing out I can actually bet a little more often. But I like to have a margin of safety if opponent specifically adjusts his play to my game and even so I don't like to exploit maximally aggressive to the point it's obvious and opponent may change strategies or leave tables.
If the "standard bet" is about half the pot you will be able to take down the pot some percentage of the time at a minimum to break even, plus the equity if opponent just calls to potentially check/fold and potentially draw out if opponent doesn't continue. But the REAL formula for maximal exploitation has to be calculated as a very complex formula that I began working on and continued a second part of the poker formula but eventually I didn't have the energy or mindset to continue.
Maximum Patience to not be exploitable - Understanding RATIOs of action and percentages you should call.
This is a great baseline to establish. If opponent does something ask yourself "how many pots can you give up before calling and still break even? For example if you put in 3 big blinds preflop and opponent moves all in for 4x the pot or 6.5*3=19.5 big blinds you basically have 2 problems. Since all the cards aren't out opponent can still draw out when you call, and you also have to keep up with the blinds. With that being said if the hand was immediately dead once all in and the best 5 card hand won, this is how you would solve it. 1/((19.5/3)+1)= the percentage that you should call to break even.
For example he is moving in for 6.5 times your bet. You can raise and fold to that move 6.5 times, call on the 7.5th time and break even. 1/7.5=.13333 of all flops. In reality you might need to call a bit more than that in THEORY and more like 1/6.5 or 15% of all flops. But either way that is actually probably too loose because it is ASSUMING opponent is as reckless as can be. Realistically you will steal enough blinds be able to see flops without all in moves, fold these spots and wait for much more premium spots. But the mental exercise is still important.
You basically can wait for a set if you only waited for pairs, plus aces or kings. If you had an unpaired ace you can wait for the non ace pair (against many ranges the better of the two cards to pair, but in this case you may want to just wait for the ace if you think opponent is capable of doing that with any two). But because he can draw out and you have to keep up with the blinds you may have to call looser if you think opponent would do this with any two. You might have to call with the pairs that are higher than the 2nd card, the overpairs and perhaps ace and second pair, and all straightflush draws and all ace high flush draws. However, realistically I would not even think about calling that loose because the assumption that opponent plays that recklessly is more than likely wrong. As such I will gladly fold a lot of very good hands and only after I decide that opponent will play that way will I lok to loosen up my standards against him.
BUT assuming opponent moves in with any two is probably an assumption that will cause you to call too loosely. You shouldn't raise him to begin with if you think that is the case, unless he has much more than 20 big blinds so you can bust him with a very good chance of doing so and so it is very profitable.
The idea is not to have to know everything but be able to figure that sort of thing out. And if you can, figure out what decision you can make that opponent won't be capable of making. For example, if opponent cannot call you that loosely, with even up to 25 big blinds you might call and move in with ANY draw, ANY pair, and any two overcards. You of course may want to fold the absolute worst 20% of hands and tighten up your standards a bit more as you have a larger and larger number of big blinds. Keep in mind that is NOT the "maximum patience" way to play post flop but instead a "nutball" strategy that may be able to beat those with the "maximum patience" mentality. ALSO what I might do is move in a little bit lighter than that by taking away the move ins with the most premium hands and also the worst 10% of hands and simply check fold those and what I am trying to do is maximize the value out of my sets and overpairs by playing like this (rather than reraising with aces preflop) and inducing opponent to bet and get committed.
VS the autocontinuation bet, the best play from maybe 25 up to maybe even 40 big blinds to call and check raise all in with any similar spot of any pair or better, any draw, any 2 overcards. Because he ALWAYS continuation bets, you are going to get a LOT more out of it. As a result you can actually afford to be a little bit more patient preflop and postflop and since he has more chips you may want to wait for a better hand. Also, calling the flop and shoving all in on the turn can actually work too but usually is less helpful because it gives opponents a free card. This can work on a draw if you want to give up if you miss AND also when you have the best part of the range (top pair or better) and want to possibly check raise the turn if no scare card comes as well. But pretty much you will have to continue so overall it's probably not a good play unless you are hoping opponent can get something and think you are just making some kind of move thinking he would call the check raise. If you elect to do that you probably want to check fold bottom pair and all gutshot draws.
In truth, I like playing an exploitable strategy because I can adapt later and adapt to exploit my opponents. If I can exploit opponents I want to be extremely patient since I will be able to buy myself enough time to find a much better spot all in.
I can't really teach you much more about the flop without you actually doing the exercises of running through all the theoretical spots you could be in or at least the ones that count. Really the turn play is only one other card but it changes a lot with regards to equity, draws, and so on. It's hard to teach beyond the flop but if you have the flop down pat, you can then start to think about how the odds change and if you know things like how to avoid being exploitable and exploit other opponents even as just a basic baseline to deviate slightly from as situations change you will probably be way ahead.
River play is of course interesting. Usually if you called on the flop and turn you should be prepared to call the last one unless you think someone has drastically changed but you can actually still fold a decent amount of time and make up for it and set opponents up to think they can rob you blind by folding once or twice on the turn and river after calling a little too loosely. You can probably make it all back and then some. But the river can be really simple if you read enough books, particularly the book on pot limit poker by Bob Ciaffone and "kill everyone" by Blair Rodman and Tyler Streib and Elky.
That's all I can say.
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