C-bet

You raise from the cutoff with A-K, the big blind calls, and the flop comes 7-4-2 rainbow. No pair, but you still hold ace-high and two overcards, and you bet anyway. That's the c-bet. You're betting on the strength of your preflop raise more than your hand: the big blind's range is stuffed with hands like Q-9 and J-8 that missed this board and hold nothing but a worse high card.

It works because it's cheap pressure. You get to keep swinging after the flop even with air, and heads-up on a dry board that folds often enough to profit on its own — you don't have to improve to win the pot. It also trains opponents to fold to your bets before they know what you hold, which buys room to keep firing on later streets.

Beginners fire it on autopilot, every flop, no matter the board or how many players are still in. A three-way pot on J-9-8 two-tone is a bad spot to bluff: too many hands hit that texture, and with two opponents left someone usually has a piece. The c-bet earns its keep by punishing missed hands on boards that favor the raiser. On a board loaded with draws and pairs, or against a crowd that won't lay anything down, the same bet just feeds chips to a field that's calling.