I was discussing a hand with my study group today where we open from low jack and get called by button in a six max SnG

we get called by the BU and take a flop of

KJ8r

IF we are going to bet some of our hands and we want to also have a checking range (so we will have some value bets, some bluffs, some check folds, some check calls, etc).. Which hand is better to use as a bluff and which hand should we put in our check and fold if villain bets range; 76s or 99?


Are we better off using hands with no SDV and no equity to speak of to bluff with or use some hand with some SDV to bluff with because it is the stronger hand?

IF we are going to use one of these two hands; 99 or 76s to bluff and we are going to use the other hand to check and fold to a flop bet..

Which do we prefer to c-bet? 99 because it will be ahead some of the time and improve to a set or pick up some gut shots

Or should we c-bet the 76s since it has no value once we check it whereas the 99 does have some SDV when flops check thru?

YOU HAVE TO BET ONE OF THESE HANDS AND CHECK AND FOLD THE OTHER:
99
or
76s

which do you bet and which do you check?

Easy x/f 76, probably way too low in our range to be turning into a bluff.

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Easy x/f 99, probably way too high in our range to be turning into a bluff.

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What lol 2/10 meme

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The best answer is bet neither and x/f both. You should have plenty of hands with both equity and blockers to construct a reasonable betting range.

More to the point picking bluffs for your range is more about picking hands that have the potential to make the best hand in the future or hands that block your villain's continuing range.

Since neither of these hands do a really good job of doing either of those things the answer is to pick different hands.

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If I had to choose, I would cbet the 76. QTs gets the nuts if we hit a set of nines. I don't want my 2 outer to complete draws. One cbet with 76 might fold out all the small pp and weak Ax high hands.


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I thought we would want to Cbet the best value plus the worst as bluffs, and c/f the weak middle stuff. A skilled opponent on the button will eat our 99 for EV breakfast.


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I would often bet both.. nice and small. Our perceived range will be very strong if we bet, and so he snap folds most his pp's which is usually enough of his range to make this into a profitable play already. He also has Axs which goes too.

The exact play I make depends heavily on the opponent. I play exploitative poker and not GTO, and so I cant really say which hand I would play in which way unless I was given some information on the opponent. You havn't even said what stakes you are playing... however:

I do much prefer checking with the PP. We could soak up one bluff with this hand. Villain still has draws in there, and once we call we look like a made hand so we might not see any more bets. We also definitely get the chance to see another card, and we would love to hit a set after checking this flop. We only improve one in 12 times, but when we improve our range looks weak as ****, so we'll rinse him... If we we're to bet with the PP instead, I hate the fact that this villain can raise with his draws. That makes me cry a little bit.

The 76 is just a dead hand, if your not going to bet it for folds just give it up. If we check it, our range looks stupidly weak and so we are getting bluffed or losing anyway.

Were you playing poker a lot in the early 2000's or before?

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It depends how deep you are, but I would usually fold 76s pre. 99 is almost certainly a check on the flop both in theory and general practice. With BDFD+BDSD, 76s could be a decent hand to bluff with, but I'd like to know what your range looks like, and also villain's. You usually have decent amount of fold equity on Kxx boards, and your range might like to bet small in this spot, but if villain routinely calls pre with a few Kx hands, and loads of Broadways, you're probably better off giving up immediately with 7-high in this spot. Villain isn't folding JJ, 88, any Kx, AJs/QJs/JTs, TT, 99 or AQ/ATs to a c-bet. 77/66 are his clearest obvi-folds on KJ8, so 76s actually blocks the very hands you want him to have!

P.S.
I'm checking KK and JJ 100% of the time. Feel free to try and bluff me off the nuts if you think my checking range is stupidly weak.

No I believe that you have it the wrong way. We want to just x/f the bottom of our range and x/r or turn into bluffs the middle bottom of our range. We don't want to be folding equity while bluffing with nearly 0 equity.

And let your opponent overbluff, it's fine as i think we're oop and 99 only constitutes 6 combos of our entire range. Position on most textures allow the IP play to be able to have a +ev bet with atc.

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Hmm. That is the point in question here. Do we want to bet with some equity or no equity at all.

I dont see how the villain can overbluff here, since we are below bluff catcher with 99. The equity of the 99 is almost an illusion, and has only backdoors and 2 outs, none of which are the nuts.

I would like to c/f either hand, but I would consider betting with either to be a bluff, and i would not second barrel with either hand.

I don't think we like any showdown here, we want the hand to be over without the cards. With that in mind, I guess it is better to have some emergency pair if everybody slows down and checks river. So, I guess 99 is better after all, i just do not want to improve to a set when villain could turn the nuts.


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Lol what? I think you're missing some underlying fundamentals needed to evaluate the spot.

I was hoping to ignore that aspect here, the question is more about this as a concept at large.

I mean, let's just assume that villain is sufficiently tight that either of these hands are going to at least break even as bluffs and that our range is sufficiently tight that we don't have any air (we have 76s yes, but it's "by itself" we don't have other SC's we just splash that in for better board coverage because we are opening A2s-A5s but not A6s or A7s and we open A8s+. Other hands in our range are stronger and we don't want to use T9s because it has a lot of over lap with other hands in our range) JUST HYPOTHETICALLY..

We even came up with a toy game like "we only have these two hands in our range 99 and 76s and we have to exactly check and fold one of them and check and fold the other.. which should we use for which?"

So i'm not so worried about this exact spot, asking does it TEND to make more sense to bet the worst hand and check planning to fold a hand that has some SDV if the flop checks thru? Or is it better to use the worse hand to check and fold and use the hand with some SDV to bet because it's objectively stronger?

Yeah, I actually ran this all thru equilab with few different ranges and it seems like our range is probably strong enough to actually want to find some hands to bluff with because we are opening something like 44+,A2s-A5s, A8s+, ATo+,JTs, QJs, KJs, KQs/o, with 76s mixed in for better coverage and maybe KJo.

We won't have a ton of air here and we maybe should just bet our range and use a small sizing.

But, if we do decide to use a more polarized range (in this hand or some other) what we are thinking is we want to tend to check with middle str hands like Jx but then we have to have a couple of traps (depending on stacks I think KK and KJ seem pretty good to add to our checking range as they both block calling hands and do a lot of work protecting our SDV checks)

yeah, so IF we decide to have some hands that check and fold..
this is the real question;

Does it usually make more sense to check and give up with the worst hands in our range and bet the hand that is a bit better (like 99 here?)

OR

use hands that have some SDV if the flop checks thru (maybe 99 in this spot, it also has some turns that give it pair plus gut shot for whatever that's worth) to chek and fold to a bet
and just use the air (76s) to bluff with?

I know what I think but I want to get opinions without biasing anyone.

So far this thread looks a lot like the group talk from yesterday..

we know "IT DEPENDS" on stacks and villains and such.

But just as a guiding principal do we do best to chek give up with the worst hands or do we do better having slightly stronger hands to check and fold and move those air hands to bluff with?

I don't know how you can look at the concept at large by arbitrarily narrowing the scope of interest to a single question that doesn't necessarily have a correct answer or provide you insight into larger concepts.

If that is true then it doesn't matter if you bet them, check them, or some combination of bet and check for both hands. My argument is that the assumption either one is a break even bluff is probably not true.


I am not sure what you mean by it has a lot of overlap with other hands in our range. If a bluff overlaps with your value range that is a good thing. It makes it more likely your opponent doesn't hold hands in your value ranges meaning he is less likely to have hands strong enough to call your bluff. From villain's perspective it also makes it more likely you hold your value range for the same reason.

No. You would ideally want hands that have equity because it means your bluff has to work less often. I mean it's the same idea behind why semi-bluffs are so valuable it's just on occasion you have more equity than your opponent with your semi-bluffs.


It's not really about it being "objectively stronger" and you would prefer the equity of draws over weak made hand equity because draws make the best hand and 99 is easy to be bluffed off some of it's equity.

In this particular scenario after looking at positions and being forced to chose an option 99 is the better hand to bet. It's mostly to bet for equity protection to prevent villain from bluffing you with random hands as well as maybe every once in a blue moon getting a Jx to fold. 76s just has too little equity and nothing going for making villain fold by blocking hands in villain's calling range. So 99 is a bet to pre-empt a bluff and protect equity.


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I think I read the OP and am repeating what he said. But, as they say, "reading is fundamental".


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Yeah but im quoting you lol

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Well, looks like you have mastered the quote functionality of the forum.

Well done.


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This is the correct way to look at it. We would prefer not to bluff hands at the absolute bottom of our range because they simultaneous require too much fold equity to be profitable and do not provide the desired blocker effects to both villain's calling range and his folding range.

Just want to add that position also helps to realize more equity from borderline EV hands. Like if we had 99 here on the button instead it would nearly always be a check absent other reads or history.

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Agreed on this flop, i would bet/continue with something like a backdoor nut flush draw though maybe so if flop is KcJs8h would bet something like A5h or A9h HU.

I didn't say we should bet our sets. As checking makes our range look real weak it wouldn't be so bad, however, as always, it is player dependent. Always depends on active stacks too.

... Play them like that once against me and I'll adjust and own you. Its funny, cause your quietly using GTO to back yourself up, but GTO would be a mixed strategy. By exploiting I'm getting closer to GTO than you. You wouldn't stand a chance against me.

I'd probably check/fold both of them. If I had to bet one of them, I'd bet the 76s with a backdoor flush draw.

I can't model this perfectly in Snowie (which doesn't accurately "do" tournaments, as it doesn't include antes, but features rake etc), but FWIW I knocked up a quick scenario where everyone has 50bb to start the hand.

In this scenario, UTG minraises pre with 17% of hands (76s should be a fold pre) and the flop comes KJ8r.

Snowie suggests UTG's range works best by c-betting 25% of pot at 65% frequency, with a lot of combos using mixed frequencies. 99 and 76s have pure strats, however.

99 should be checked 100% of the time. (Facing a 1/2 pot bet by the BTN, Snowie would actually check-call, although 99 is very close to the bottom of its continuance range; only A8s is ranked lower).



76s with a BDFD should bet 100% of the time.



Without the BDFD (76hh), the hand is such junk that it's only bet 6% of the time.

If you use different (perhaps more "realistic") pre-flop ranges in a solver like Pio, you'll no doubt get different results.

Very interesting. Thanks Arty.


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