See title - what's the difference between value bluffing and range merging?

My limited understanding below - both assumes that the action is on you:

Range Merging
Basically, a spot where betting makes it seem like you have a polarised range. But in fact, you actually have medium/decent holdings, hoping to get "hero called".

To do this, you have to be pretty damn sure that your opponent's hand is capped, with almost his entire range falling below what you're holding?

Value Bluffing
A spot where your opponent has a polarised range, and you're taking the initiative to bet and hoping your opponent folds out better, or calls with worse?

Or am i overthinking this one? Does value bluffing simply mean bluffing with a value-sized bet.

Range merging in practice is essentially making a thin value bet (or bluff, we don't know for sure at the time of placing the bet) with a medium holding while having a polarized perceived range against the right opponent in a right situation and board texture. It can get a better hand to call, a better hand to fold, a worse hand to call, or a worse hand to fold. It mostly applies on the river, when generally ranges are viewed as more polarized.

With a polarized image and yet holding a medium strength hand, not only are you hoping to get hero-called by worse, but also hoping to fold out better, and the money won from these situations outweighs the times he calls with a better hand, such that overall the bet is of a higher EV than a check to showdown.

Your opponent's range does not need to be capped for you to profitably range merge. e.g. You have 97 and raise preflop. Person behind you calls and you're HU. Flop 975. You bet 3/4 pot for value. He calls. Turn is 2. You bet 3/4 pot again for value. He calls. River is 8. You bet 3/4 pot both for value and as a bluff. Here, he does have straights in his range, including the nut straight, so it's certainly not capped. However, he's often going to think you're polarized, with either a straight or a missed draw. This will often result in him incorrectly hero-calling with A9 or incorrectly folding a higher two pair with 98.

For starters, I would consider range merging and "value-bluffing" the same thing. The key is that your bet is multi-purpose and not solely for value or as a bluff.

Here is the original 2p2 thread by aejones on range merging from '07 where it all began.
http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...0&fpart=1&vc=1

I understand merged range as opposite to polarised range.
Polarised range consist of strongest hands for value and some hands w/o SDvalue for bluff. Merged range has midstrong-strongest hands for value and some bluffs can have small SDvalue.
Usually merged range=higher bet frequency(wider range) and smaller bet size.
With merged range we make thin valuebets and hope to be called by enough worse hands. With unknown opponent we are not sure whether our bet is thin valuebet or bluff (and vice versa our best bluff may be valuebet against station). It might explain the term "value bluffing" but not sure what it exactly means.

Why would your opponent ever fold out better hands if he was going to call with worse? Or vice versa?

The phrase "value bluff" only makes sense to me if you want him to call on this street because you're quite certain he'll fold on the next street. Or the rarer instance when you're betting a draw and want him/others to call to boost your implied odds.

Thanks for the example and the original thread. Very useful - understand the concept, except I always thought of it as 'Value bluffing' although that terminology seems to cause a lot of debate.

Basically, you're hoping that by betting with decent holdings, the # of times your opponent(s) call with worse or fold better > the # of times your opponent(s) call with better (# of times your opponent(s) fold worse wouldn't really matter since the alternative is almost always to check back - i.e. no net gain).

Yes, this is spot on.

I think checking back is profitable for even the worst hands. For example, I once chopped a pot with the nut low.

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I neither value bluff nor range merge as a part of my general strategy with a few exceptions:

If I don't have a read on the opponent's calling and folding frequencies, and I get into a spot where I think there's enough fold equity, draw equity, and showdown equity to make betting more profitable than checking, then I'll consider that as a value bluff. Here's an example:

100 big blind no limit holdem

I raise 3x in the cutoff with ATo, only the big blind calls.

882r

checks through

3o

checks to me, I bet 1/2 pot, he calls.

7o

checks through, he shows QJo, I win.

I also rarely completely merge my range because I think betting the botton of my range will be profitable on most any river. The exception is when I'm positive that I'll be called, I'll just give up and check.

The idea that a villain would call with one pair but fold two pairs is kind of ludicrous imo.

Agreed. Especially in that scenario. Also would be too good of pot odds to not call the 3/4 river bet. If I'm in that situation I probably make a pot size bet on the turn though. If he calls or goes all in your likely gonna stack him. Considering you have a inside strait draw, flush draw and two pair on turn.

Range merging doesn't really ever happen OTR IP, except in very extreme cases with big overbets. It's still valuebet, but we might fold out better hands.

Range merging OTR OOP happens, but it's more of a blocking/best option bet, not valuebet.

Range merging/thin valuebetting/valuebluffing happens more on earlier streets, basically it means what happens when we combine equity when called + denied equity that villain folds. You might bet a midpair in some spot OTT IP even though you don't excpet to have +50% equity, but you fold out significant equity and betting makes most sense.





Categorizing a hand into certain type of a bet isn't really something that is important, EV is wat matterz.

they are the same thing to me, value bluffing is betting a hand which is too good to bluff with and too bad to value bet

Sounds like all a bit of non-sense. If the bet is positive EV then call it whatever you want.

It is not ludicrous at all once you get your head around it.

End results, yes. After you witness villain calling with 1 pair, then yes, of course he was calling if he had 2 pair.

But at the point of betting, we don't know who is this villain, what are his tendencies, what's going on through his mind, what's his view on us, what level he is on with us. We don't know whether he will call with 1 pair, or fold 2 pair, etc. There are so many unknowns that we're unable to clearly define villain's calling range and folding range to make a right decision. But just because we're unsure, does that mean we check by default?

The answer is, not always. In certain situations, given all these unknowns, betting can sometimes be the default action. Even though at the point of betting, we aren't 100% clear on the intention of the bet, and we aren't 100% clear whether this unknown villain, in this situation at this point in time, is going to fold a better 2 pair or hero call with 1 pair, we place a bet both for value and as a bluff, such that overall betting is a net higher EV action versus checking.

Have you ever made a thin value bet on the river before? If so, you should know that at the point in time of betting, you don't really know yourself where you're at. Say you're betting top pair 4th kicker on a dry board. Your bet can sometimes fold out top pair 3rd kicker, but can also sometimes cause villains to call with 2nd pair top kicker. We don't know enough about the villain's tendencies to know, but often these 2 results can happen at a combined higher frequency than villains calling with a better hand than ours, making this bet +EV.

This concept really isn't news and has been around for a decade. I implore you to check out aejones' original thread, linked in my earlier post in this thread, back when 2p2 had quality posts as opposed to the one just above this one.

For the one pair to be a better candidate as a calling hand than two pairs, I think it needs the other card to have significant blocking effects. (e.g. it's the nut flush blocker).

I think it's also blocking effects that can lead to a betting range to appear to be less polarized (or more "merged" if you want to use that term) than usual. Sometimes, it's apparently better to bet 2nd/3rd pair with a blocker to the nuts, than bet total air that has no blockers, since the total airball bluff is more likely to get snapped off. (Sometimes the bottom of your range literally does best by giving up).

I think Shamway kind of explained it earlier, but the following is my understanding of how 'merging' happens in theory:

Hero arrives on the river with a range that could be arbitrarily grouped into 3 hand strengths: X, Y, Z, with X being nutted, Y being mid-strength, and Z being air.
Villain's range is mostly Y (bluffcatchers) + Z (air, including missed draws).

If hero is totally polarized, he bets X for value and balances by betting some Z hands (the bottom of his range) as bluffs. Villain usually calls with Y (bluff-catchers) and folds his air (Z).
In some spots, however, hero should balance his value hands (X) by betting some mid-strength hands (Y), and just give up with most of his total air (Z), and the reason for betting the Y hands is that they contain blockers to villain's calling range (although they do indeed sometimes get called by worse hands in villain's Y group).
Merging isn't really a "strategy" as such. It's just something that happens when you try and work out which hands do best as bets instead of checks. It turns out that on rare occasions betting a weak made hand (as a merged "value-bluff" or whatever you want to call it) has higher EV than betting the absolute bottom of your range, so your betting range won't be entirely polarized.

This.

IP on the river you bet hands for value that have >50% equity against villain's calling range.

OOP on the river your value betting range might include hands with <50% equity against villains calling range - this to protect being bluffed out of the pot when checking.

The hands you bet for value will range from the nuts to thin value - depending on your assessment of villain's range, the action on previous streets, and what villain is likely to call with. Based on this some hands in your value betting range will be "merged".

I always considered "hand merging" to mean including mediocre hands into a range that would be perceived as polarised.

It can make sense in situations where villain is capped and our perceived polarised range seems like it cant have that many nutted hands either. I remember an old hand when I overbet KJ on smth like a 3 3 J 4 Q board in a spot where neither of us could really have a 3.

The opposite of a polarized range is a linear range. Range merging is the process by which you change your range from being polarized to being linear. This usually occurs vs mediocre players when you discover that they are actually better than you thought. For example, many players play very near 4bet/fold against 3bets especially out of position, and its best to have a polarized range vs that type of player. If they 4bet and we have a bluff we get out quickly, if we have a premium hand we're happy to get it in. Hands like AJs and KQs are too good to be put in spots where we're either just taking it down pre or getting blown off by a 4bet. However, if we discover that our opponent actually does balance properly with preflop calls, then we can 3bet AJs and KQs more often expecting to actually see flops in 3bet pots. We also have to throw away some of the bottom of our 3betting range or at least not do it as often. So our range becomes merged.

This is totally different than just 3betting a fish with AJs for straight value. In that case we were never really bluffing with the bottom part of our range to begin with since those bluffs would easily be -EV. Our range is never polarized to begin with so it never becomes merged. With range merging we're starting out exploitative and moving toward balance. Against fishy players, we start out exploitative but have no inclination to balance. It may turn out both ranges end up linear but only one was merged.

"Value-bluffing" is somewhat of an oxymoron and not really a term poker players widely use, but I think it describes a concept that does exist. Its a type of bet made usually as a result of a merged range. Its not something we should really strive to do, its actually more of a concession that we don't know where we're at. Against a good player with a marginal hand we might be in a river spot where betting as either a bluff or value are both possible options, which usually means if our opponent plays a counterstrategy in between those options then checking is best. So the probability scale looks something like this:

<value-bet is bestEV><----------- checking is bestEV ----------><bluffing is bestEV>

Usually if we're unsure between two extremes the middle is probably best, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes, for whatever reason we can be pretty sure that checking is not the best option, so our scale looks more like this:

<------- valuebet is betsEV -------><checking><------- bluff is best EV ------>

So betting becomes probably best even if we don't know exactly how it will be best. Against fishy opponents we're much more likely to have a read on our opponent, so we're less likely to be in this spot. Our scale looks something more like:

<--------------- valuebet is betsEV -------------------><checking is best EV><>


As others have mentioned, what you call bets in poker doesn't really matter that much but I feel like these terms are more describing your reasoning process before those bets take place rather than after the fact. How you reason in poker matters a lot.

An example of a value-bluff imo is like when you c-bet 22 IP on a K47r flop. You don't usually expect to fold out better hands, but checking back allows your opponent to realize some of their equity, which is obv bad for us, and plus it allows us to exert more pressure on later streets if we need to.

Awesome explanation. Thank you.

Agree with most things said here.

Anyone here play Omaha? Sometimes you have a wrap + NFD. When you bet, is it a value bet or a bluff? Answer: it doesn't matter what you call it, as long as its +EV.

This thread, and the original range merge thread, are really great reading. With the advances in GTO play since that first thread, do we have better understanding of a GTO style and "always having a bluff hand"?
In GTO would not a gto player who has such a strong value range and almost no bluffs left....

Such a position would be to bet the bottom of your value range as a bluff on the river since it likely does not beat a reasonable bluff catcher from an opponent.

Basically, "My range includes most of the nuts, but I happen to be at the very bottom of that range, so I bluff with a frequency that is +EV versus check-back on the river."

Is this range merging, or simply running out of bluffs and picking bottom value range as a bluff?

-Rob


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In Omaha I would consider that a value bet on a flop and a semi-bluff on a turn. Omaha has lots of polarized bets and is probably naturally merged. I could be wrong, but that is the allure of Omaha, so hard to know who is ahead and who is drawing.


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I thought "value bluffing" was a joke term that someone used when their bluff got called by a worse hand. Seems like something that could be used to describe a monster draw though.

It would seem that the terms "value bluff" and "range merge" both originated in some epic threads here on 2p2.

If you hold a hand at the bottom of your value range, that does have some showdown value, but decide to bet or raise on the river, you can squeeze more value than by simply check-back and showdown.

The situation has to be pretty specific, such as your image and the runout need to be polarized. Either you have nuts or air, (but in fact you have low end value).

Thus you have merged your ranges and are now "value bluffing".

This is what I gleaned from a quick read of the original threads....