The only reason I can think of for c/r 77 on that flop would be as a bluff, and also to just pick up the dead money in the pot.

A surf board.

True I'm coming from LHE so things are a little different. In lhe that's a super easy value raise. In NL I guess it's a bluff. But i don't think bluff raising 77 to fold out 88-tt is a good proposition. You can be more efficient bluffing with hands that fold out way more combos which are ahead. And if you're c/r purely on the hopes of making him fold, then so many hands are better than 77. K5 with bdfd would be much better because you have more outs when you're behind and more turns/rivers you can barrell through.

Our flop c/r costs the same as a turn call, no? I think if someone was balanced in their calling range they should be comfortable making decisions on the turn and river. Your opponent won't have a perfect 2 and 3 barrell range; and if he does it's all the more important to be balanced in your calling range.

C/r the flop and betting the turn may actually cost you more than calling down, considering the free river or SD you'll often get with hands ahead of you. And on a flop this dry I don't expect villain to be 4 betting the flop very much at all, so when you're called you're in a similar precarious position: Possibly bluffing, possibly with the best. A turn check after flop c/r flips your hand over where a flop call gives much less info.

Hands like JJ, TT and 99 (on flops with an overcard) usually have showdown value, so I try and get them there cheaply.
66, 77 and 88 don't have much showdown value, as more overcards (which improve villain's hand) are likely to hit on the turn/river. Turning these into bluffs is an option, but it requires good hand-reading and board-reading skill.
Hands like 33, 44 and 55 have virtually no showdown value when they miss the flop. Just about any card that hits on the turn/river is an overcard. If you don't give up straight away, you pretty much have to turn them into bluffs to win the pot. I rarely risk such a manouvre, but you can successfully float with 33 on a K-high flop if you plan to raise on certain cards on the turn. Scare cards can include aces or the third card of one suit (so you can represent a flush), or you could use a low turn card to represent a set. (Villain might have put you on a small pp due to your pre-flop limp, but he has no idea if it was 22, 33, 44, 55, or 66. You can therefore use any low turn card to represent hitting it).

theones when your tilted

I agree that a hand like K5 with a bdfd would make a better option to bluff a flop with since you have better equity when called. In this discussion we're talking about hands that we cold called with preflop and our range is going to be a little bit more narrow here, and those hands like K5 are not going to be in our preflop flatting range. So since we're working with a narrow range, 77 usually falls into the category of bluff hand when we miss, whether we plan to bluff a flop, or float the flop with the intention of bluffing a later straight is clearly dependant on the situation.

In general, once you c/r a dry flop and are called you have extremely low fold equity on the turn and should probably be shutting down all your bluffs, at least from my experience. Granted, I'm playing micros. On a wet board against the right player, you have a lot of fold equity if you c/r the flop and fire the turn because they are typically going to be shipping the top of their range on the flop while peeling with draws and top pair hands which can't draw correctly or cannot stack off profitably.

Still, seems like there will always be better hands than an over pair to second pair to turn into a bluff. Even any single over card hand would be better.

If we're value raising our top end, what are we calling with? 77 seems like a good candidate to me to strengthen your calling range a bit.

So let me get this straight to recap the little bit I've absorbed. Against a LAG it's best to float on dry Axx, Kxx, Qxx rainbow (sometimes two tone) boards, because their range is so wide and there's less scare turn cards that they can barrel you off of. However you shouldn't float them on wet boards because the variance can get crazy and they have a lot of possibilities for bluffing.

Against a TAG it's the opposite, you can float on a wet board even if they are value betting top pair, because there are tons of scare cards that can come that you can bluff raise them off of on future streets.

LAG vs TAG will only expand or contract your floating range a bit. There aren't a completely different set of rules just cause their vpips are a little different. If floating is defined as “no immediate hand or draw", then floating wet boards is not necessary. (because we'll usually have a lot of immediate hands to continue with) We won't have many natural draws or value hands on most dry boards, so peeling is necessary if we're avoiding exploitation. In fact, There are certain boards you might choose to callyour entire range with, not just the peeling hands.

Just classic NoLimitNijaBri itt.

Ya I'd agree that it's better to float on dry boards like A83r, Q62tt, etc because it's less likely that villain will have hit these flops (depending on what position villain opened from of course). If you put yourself in villain's shoes, and open, say, 99 UTG, get one caller from the the CO who then calls your c-bet on Q62tt, you can pretty much narrow his calling range otf down to Qx, JJ-77, FDs, and floats. But barring certain specific dynamics where you can be more suspicious that a given opponent is going to float you often, it's tough to fire another barrel ott when most of the hands you beat are his floats. In other words, to turn the example back around again to our original perspective, if we float dry boards our opponent has to ask himself "what could this guy possibly be calling my c-bet with? He probably has me beat." Villain's line will often then be to c/f or c/c turn with the intention of c/f'ing river to another bet.

I mean, technically you could float almost any flop imo, because wet boards put more value hands in your range (and sometimes more in villain's range as well), whereas dry boards allow for less value hands in both your and villain's range, which theoretically can also make it easier to float him, especially IP. The exception to this would be like if villain opens in EP, you call from MP or LP with like KQ, and the flop is Axx. You really can't float this flop nearly as easily because villain will have more Ax hands in his range than you will. Of course, if you decide to peel the flop and float, villain will have a hell of a time continuing with any 1-pair hand < A because the majority of the time you are going to have an A when you call his c-bet on an Axx flop.

Why?

When?

I like floating in position on relatively dry boards with a lot of backdoor potential, especially vs people who have a high c-bet flop %.

Ex.)
MP raises 3x, you flat button with 6d7d.

Flop comes Kc 8d 3s

MP c-bets, you float.

On such a dry board, the original raiser generally has to give you credit for a Q (or 8) because there are no apparent draws on that board. A very high % of the time, if they don't have a had, they will check fold turn to a decent size bet.

The key card in this hand though is the 8d. This creates multiple straight and flush backdoor opportunities with your hand. Even if the original raiser continues on the turn, we can pick up a very well disguised draw if a diamond, 9 or 5 peels. An opponent who continued 2 streets on this type of flop texture almost always pays off on the river.

Assuming we don't hit anything on the turn and the opponent checks back, we can opt to either check back and bet river (as this is how a lot of Qx plays and he can't really put us on a missed draw) or just bet turn and give up on river or barrel river given our reads.

If we hit a draw and it gets checked to us, I think we almost always bet turn as we have both fold equity, as well as equity in the hand for the river.

I personally think it is a mistake to float with no backdoor potentials as the hands become so difficult to play when you turn 0 equity.

Only if it has enough SD value.
Assume you're not bluffing/floating: would you call with KJ here? If the answer is no then it's a float. I'd usually be pretty sure I was behind with KJ on a missed flop in Full-ring NLHE: heads-up.. not so much.


I don't think enough emphasis has been given to the importance of the Villain in all this. Floating is only any good if you expect the Villain to give it up later either because they CBet with air or respect your bluffs (enough).

The Axx board may be a comparatively good place to float but if most of his range has Aces at this point it's not going to be a good idea.


Mostly you're going to want to be in position when you float (so you can be more confident he's ready to give up) but if you think the Turn/River is going to be a bluff-off then being able to take the first shot can be an advantage.

1. Great post, Sir. You meant Kx (no Qx), right? Anyhow, if we don't pick up anything OTT and he checks, what % of the time would you check back? Also, what influence what kind of card the blank turn is has on whether you fire? Basically please describe the turn "blank" range you're more or less likely to fire on.

2. What happens if he leads turn and we blanked?

3. What happens if he leads turn and we picked up something?

Could you please explain why that could be the case?

Semantics but I think floats are done IP. OOP I think it's called reverse float or whatever.

Uh... yea I meant Kx, brain fart.

1. Lets say an A comes on the turn (no diamond) and he checks. This is most of the time a trap card. There's not too many Ax floats in our range and he will almost always be check calling here. A lot of players who turn the A will also opt to check the A to us hoping we bet or expecting to get one more street of value on the river. I would typically just check and give up the hand on A turns if checked to us. Most of villains turn check range is weighted towards Ax, Kx, and pocket pairs.

Lets say a JQT comes off. If he checks to us, I still typically try to check back as it telegraphs that we have showdown hand and we're just pot controlling. If he checks a blank river, I will always fire what looks like a value bet as our line of having Kx here is very reasonable. The reason I don't fire TJQ is that Kx, will check call here, AT, AJ, AQ, will typically also opt to check call giving us a difficult decision on the river to fire or not, and sometimes they hit and we're just bluffing into a very strong range. If the river blanks after a TJQ turn, we are only repping a very narrow value range if we fire the river making it actually easier for villain to call us lighter. Villain should expect Kx to only go for 2 streets, so firing 3 streets on that board texture, we're repping 2 pair (a very specific broadway 2 pair) or a set.

Almost everything else 9 or under is a pretty good place to barrel though and should work a pretty high % of the time.

If a 6 or 7 peels on the turn, I still fire for protection, and typically check all non 2 pair rivers as villain should typically have Kx or a mid to high pocket pair on the turn and its tough to fold out the river. Of course, we go for reasonable value if we river our 6 or 7.

2. If he leads turn and we blanked, its easy. We fold. Calling is never an option. If we raise, we're pretty much repping ONLY 2 pair or a set so if you think you can get away with it, go for it. But even with 2 pair, its really not likely that we have it i mean cmon, K8? 83? K3? So we're pretty much repping 88 or 33 or a turned set.

3. If he leads turn and we hit a draw, we call. If we hit a 6 or 7, we fold. Like I mentioned earlier, a player who barrels 2 streets has a pretty strong range and we should be getting paid off on most rivers that we hit so implied odds are greatly at work especially since our backdoor draws are very disguised. If we miss river and he checks, I think its typically -EV to try to bluff river vs a 2 barrel range. I'm okay with giving up with no chance to win the pot.

Awesome post. The only thing is.. I doubt turning a 6 or 7 needs protection with only one card to come his chances of hitting it are low. I'd probably just check back and try to check down river and get to showdown hoping he was c-betting air and was done OTT.

I disagree with this though. I think his check turn range contains Kx pretty rarely.

We can also fold better if he has 8x, 99, or TT.

In the situations he does have 99 or TT, i think we are able to barrel river enough to get rid of 8x 99 or TT or JJ etc.

Also betting the turn, gives us even more value on rivers where we trip up or hit 2 pair.

Plus, I definitely think a pair as bad as 6s or 7s on the turn needs protection. It also prevents him from bluffing us on rivers. Imagine if villain has JT and river comes A. He fires assuming no showdown value and we have to fold our best hand. Betting turn prevents this play.