Another thread where people advise checking b/c we should be afraid of being bluffed off of our hand.

It's really a ridiculous thought. If they're clearly bluffing too much, then we get it in and we print $$$. A ton of the money I've won in poker has been snapping off bad bluffy players with hands much more marginal hands than top two. I'm talking like third or fourth pair hands. If they're not clearly bluffing too much, then why be so afraid about getting bluffed off of our hand?

Worry less about being exploited. Think more about how to exploit them.

I cannot believe people are assigning a nutted range to a loose aggro player who chucks in 3.5x straddles every hand.

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There are, in fact, good aggressive players who decide the table is fishy enough that it's +EV to invest in bloating most/all pots preflop to get and keep the action going.

When games were much better, I used to do this kind of thing regularly. My ego told me I was winning a ton of money because I was good. In fact, I was winning winning a ton of money because they were just so so terrible. Nonetheless, I was winning a ton of money, and when I shipped it, I almost always had it -- maybe only top-pair second or third kicker that is, but they were calling me with middle pair and they were a bunch of tell-boxes so whatevs.

I expect that at some good 1/3 games, this kind of thing is still possible to do profitably... Straddling a lot of hands is not reason enough for me to believe that they're bluffing off 300+BB stacks regularly, in not so great spots.

Because putting in 3.5bbs blind preflop is exactly the same as shoving 320bbs on the river?

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'm calling him here. No way do I buy that he has a hand better than top two pair and he makes a massive overbet at the river. Frankly, I'd be more inclined to (EDIT) folda smaller x/r raise than this, it smells fishy (pun intended). If he had a set or something and took this line, congratulations, he got paid off on the one scenario where that line works (you getting runners for top two).

The guy puts in 3.5bb blind every hand. What does that tell us?

Maybe that he's a little impatient, not frightened to risk money. Maybe a little tilted/spewy? It also tells me he likes big pots. In my experience players who like big pots try much harder to win them.

Do you know someone who regularly straddles to $10?

If you don't, think of a non poker friend who has that laggy, loose cannon personality who would straddle to $10 if the did play poker.

Right, now picture that person in V's seat in this hand, taking this line, and range them.



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A couple of thoughts:

I think checking back this hand OTR with the information available at the time would be leaving significant value on the table. I'd plan to crying call a x/r up to about a PSB to either snap off the unicorn bluff or win against an overvalued lower 2P. On a x/r I expect to lose frequently, thus I'm folding when I'm getting less than about 2:1 on a call.

Agree with GG; straddling pre and making a huge river bluff are -- at best -- very weakly correlated. Lots of people straddle but don't bluff for huge money.

The fact that we got hit with a purple unicorn with wings bluff on this hand doesn't really tell us much about our leaks. As indicated above, I'm laying this down and not considering it a leak *given the information at the time*. In fact, even after this hand, I'm still betting this river in similar spots and laying down to a shove. Until I see him make more than several huge river bluffs, I'm just not crediting him with having that as a routine part of his strategy. This move as a bluff is so rare in the LLSNL player pool, that I think it much more likely he just "lost his mind" for this one hand than that this is something he does exploitably often.

Leaks depend on the size of the pot and the frequency with which they happen. To use an example from a book I read (but can't remember the title), if I x/f every royal flush I ever make it's going to have a trivial effect on my expected win rate. Big mistake times roughly never happening equals roughly 0, whereas smaller mistakes (like calling junk in the SB), though less horrendous, happen much more often and so can represent significant problems.

I think this hand is interesting, but not necessarily very instructive. A LLSNL V did something that happens (IME) very, very rarely. If we lay a big hand down every time an unknown makes a move like this, even if it is a leak, it's going to be a small one because it happens so infrequently. Of course, if it's not infrequent in your games, you need to adjust for that. But I bet if it weren't really rare we wouldn't have so many posts in the thread.

I played last night with a guy who straddled UTG every chance he had, raised like 50% of his range to $15, 25% to $25, and limp/called the rest.

When I first sat down, I saw a hand where he check-raised and then shipped turn on a K-high board, and was called by AK. Mr See-every-flop had a set and won. The guy with AK said, "I'm never folding that, not to him." I assumed see-every-flop was really bluffy...

As I sat there longer, I realized that see-every-flop was a terribad loose passive fish, and I wouldn't even call a minraise from him with tptk.

There are a lot of players who like to see flops in bloated pots, players who will straddle all positions.... but not to bluff - instead to gamble and try to hit big.

Do we know that villain in this hand is aggressive and bluffs post just because he straddles a lot pre? I don't think so.

On the other hand, most reg players (not the occasional rec player) I know of that overbet bluff or x/r bluff rivers are decent to very good players, and most of them are TAGs - certainly not the type to straddle every hand.