Hey guys, for my 1k post I decided to make a post about hands with sd value, and turning your hand into a bluff, I hope this kind of post hasn't been done a lot before.
I don't pretend being a postflop play expert (and more generally I'm not a sit&go master) so if you see any mistakes or what, let me know. Hope you enjoy it

So, to start off, what does turning my hand into a bluff means?

Well, it's when you're making a move with a hand (that can have showdown value) that you could do with for example 72o

Example

Hero has Qs Qd
Hero raises to 80
BB calls 60
Flop [ 4s 6d Ah ]
BB bets 60
Hero raises 140 to 200 ?!

Basically, this is clearly turning your hand into a bluff. You're representing a hand you don't have (mainly an A good kicker, maybe a set), and you could be very clearly doing this with 72o since it would have the same effect (I mean that if you're called on your raise, you could have 72o or JJ, the range calling you is beating you, and your showdown potential it's almost the same (well it's not so true since you can luckbox your 2 outer with JJ, but well, let's pass on this for now)).
So here, the superior option is to flat, since by raising you only keep in the pot the hands that beat you (Aces, and sets), and since you have showdown equity (it means that your hand could be the best and has a good potential at showdown, since villain could be very well donking with some 2nd pair or whatever, or betting to see "where he is") you're looking to get a cheap showdown.

NB : It doesn't mean neither that you have to call 3 barrels too, if a straightforward player 3 barrels you on a A high dry flop you can a lot of times throw your QQ on river (and maybe turn if you know him)
NB2 : Some misthinking guys could say «yeah I'm raising to see where I stand, if he shoves I know he has an A». This is also called raise for info and is very very bad in any form of poker but especially in STT when you have no stack deepness and the "info" never worth what it costs. But well this is not the debate here

To sum up turning your hand into a bluff is just when the range your opponent will be calling with is beating you (you're behind)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently we all have been able to see that there were a bunch of posts about «KK on A high flop, QQ on K high flop» or many others situations where sometimes, some guys wanted to cbet/raise "because we will take the pot right now very often"

So we're gonna see why often the best play will be to check/flat good hands

We'll split the content in two parts: playing in position and out of position.

In position :

Facing a donk bet :

As we see in the starting example, in case of a donk bet, when you have QQ on K high flop, KK on A high flop or so, and villain donks bet at you, the superior option will be to flat the bet, for the reasons we saw in this example.
This is the even more the case for paired flop you have on overpair on (like TT7, the guy donks, there is for sure almost no value by raising)
If he is donking little on a drawy flop, I'd still flat because I don't want to enlarge the pot with 2nd pair. Obv if he is betting something dumb like 30 in 300 and you're sure he is drawing, you can make a standard value&protection raise


Facing a check :

When a guy checks to you on a A high flop and you've got KK and you are the original raiser, what to do ? Let's take a relatively dry flop for the example like A73r or even A95ss

Well, readless, I'll check very often. Why ? Let's see how villain could react to our bet :

a) he folds. Well, you take the pot, but it means too that you just made fold a hand you beat, and that could potentially have bluffed turn. So not so good, there was more value to extract on later streets (Let's say flop is A73r and this guys had 88, turn comes total blank, by checking behind flop and betting turn you should very likely have valued from him for at least 1 street.
By checking behind you allow him a chance to bet with his whole range, that obv you crush with KK)
Plus, with QQ or KK in this example you don't really fear any turn/river cards. As we will see below it would be different with 88 for example here

b) he calls. Let's take for here a very straightforward player, playing only his cards. You can be sure that you're often beat when he calls, and you're just making a bigger pot when you're behind.
This is also true when pot is big related to stack, even if the player is not straightforward usually you won't get calls from inferior hands if for example villain is one bet from being commited

c)he raises. Ok looks like a fold after being craised on a A high flop , so you just lose chips, and sometimes you get bluffed too (a A high dry flop is a perfect flop to check raise a cbet)



Out of position

Well, the main idea remains the same but now since you loose the advantage of position, you can allow yourself to transform into a bluff a bit more your hands that will be hard to play oop
For example, you'll mainly turn into a bluff small and mid pairs who have for sure sd equity, but who will be kinda difficult to play oop, For example 88 on 26Q, that I'd check behind sometimes on flop, but bet oop, because with 88 a lot of overcards will come on turn&river and since we don't have the advantage of position we will not really know «*we're we stand*»


So this lead us to this question :

When to bet KK on A high, QQ on A/K high etc?

Well, it's very simple and basical but deserves to be said : when you think you're often called by worse
And so this becomes a standard value/protection bet

This can happens in this cases :
a) villain is a reg who knows well playing postflop and you have history with. On a dry flop you have a lot of chance he tries to float you with inferiors hands because he knows A/K high dry flops are very good flops to cbet
b) Flop is kinda drawy and villain can have draws in his range.

An example against a reg :

Let's say the flop comes out K72r, Hero has QQ and is preflop aggressor, villain which is a very good and a bit laggy reg checks to you, Hero ?
I'd still check behind, because it's a very good flop to cbet, but it's too a very good flop to check-raise a cbet, what whe absolutely doesn't want to see and which is very likely against him (note that if you know he is really overaggressive postflop and you're sure you're ahead here you could obv. shove/flat over the CR but you really need a read to do it with 2nd pair imo). Furthermore, against this kind of aggressive reg you should often see a turn lead with his whole range
I'd sometimes bet to mix up my play against him
Against a passive guy (a station for example) you can bet for value because his calling range is just so wide (2nd and 3rd pair or dunno what) and you have almost no chance of being check-raised. Against some regs not so aggressive you could vbet too since they'll mostly c/c (with mid pp for example, and looking for a check check turn)

Let's take the same situation, but oop : now i'll bet a lot lot of times for value, since I know he is able to float me in position with a lot of hands I beat (88 99 TT, maybe some overcards, maybe nothing like A high because it would be a perfect spot for him to float), and I'll c/c most turns&rivers.
I think he will be less inclined to raise since he has the advantage of position and a lot of times will want to let us bluff laters streets
Again, I'll sometimes check to mix my play

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, to sum up, why not turning your hand with sd value into a bluff? Basically because you make fold worse hands that you could have been able to value on on laters streets (or induce bluff from them), and you keep in the pot hand that beat you.
This last sentence is not always true like as we see, you can bet your hand with sd value against regs when you think you're often called by worse; or against station, or even when the flop is kinda drawy


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To finish this 1k post I'd like to thanks all 2+2 STTF regulars who keep sharing their knowledge and help me improve my play day after day, big kisses guys (ok that was gay), and I'd like to make a little bonjour to the STTF's french fishes posters

nice 1k post

This is not a Low Content post.

There's always been confusion in these parts about Low Content / Long Content.

Looks like a nice post to read over at lunchtime. And I always thought "turning your hand in to a bluff" only applied on the river...

imo

LC: Low content (no longer used much due to **** thread)
long: This is a long article. (requires at least one tl;dr response)
OT: this reply is offtopic to the OP

Maybe it should be in the FAQ.

It is already in the FAQ but I didn't know what title to put so since I readed yesterday drzen's 5k post and he spelled it LC well I did the same as default

In general most ppl seem to turn their hand into a bluff because they don't actually know how to play postflop and just betting makes the hand 'easier' to play and stops them getting into potentially trickier spots than just bet/folding.

would have been better if you had tiny pics of hot girls on it imo....
congrats on 1k...

This is a great post; thanks, buddy

Well Nick, you arrived on 2+2 not long ago and have racked up 1000 posts in no time at all. You're a real asset to the forum imo. Very nice 1K post, well structured and a relevant interesting topic.

Btw. I'm interested to know you're screen-name and site.

DONT doo it, he wants to steal your identity, ldo!
and for my own good, social security number and mothers maiden name...

Nice post!

This quoted bit here I think can be elaborated on a bit.

I believe there are lots of paired boards where raising has value and/or provides protection and could be the preferred play. Mostly, these are paired boards that fall into two categories:

1) The pair is very low and unlikely to be in opponents range and the top card is also fairly low

Example: 2,2,8 or 4,4,7 and we have QQ+

I believe there is value in raising here because:

- The pair on board is very unlikely to be in opponents range
- The range of hands that beat us is extremely narrow
- Villain may have a hand worse than us he will stack off with (generally a smaller OP)
- Scare cards may fall on the turn or river giving us folding equity we don't want

2) The paired board is still very wet

Example: Th,Ts,9h or Js,Jd,Ts and we have QQ+

I think these kind of examples are fairly heavily influenced by stack sizes and the more shallow we are and the more aggressively villain plays his draws, the more likely I would be to raise the flop with the intention of stacking off. This is because even though we might already be behind, the range of hands that beats us is still fairly narrow. Once I decide I'm going to stack off on a flop like this I just assume get it in on the flop for the following reasons:

- Villain has worse hands in his range that he will stack off with (since we know he plays draws aggressively)
- I've already decided I'm willing to stack off (combination of reads and stack depth)
- Flat calling allows villain to play his range better against us (usually)

Congratz on 1k bro.
I'm not surprised you made a post about this concept .
Nice post.

Ahah, ty!

Nice post Nick. You may have taken my title of "Quickest to Reach 1K Posts", not to mention the content of your posts are miles ahead of my first 1K.

but your 2k is miles better than any 5k...imo