Hey guys! I’m Don, and I’ve been playing poker professionally for about a year and a half now. I play almost exclusively live NLHE and PLO, stakes around 5/10. I am most well-known in the poker world from my PG&C thread on 2+2, and have also done guest commentary on Bart Hanson’s Seat Open Podcast and on Live at the Bike a few times. I’ve learned the majority of what I know about poker from 2+2, so I’m very excited to join the ranks of the CotW authors and give something back to the community. Without further ado…

So this Concept of the Week is about turning made hands into bluffs. While this move should be using very sparingly, knowing when to do so will add a new element to your game and a bit to your winrate. Furthermore, it's just as important to recognize spots where tough players might be doing it against you!

First, to understand why we should do this sparingly as opposed to being button-clicking-betmonkeys and constantly turning our made hands into bluffs, let’s look at a simplified example with a river decision:

Hand 1: Blinds are $1/2, effective stacks $200. Villain opens from CO to $4.50, hero calls on BTN with 32, blinds fold.
Flop AT7, pot $12
Villain bets $7, hero calls.
Turn 5, pot $26
Villain bets $17, hero calls.
River 8, pot $60
Villain checks, hero bets $40…

For simplicity, let’s say villain’s range when he takes this line is 30% missed draws/airballs that have no pair but still beat our playing the board, 20% weak made hands (middle pairs), and 50% strong made hands (top pair or better). Again, for simplicity, let’s say villain will always folds his draws and weak made hands when we bet $40 here. However, he will always call (or jam, which is equivalent from our point of view here) with his strong made hands since we should rarely show up with a monster here.

Our EV of checking is 0 since we never win or lose any more. Our EV of betting is (chance villain folds)(size of pot we win)- (chance villain calls)(size of our bet we lose)=(.50)($60)+(.50)(-$40)=+$10. Therefore, we should bluff with our missed draw here.

Now let’s consider turning a made hand into a bluff in the same scenario:

Hand 2: Blinds are $1/2, effective stacks $200. Villain opens from CO to $4.50, hero calls on BTN with 54, blinds fold.
Flop AT7, pot $12
Villain bets $7, hero calls.
Turn 5, pot $26
Villain bets $17, hero calls.
River 8, pot $60
Villain checks, hero bets $40…

Note that since our villain only calls with better, it doesn’t matter whether we have 32 or 54 when we bet; therefore, our EV of betting is still the exact same as before, which we already calculated to be +$10. However, this has to be weighed against our other option, checking. Our EV of checking is (chance we win the pot)(size of the pot)=(.30)($50)=+$15, so we should prefer checking here!

So we can see that while it is profitable to bluff with air here, it is unprofitable to turn a made hand into a bluff. This makes sense because the EV that you gain from betting a made hand is equal to the EV of betting with air minus your showdown value. In other words, when you turn a made hand into a bluff compared to bluffing with a pure airball, you’re wasting your showdown value. Therefore, you should bluff with your weakest hands in order to minimize the amount of showdown value you waste in the long run. Additionally, from the point of view of balancing, you’ll have enough no-pair hands in this spot to bluff with that you don’t need to bluff with your pairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK cool. Now that we understand why we shouldn’t go crazy turning made hands into bluffs, let’s look at some good spots for it.

Hand 3: Blinds are $1/2, effective stacks $200. Villain opens from CO to $4.50, hero calls on BTN with T9, blinds fold.
Flop AT7, pot $12
Villain bets $7, hero calls.
Turn 5, pot $26
Villain bets $17, hero calls.
River J, pot $60
Villain checks, hero bets $48…

Note this is the same hand as before, but with different hole cards and a different river card. This is a good spot to turn your hand into a bluff because we can’t really ever have air here unless we were on a pure float on the flop, compared to a blank on the river where we can have missed hearts. Despite the fact that we can expect to win by checking behind with our pair a fair amount of time when villain double barrels and gives up, we can realistically rep hearts and to a lesser extent even hands like 98, KQ, JJ, AJ, JT, etc. and reasonably expect villains to fold stronger hands than ours here. Also note that we’re pretty close to the bottom of our range on this particular river card, so using game theory as a guideline agrees that this is a good spot to turn our hand into a bluff.

Hand 4: Blinds are $1/2, effective stacks $200. Villain opens from UTG+2 to $5, hero calls from BTN with 88, blinds fold.
Flop J62, pot $13
Villain bets $7, hero calls.
Turn 3, pot $27
Villain checks, hero checks.
River 6, pot $27
Villain bets $15, hero raises to $52…

This is a spot where villain can have a good mix of thin value*, some bluffs, and rarely monsters. You can expect to be good a decent amount of the time by calling, but also beat a decent amount. However since it’s almost impossible for you to have air here (no draws on the flop), a river raise looks extremely strong and can potentially fold out a ton of his thin value range that beats you. By the way, as with every situation in poker ever, reads on how your opponent will react based on both your perception of him and your perceived image are important- I didn’t give you any reads here, but if it’s a guy who almost always has Jx+ here and is always calling, then it doesn't take a poker savant to realize that a river raise is obviously bad. Of course, you also can’t overdo it or your bluff frequency will be too high- we're basically repping only slowplayed sets, 6x, 54, maybe overpairs, so maybe fold 4 out of 5 times you get to the river with 88 here and raise 1 out of 5 times.

*note if we have the same flop but the J pairs on the turn and villain bets, then he's more polarized to trips or nothing and raising to turn our hand into a bluff is bad since he'll continue with his value hands and fold his air.

Hand 5: Blinds are $1/2, effective stacks $200. V1 opens from HJ to $5, hero calls from CO with JJ, SB folds, V2 calls in BB.
Flop A62, pot $16
V2 checks, V1 bets $10, hero calls, V2 calls.
Turn T, pot $46
V2 checks, V1 checks, hero bets $35...

This is a spot that only kind of belongs in this CotW. We initially call the flop since we feel we are ahead of V1's cbetting range. However, once V2 overcalls, unless he's peeling with an unlikely gutter or floating OOP vs two players with air, it's almost certain you're beat so your JJ doesn't even really count as a made hand anymore- it might as well be air. The good news is, V2 most likely just has an ace and your perceived range on the turn betting into two players is also extremely strong and you can get him to fold often here.

Summary:
DO NOT turn made hands into bluffs on wet boards where draws missed- you already have enough air in your range to bluff with, and not enough monsters in your range to protect your bluffs. See hand example 2.
DO turn made hands into bluffs on wet boards where draws got there- you have no air in your range, and many monsters in your range to protect your bluffs. See hand example 3.
DO turn made hands into bluffs in dry boards (in moderation). Same reasons as above, see hand example 4.
DO turn your made hand into a bluff when it isn't really a made hand at all. See hand example 5.
DO NOT turn made hands into bluffs when your opponent is polarized, since he’ll just call with his good hands and fold his air.
DO turn made hands into bluffs when your opponent is value betting with a wide range and calling with a narrow range.

Cheers!

Great post!

excelent thread!

btw, i don't like the hand 4.

i think it's a good spot to fold or call, but never raising, simply because we don't rep much, we can't have many 6x from the BTN calling a UTG raise and almost never 54...

This is a concept I've long been a fan of.

Oops, for some reason I forgot to mention that calling is a perfectly good option in hand #4. Thanks!

Like I said in the bio, I play almost all live so I'm not sure how online players will react with, say AJ or TT here if you raise the river. I feel most live players will fold as long as they don't have a specific read that you can bluffraise rivers since there are no possible missed draws, but you might be right that it'd be a better spot against players thinking more about preflop ranges if the board went something like J9569r. Everything is villain dependent!

Great Post !!
Small correction @ Hand 2:

The Pot size here is 60$ so it should be:

(chance we win the pot)(size of the pot)=(.30)($60)=+$18

I would expect raising to show more profit, but agree that calling would also be an option.

I really don't understand why hand 3 would be a good spot, is this just very villain dependent?

The way I see this is a vacuum, if he bets an ace high board our calling range is quite strong, and when he fires the 2nd barrel he definitely has a strong range. If he checks the river the flush card scares him but he could also easily be check calling and unless were at high stakes I don't see an ace folding, plus we have some showdown value at least.

(I'm a micro player)

Edit: I mean I understand why they should fold, but isn't this too advanced against microstakes villains?

Well, your logic is inconsistent- you say that he considers what our range is on the flop, but then say it's too advanced for him to consider what we have on the river?

There aren't any draws (other than gutshots) that missed, so if villain expects you to check behind any 1 pair hand, then your betting range would consist solely of 2pair+ hands from his perspective.

If you don't bluff with a 1 pair hand here you will literally have zero bluffs in your range on this river.

I think the majority think as far as to put us on AK or something similar every hand. I'll give it a go though, I'm probably wrong. The thought of bluffing micro stakes players just freaks me out.

Nice post Aesah

Nice article,

Hand 3, and a question in general. We call a double barrell with T middle pair. What would you do if the heart didin't come OTR? Are you bluffing anyway, repping a set.

Was this all pre-planned to a large extent, i.e finding a villain who will bet 2 streets w A TPGK, but very tight OTR and a high river fold stat.

maybe in the stakes you play,
in the micros, raising there is burning money.

at least in my experience...
that's why i said that folding is also an option.

people almost never bet-check-bet as a bluff, they never bet-check-bet with anything worse than TPTK+(regs of course)

and people can't fold after you check behind OTT, specially on that bricked river when you're representing such a narrowed value range, and are you really pot controlling the nuts OTT? REALLY?
the only hand you can have is 6x there.

maybe on stakes where people are bluffing more with that line or can bet-fold Jx and TT there because you can call with midpairs enough to be profitable.

I don't think anyone is advocating this against your general mouth-breathers, which is why i'm guessing OP included the following paragraph in the hand 4 example. (emphasis mine).

Like anything else, you gotta pick your villains correctly.

Also, people are definitely B/C/B'ing (much) wider than TPTK+ on boards like this imo.

If river bricks, we check behind (as we do in hand 2). Yes sometimes we lose, but the reason we call is a combination of 1) our hand winning unimproved + 2) bluffing when obvious draws come in and 3) getting disguised value when we hit trips/two pair. But you're right, our decisions on later streets should be pre-planned based on the villain- for example if it's a uber nit who has AJ minimum when he bets this flop, I'm turbo mucking Td9d on the flop since we have much better hands to peel with.

The J brings the most draws so I don't think folding TPGK against someone who called flop/turn is unreasonable. However like I said I mostly play live so I am a bit out of touch with some online ranges at the micros. The bolded part of my original post quoted right above by xxMaquiladoraxx is important- everything is villain dependent.

The change in Aesah's undertitle seduced me to read this though I usually don't read NL forums... Turning made hands into bluffs is a well-known concept, and I try to apply it a lot in my PLO play (with hands as strong as sets sometimes when the boards are really straighty and flushy, or straights or weak flushes on flushy and paired ones) and when I don't, I really regret it because I think I leave tons of money at the table by checking small pairs behind like a despicable nit.

I really don't like the distinction between made hands and air at all. One should always assess the relative, not absolute, strength of the actual hand ('where it is') and the perceived range vs the range that the opp arrives to the river with and checks given the texture and previous action. Sometimes ace high has SDV, i.e. is too strong to bluff (esp at HUNL tables), sometimes a set is equivalent to a bluff if the opp's range is crushing it (but is capped ).

I can't judge the post as I knew the concept before, but I think it sums it up pretty well and is definitely helpful to those unfamiliar

Thanks for the comments! I wanted to address this one in particular:

There definitely is a distinction that I worked hard to make sure the examples fit. For example in hand 5, I said your JJ isn't really a made hand since we expect to win close to 0% of the time if we just get to showdown. However in hands 2, 3, and 4, we can expect to have the best hand a non-inconsequential amount of the time if we go to showdown (especially see the math in hand 2).

But yes, sometimes you're right that A-high will be a "made hand" while TPTK is "air" depending on the action. In summary, the distinction is "made hands" have some potential to win when the cards are flipped over.

I completely agree with this. All that matters is the ranges of all players, and where our actual hand fits in.

definitely an extremely profitable concept. hand 3 is a simple but excellent example of how it's done. good work.

additionally, i feel like you could've done/could do a separate article on turning made hands into bluffs as the pfr - basically spots where people tend to pot control medium strength hands (often with good blocker value) on the flop by checking back when villain is going to call once/twice and fold turn/river frequently.

Good post and excellent examples, you went over this in the OP a bit, but I think it deserves re-emphasizing. In general against someone who doesn't have horrendous leaks, we should be bluffing with the bottom of our range.

Like I know you realize this but to sort of re-emphasize what you said, basically the key to turning made hands into bluffs is thinking in terms of ranges rather than thinking of "made hands" vs. "air" or whatever you want to call it. Once we get to the river we can no longer have draws so if we ignore blockers (not always a good idea, but just using it to illustrate a point), we can literally put all the hands in our range in a line. When choosing which hands to bluff we should pick the bottom ones, whether they are considered "air", a "made hand", or whatever.

While this concept is valid (given your assumptions) on the river, it is not on earlier streets.

it's not so much as the distinction isn't real (which I agree it essentially isn't), the true misapplication is the idea that made hands are more valuable than air and thus should be used ahead of air.

Nice post. Well done.

good post

You sure like these COTWs Wine Guy