Not many people expect to be called by worse hands when they're bluffing...

Not always true - this is the idea behind range merging.

You have a value range, which will be profitable to bet. Now you need to balance that with other hands, which are not profitable to bet. The idea of range merging is to "bluff" with hands which are ahead of villain's bluff-catchers.

why would u want to do something which is not profitable

I like the thread title - yes it's logical to bluff with the lower end of the range but on that example board given, the frequency of making these moves should be fairly low + it depends on 1) what hand you are trying to represent initially 2) how tight OPP is 3) how good OPP's hand analysis is

In my opinion these factors will determine bluff frequency and whehter in fact it's + or - EV

Always good for future value if you do get caught out several times though :-)

how does someone exploit a bluff with 45 by calling 84/85 and folding other 8x?

If they hold 84/85 then they block combo's of 45 that we bluff with.

Good spot. Should read "profitable to bet when called". Also known as a value betting range.

But if you have the opportunity of just checking behind and allowing these hands to realize their equity, you are better off doing so, and choosing hands with less (or no) equity to bluff with. Betting hands that are ahead of villains bluff-catchers would just be a value-bet.

well, then it sounds like you're just describing a regular bluff, so it's still not clear what this merging thing is about.

Simplistically, imagine a river spot in position in Holdem. You calculate that you can value bet any two-pair or better. This is because if 2P+ is n combos, villain's unexploitable calling range is 2n combos, including TP, and maybe second pair.

We decide to bet pot, so we need to balance with n/2 combos. The "perfectly balanced" option here is to bet hands close to the nut low.

However, that gives villain the option of calling with a large number of weak hands, down to A-high. If he's doing this, in order to exploit this lack of balance, instead of balancing our value range with the weakest hands in our range, we can balance with hands which are ahead of this bluff-catching range.

if villain's calling too much, we should bet a wider range for value and bluff less or perhaps not at all.

what you describe there as merging, that is betting w/ hands that mostly fold out worse and get called by better, is just burning money.

and more generally, why do you think we should worry about "balancing" our vbetting range when our working assumption is that villain is calling very exploitably?

anyone?

Amy corrected himself above afaict

oh ok cool

so I agree with most of this except your calling with 8x that are blocking our hands that want to bluff …. Wouldn’t 10-8 8-9 a-8 be better bluffs as we unblock all our straight draws ?