Hello everyone

I am playing live poker (0,5/1 and 1/2) for several years. I am (small) profitable player, a little better than average regular player.

But i have a big problem with bluffing on the RIVER! I just don't recognize the spots where and when to bluff on the RIVER. (with semi-bluffs on flop and turn, i don't see a to big of a problem, because i recozgnize equity and odds)

Would you please help me with that.
Thank you very much!.

Wish you all the best!
Heidi

Finding +EV bluffing spots requires you to correctly narrow the range of your opponent. If you have a good idea of what your opponent's range looks like, you can estimate how often he/she is likely to fold the river. You can also work out which hands you'd like to be blocking with your own hand, as your holecards can reduce the number of combos of hands that might call your bluff. You'd also like to be representing some strong hands. i.e. Don't make a random river bluff in a spot where you'd never take the same line with a value hand.
Very generally speaking, missed open-ended straight draws (not missed flush draws) tend to make for solid river bluffs. Sometimes you'll just use your very lowest ranked hands instead (e.g. 9-high like a boss) since these have no chance of winning at showdown by checking. It's very important that you recognise if villain actually has a folding range. If he's not folding very often, don't bluff.

Thank you very much for taking your time and answering me this
I am really thankfull for this!

Actually i understand everything you have said, but other kina (other than open ended straight draws) of situations for potential bluffing are troubling me.

Am i to demanding if i ask for some examples?
Thank you very much.

Wish you all the best!
Heidi

I think Arty was just saying open ended straight draws make good bluffs because they're not as obvious to most people trying to hand read as a missed flushdraw.

If a board comes something like

9h8h2s4cKd and you barrel the whole way people are much more likely to call due to the flush missing rather than 76/JT missing.

There maybe other benefits he had in mind as well that I am missing.

Yes, i totaly understand what he ment.

I was hoping that we could create some examples of boards witch are good/perfect to bluff with some (other than straight draws) hands we have been dealt to.

Thank you very much.

Arty is a nice guy and he might do that but really that sort of thing is up to you to study and learn from practice.

A lot of it just comes down to what you think your opponent's calling range looks like on the river based on the action so far and the board runout.

Hi

Yes, i know it is up to me... and this is the start of up to me...

I will gradually improve, i hope

WYATB

If you are really Heidi Klum, I'll teach you.

^ lol

@OP Developing your bluffing range (specifically on rivers) is one of the most challenging aspects of playing a theoretically sound poker strategy.

In theory, when you bet the river, you want to set up a spot where your opponent is indifferent to calling or folding with his bluffcatchers. That means that you bluff and value bet at a proper ratio whereby if your opponent calls or folds (with his bluffcatchers) his net EV will be zero with those bluffcatchers. In practice it is a lot more complicated than that, due to blockers, range advantage, etc.

Like Arty said, you're better off focusing on your opponents range of hands that have the potential to fold the river and therefore offering you a +EV bluffing spot. Often your best river bluffs from a theory perspective are ones that do not block your opponents folding range. However, you might find yourself in a spot where your specific opponent might be overfolding certain hands that should be calling in which case you can bluff liberally.

Missed OESDs are usually "better" bluffs than missed FDs for a couple of reasons.
a) Villain often has some FDs in his range, so you don't want to block those when you're bluffing. You want villain to have as many missed flushes as possible, because you want him to fold to your bluff.
b) Missed straight draws tend to block some of the value hands like top pairs, which reduces the chance that villain actually has hands which call your bluff. A missed flush draw (with undercards, for example) doesn't block the calling range.

e.g. On Kh Th 5c 8s 4d, a "good" bluff might be QJcc, because that reduces the number of combos of KQ/KJ that will call the bluff, but it doesn't block hands like A7hh (a missed FD) that fold to the bluff.
A "bad" bluff would be something like 9h7h, since it doesn't block value hands (Kx/TT/55) but it does reduce the number of missed flush draw combos in villain's range. i.e. when you have QJcc, villain has fewer Kx calls and more hh folds in this range. When you have 97hh, he has more Kx calls and fewer hh folds.

A somewhat useful exercise is to list out a random board and then literally count out the number of value combos you'd bet, given an arbitrary action sequence (e.g. bet-bet-bet).
When you count up your value combos, you can estimate how many bluffing combos you should use to 'balance' those value-bets, based on the size you're choosing. If you make a pot-sized bet on the river, you should usually balance with a ratio of 2 value combos for each bluff combo.
So if you were in a spot where you bet 20 combos of value hands (which might just be sets and two pairs) with a pot-sized bet, you'd balance with 10 bluff combos. You can normally find 10 combos just from missed OESDs and gutshots.

One important thing to bear in mind when considering a bluff is the question "What am I repping?"
I often see people making ludicrous river bluffs with hands that make no sense. I snap off the bluff, because the story doesn't make sense. If you want to make a bluff, you need to be able to represent some value hands too. If you can't rep value, your bluff has very little chance of working.

Thanks to everyone!

Specially to you Arty!!! Appreciate it!

David, yes i am Heidi Klum

my expierence from these live stakes is that people generally dont fold on the river. unless say had a missed draw or it is a very scary river they just call.
villain is not gonna fold A8 on T84 5 3
villain is not gonna fold K7 on KJ8 4 Q
villain might be folding 55 on T64 7 K - because the river is a scary high card.
Donty worry about not having a big bluff range on the river, because most villains are just gona call no matter what. When you bluff, be sure to bluff someone who can read your hand and understand what your representing and also knows that you are generally not bluffing. if villain does not understand what kind of story you are telling he will hook you up to see your cards.

A big consideration should also be your bet sizing, not just on the river but the turn and flop as well. Since bigger sizings in earlier streets results with V’s with stronger ranges on at the river.

Janda’s Applications does good job of explaining the math so it can be recreated fairly easily. Create spreadsheet and play around with different sizing to see the impact.

A decent rule of thumb is if you think you have your frequencies balanced (or your comfortable) on the turn is if you bet between .33% and PSB on the river you can basically bluff half your misses and be reasonably approximate balance.

So if you bluffed 2 streets and missing and on the river trying to decided if you should go for it or give up, let the deck decide. If it’s a black card, go for it and if it’s a red card give it up... or vice versa.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...14/?highlight=

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...10/?highlight=

cliffs:

as your opponent's calling frequency goes up, less and less draws become profitable as bets or raises on every street leading up to the river, this goes all the way back to preflop. As your opponent's folding frequency goes up, more and more draws become profitable as bets or raises. However, there's a trade off here that is most apparent on the river:

if you're against a player that folds a lot on the flop and turn, but this time the opponent has made it all the way to the river by calling your bets, you should assume a stronger range for that opponent on the river than you would assume for a player that calls the flop and turn more often(the more often they call, the more bluffcatchers they will hold on the river and the more you can bluff because of this).

There are players that have good folding frequencies on every street as a function of range composition and pot odds. This player type is actually the one that will allow you to bluff at or near optimal bluffing frequency on the river; it will be a necessity for maintaining a minimum ev to have bluffs in your river range at frequency depending on the price you're offering your opponent. This is why you don't need to bluff with low equity hands on the flop and turn vs players that will call down too much on the river; you don't need them in your river bluffing range to get value because they just get in the way.

Now it should become apparent that the two player types that you can bluff the most on the river will be the opponent that has good fold frequencies on every street, and the opponent that continues often vs early street bets yet folds a lot on the river. Vs both player types heads up out of position, you should bluff with hands that meet these criteria:

a) hands that are at the very bottom of your available range
b) hands that block your opponent from holding many strong hands

vs the player that has good folding frequencies and I'm holding the bottom of my range, I consider my value betting range and how much I want to bet with different parts of the available range. Usually, this means betting between 1/2 pot and pot with value hands, so those are the sizes I choose with my river bluffs. With the good blocker hands, I try to bet at least pot whenever possible; smaller bets tend to get called more often by good players and hands with good blocking qualities tend to have some showdown value, particularly vs good players that don't call at unprofitable frequencies.

vs the player that calls a lot on the flop and turn yet folds a lot on the river, you should still bluff with those hands that are at the bottom of your range, up to the point where (your bluffing range) meets (the opponent's worst bluffcatcher). Be wary of taking this to the extreme, as it only takes one hand where the opponent says "aw screw it I call." with a hand that you had assumed would be folded on the river in order to wipe out your previous bluffing profits. It would take a good read to bluff a lot more than suggested by the pot odds you're offering.

When you're in position on the river heads up after betting the flop and turn, the circumstances are a little different because:

a) your opponent has checked
b) you can close the action with a check and end the hand

in this situation the out of position player has an additional liability, and that is the issue of the in position player being able to profit by checking, as he will win a fraction of the time(just the other day I was against a player that doesn't bluff heads up out of position without the betting lead, I checked back my 9 high and beat his 8 high).

This is why the out of position player should fold a little more often than the in position player would facing a bet of the same size. If not, the in position player may check back for higher expected value than bluffing would offer. The result is that when two strong players play the river, the in position player will bluff at frequency that makes the out of position players bluffcatchers breakeven as a call or fold, while the out of position player will fold at frequency that makes the in position players best bluff receive the same expected value as it would receive as a check.

Vs other player types when I'm holding the bottom of my range on the river, I decide on the betsize that I believe is just enough to make my opponent fold, while telling a story that makes sense to my opponent.

All that said, it can be hard to pull the trigger on a big river bluff specifically because you can't improve to a strong hand anymore. The draw missed and you have nothing. It's something that takes some getting used to.