For purpose of this post, assume:
- Effective stacks are ~200BBs or more
- Live game against a balanced villain, strong player
- We have TT or JJ or QQ (whichever one you think is most appropriate)
- Board runout is low/dryish — 266hhc 8x 5x

We’re in MP, we open, villain in blinds 3bets, we call. Action is bet/call, bet/call, jam/?

Suppose you decide calling with our specific overpair 100% of the time is too much because V is strongly representing KK/AA. However, we also don’t want to just always fold because we’re near the top of our range. Do you want to call more with your overpairs if you block the flush draw on the flop or if you don’t?

Considerations:
- It seems best to *not* block the flush draw because we want villain to show up with flush draws, right? (I’m sure this is what Doug Polk would say). However, from villain’s perspective - it’s also best to not jam with flush draws (and choose other bluffs as 3barrels) because they want *us* to occasionally show up with a flush draw that we fold. I know for me personally, I tend to double barrel flush draws in these spots, but usually give up on the river for this very reason. When I am triple barrel bluffing here, I’m much more likely to have a hand like A5cc or 9Tcc than I am to have AQhh. So is it really better to not block the flush draw when having an overpair?

I get that there’s probably more important considerations than blockers in these spots - usually they’re either they’re bluffing way too much or not bluffing enough. But sometimes, deciding based on blockers at least gives me some peace of mind that I’m not being completely exploited.

I’m very curious what GTO software says to do in spots like this.

I think you're getting into cyclical thinking here. Firstly, it is not correct to double barrel FDs and then not triple because you have the FD - that's exactly why we bluff. So we shouldn't assume villain also uses this logic. In your example, if forced to fold, GTO would fold blocker card first yes.

Not sure why you think flush draws are bad triple barrels. It all you have is a busted draw by the river and you need bluffs to balance your range then those hands make pretty great candidates.

If you only wanted to call down with some combos of QQ on the river, it would make sense to call more often with the ones that don't block villain's bluffs. (i.e. if there were two hearts on the flop, then you don't really want to have the Qh in your calling range on the river, as you'd prefer QhXh to be in villain's bluffing range).

If you're the one bluffing, then curiously you tend to want the flush draw on the flop and turn, because it gives you equity, but you'd prefer to bet the river with combos that unblock flush draws. e.g. You might bet two streets with QJhh on Xh Yh Zs, but give up on the river, because a triple barrel bluff will work against villain's missed flush draws (he folds missed hearts), but QJhh blocks his folding range.

If you're playing microstakes or low stakes live, all this stuff about blockers and unblockers is way overrated. Your opponents aren't playing balanced and they don't call at frequencies that make your bluffs or your calls indifferent/breakeven. Card removal effects are not particularly significant when ranges are quite wide, because many hands are "easy folds" or "standard call downs". Your opponents aren't going to be thinking "I'll call with this combo because it blocks XX, but fold that combo because it unblocks YY". People just call or fold because they like, or don't like, their hands. I mean, if someone is triple barreling with AA, they don't really stop to think "This combo of AA has a lower EV than that combo of AA, because this one blocks his flush draws, so I'm more likely to get called by a worse made hand". They basically treat all combos of AA as the same hand.