20/40, 7 handed, pretty tight game.

Fold, open, 3 bet, loosest worst player cold calls, fold, I am in the small blind and my exact hand is unimportant but I 4 bet. BB folds and everyone calls.

Flop comes JcTc3s. I bet and everyone calls.

Turn comes Js, I bet, one fold and 3 bettor now raises Qs9s.

This seems like a horrible semi-bluffing spot to me. Comments?

How bad can it be?


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There’s 11 big bets in the pot, he has flush draw and oesd, both of which are likely to be good. He’s not going away under any circumstances, so he may as well build the pot. I don’t have the time right now to do the math, but if his play on the turn is a mistake, it’s a small one, not horrible.

Besides his draw, there is little reason to think you have a jack. He thinks he can push you off the hand. For people whose vision is fixated on the board, not the range, this is a place to bluff. Either he is fixated on the board, or he thinks you might be.

3-betting Q9s preflop is the most questionable part of his play.

AJ-QJ are way more in his range than yours. He may also be sandbagging TT or JJ. He has at least 12 outs (he has to consider the possibility that a king or Qs+ boats you). If his bluffing range is like AsKs / KsQs / AcKc / KcQc here, that's reasonably balanced with a value range of 20-30 jack combos plus maybe TT/JJ and AA/KK, with the bluffs targeting QQ in your range (if he had KsQs and thought you'd take your line with AcKc that would be a huge win for him too).

nobody does math anymore?

if you EVERRRR fold here (more than about 5%) it's actually great. if you simply never ever fold, ignoring the 3bet for a moment, and given when you dont' fold you also call the river when he hits (and he folds and never bluffs the river when he misses), then it costs approximately 0.34bb (~32.6%*1 extra bet on the river - 67.4%*1 extra bet cost on the turn) to raise the turn assuming you're never ever folding. this obv also assumes he doesnt' follow up on the river with a second bluff.

when you do fold, he wins 11 bets for the cost of only 1 extra bet. so let's say you fold 5%, that means that it goes from costing 0.34bb to earning 0.20bb. the breakeven fold % is about 3.16% (i didn't do rounding consistently but it's not more than 0.02%-0.03% off of this)

so while it may not be a good spot to bluff raise, it can't be that bad of a spot to do so if you ever fold. and if you don't then it's kinda bad but not terrible.

Lot of word to say how bad could it be.

I get it that monetarily it can't be so bad but shouldn't just calling show profit too? The loosest, worst player is behind him with a wide range and raising almost certainly shuts him out.

What does a 4 bet, lead into 3 people twice and fold to a raise range look like? I'm not sure there is a hand I can have here that I'd fold.

I'm trying to understand because I'm upping my semi-bluff frequency but I thought this was a particularly ambitious spot.

yea, if you can deduce that you'll simply never (or almost never, like 1-2%) have a hand that you can fold when he raises, then it's bad.

and sorry for wordiness lol. many word is need to show it bad with math

-calling doesn't give him much chance to win the pot unimproved

-other people don't have the same thought process/logic as you (in poker or in life)

If the river is a brick, are you calling with AK?

A red complete brick? Yes. In 20 minutes I'd watched him bet two rivers and insta-muck when called but my question is not about really about my hand or what I'd do, just the spot in general.

I'm trying to see if I'm wrong about trying to take a 4 bettor off his hand in a bloated pot when there are so many draws available.

He has the nut low best draw he can have. Theoretically you have some hands you can bet/fold here or on the river so I just don’t see how his play can be bad.


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That is something I didn't consider. It really is the worst hand he can have except for Q8 suited because I assume if he is 3-betting a tighter player with Q9 he is doing it with Q8 too. That makes more sense to me and is why I asked this question because I didn't understand at the time.

I think he should call the turn, but I also think raising the turn is profitable.

I don't like this assumption. Q8s is much weaker than Q9s. To show why, here's some range stuff:

Let's give the original raiser this range:

66+, ATo+, A8s+, KJo+, K9s+, QJo, Q9s, J9s, T9s, 98s, 87s.

Let's give the 3 bettor this range: 88+, AJo+, ATs+, KQo, KTs+, Q9s, JTs.

Now, if you were the 3 bettor and had to choose hands to add to your range, which of these would you add first?:

77, ATo, A9s, KJo, K9s, J9s, T9s, Q8s.



However, that's not the most important takeaway from this thread. This is:

Thanks for this.

Goes to show how important it CAN be to do the math outside of playing. Unless of course, you are an expert like OnTheRail15 whose done it enough times to know the potential optimal strategy.

Please do not stop writing detailed responses as I am bad at Poker math of calculating potential X BB gain/loss and is informative to read how an expert such as UpHillBothWays calculates it

My point was just that if you have any folding range then his play can’t be bad on the turn. PF seems like a much bigger mistake imo.

No problem , but why is can in caps? It IS important to do the math. How do you think otr or anybody else, myself included, got to where they are? I for one spent years doing simulations and calculations w other poker players. It’s that work that gives you the “poker sense” people sometimes talk about. Otr has done the same if not more and as a result can do good approximations on the fly. I’d suggest practicing on any iffy hand in a session. You’ll regularly be surprised how close or far off your decision was based on changing a few assumptions.

And on that note, assumptions are key. It’s important to know how changing them can change the results.

The fact that he doesnt block AsKs probably makes this the best hand to try this play with.