As you should be. The point is that there is a hand to be found at the top of our folding range which is the prime 3 bet bluffing combo. Anything worse than this prime 3 bet bluffing combo is a clear fold and anything better is a call.

So am I, but we're here now and we should figure out the most profitable response.

[/QUOTE]

So am I. This spot is far from solved. However, constructing a strong strategy starts with thinking about how we should play the spot vs a strong player and then adjusting the margins based on reads. Without reads there should be no adjustment. If your read is that nobody check raises the river without a great hand? Then go with that and adjust the margin to exclude both 3 bet bluffs and thin value 3 bets.

This is very likely the case.

I would argue that if we're here now because of a mistake, it could be largely unprofitable to continue making mistakes by arbitrarily imposing the idea that there is necessarily a 3-bet bluff range.

I'm fine with assuming that we're playing against a strong player. I'm not fine with the idea that we should assume our previous line leads us to assume that the same structures of an optimal line exist.

This is not dissimilar to bluff-raising the river when you shouldn't have, facing a 3-bet, and then asking, "Should I 4-bet bluff now that I've gotten myself into this hole?" Not only is it quite probable that this is practically wrong, it can be theoretically wrong in the sense that the pot is large enough that your opponent's folding range can be nonexistent.

I also think that drawing an arbitrary line here ("KJ should be folded and AJ should be 3-bet-bluffed") without any meaningful calculation (hand range estimation and analysis) is not helpful from an analytical point of view. You're fine to spitball the idea. But unless you present an argument in favor of your decision, it's reasonable to doubt that there's any merit to your claim at all.

What's the worst hand you bet call here on the river?

I ask because the very next hand down the line should be bet 3 bet or bet folded. I also choose to bet fold AJ in this spot, but being aware that it's an attempted exploit is useful when considering calling down with KJ.

I'm not saying that bet folding KJ, bet calling KQ, and using a mixed strategy with AJ is ultimately correct, but the method of estimating the margin and creating a strategy that is consistent with the proper selection of action regions is the best we can do without solvers.

If there is a 3 bet bluff range, then it is found between bet fold and bet call. I'm not arbitrarily imposing; I'm not making stuff up, nor am I suggesting that anyone needs a 3 bet bluff range here.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the Reason to bluff the top of our folding range is that sometimes our hand will beat the bottom of villains value bet range? I can't see him CR a hand worse than AJ for value on this river. It seems a 3 bet bluff range shouldn't exist unless we have a read that this guy will CR a hand better than ours and fold to a 3 bet. Seems very unlikely and therefore should not be tempted.

If you can beat the bottom of villains value range then you should call. Bluff raising from the top of your folding range is explained in depth in The Intelligent Poker Player. cliffs: it performs as good as or better than bluff raising from the bottom of your range.
The bold isn't a necessary condition of bluff raising. You seem to be hung up on making better hands fold when the real important part is the opponent's folding frequency. Bluffs have no memory in that they don't care what the opponent folded; bluffs only care how often the opponent folds.

That's really the question you should be answering and attempting to justify.

You say "the next hand down" as if the hand ranges here are wide enough to accept that you should be putting entire hand types into these categories instead of talking about which specific combos of hands you should be doing something with, or some other way of diminishing the number of hands that you're bet-folding.

I'm doubtful that you should have much of a 3-bet-bluff range here at all.

Let me put it this way:

If you *NEVER* 3-bet-bluff on the river, how much EV are you giving up? I would argue that it's practically nothing, even in the GTO sense.

However, I would suggest that making the mistake of trying to find a 3-bet bluff where there shouldn't be probably costs more than what you would theoretically gain if you did it right. So your overall strategy is better served by *NOT* looking at this spot and trying to find this play somewhere.

It's the type of argument I bump into when talking about statistics with people. Yes, this one group has a mean that 0.01 larger than the other one. We can both do that calculation and agree this is the case. But your sample size is not large enough where this difference carries meaning, and you have a statistical tie. So arguing that one is better than the other misses the point.

I think you've taken a theoretical claim (there should exist a 3-bet-bluff range), but because you have so much noise in all of your other estimations that you have going on, your conclusion is going to be wrong -- not on the basis of the theory being wrong, but because you've neglected the other information that feeds into your analysis. You are drawing a conclusion stronger than what the data supports.

I can be wrong about this. But you're going to have to do more than just spitball a cutoff.

The key word in my previous post being the very first word.

This is always true no matter where I spitball the cutoff point.

I'll ask again, Aaron, what's the worst hand you bet call here? Mine is KQ.

I just pointed out where I think the margin is. Where do you think it is? I fold hands worse than AJ and I continue with hands better than AJ.

vs gto, you lose nothing. never 3 bet bluffing the river is exploitable however unlikely, though not necessarily in this case since there's nothing to prove that a 3 bet bluff is correct here. I'm not trying to prove that.

How is being aware of where the best 3 bet bluffing hand is in our range ever a bad thing? Hint: it's always between bet fold / bet call.

and what conclusion is that?

KQ is only maybe in my range. I'm strongly favoring the exploitative line of just betting for value on the turn and never trying to semi-bluff there. I'd have to believe that he would be the type of player to call-call-fold before I'm putting in the turn bet with K-high.

If KQ is there, I'd probably bet-call with it. But if it's not, I would bet-call KK (hoping that he just has something like Q9) and check behind with AJ.

But what I would do (and even what you would do) is mostly irrelevant. It doesn't actually justify anything. On its own, it doesn't present a reason to suggest that you should suddenly start 3-bet bluffing anything. There's nothing wrong with considering it, but when considering the situation as a whole, I don't think there's a reason to create a 3-bet bluffing range.

Because "being aware" and "having a good reason for" are two completely different standards. And in this specific case, I would argue that you have no good reason to force a 3-bet bluffing range into the situation. Just because there's a game theoretic concept that suggests that you should have a 3-bet bluffing range does not imply that you should actually have a 3-bet bluffing range here. This is *especially* the case if you're not even sure that the initial value bet that got you into this situation was correct.

You seem fully convinced that you need a 3-bet bluff range in this spot. I disagree with that. I think that the input noise of the situation implies that forcing a 3-bet bluff range, especially one that's drawn fairly arbitrarily, is most likely going to be wrong and therefore more likely to cost you more money than you would win from it. So I wouldn't do it.

I should be more precise here. I believe the error of forcing a bad 3-bet-bluff range is smaller than the error of not having a 3-bet-bluff range.

As I said before, if you have a 3-bet-bluff range, I think it might be only a percent of a hand type (KQ or whatever), and possibly even as small as a percent of a specific combination (40% of the time with K Q). You would be making a larger error by using a full hand type as a 3-bet-bluff range than you would by not having a 3-bet bluff range at all.

This is a type of situation where I think you're leveling yourself, and where a little bit of knowledge is sometimes just enough to be more dangerous to yourself than no knowledge.

No, I'm not. You're disagreeing with a position that I have not supported.

Please quote where I state that I'm convinced that I need a 3 bet bluff range.

If you can't do that, then maybe you should reread the thread and figure out at which point you made that incorrect assumption.

It starts with this:

And it's also in statements like this:

It's not *always* anywhere.

And it's also in every time you keep pushing back when I say that there probably isn't a 3-bet bluff range at all. Maybe you want to hedge and say that you're not "convinced." But you seem to believe quite strongly that it's there.

Edit: Also here:

Yes, when a bluff 3 bet range is present, it should always be between bet fold and bet call.

I never disagreed with the bold.

Nevermind what I seem to do. Don't assume.

Then I'll bring you back to one of my original statements.

You have not justified that AJ is a proper 3-bet bluff hand. But you've just used that as the impetus for bet-folding KJ. Why do you believe that you have a 3-bet bluff hand? And hy did you draw the line there?

I don't. If I did decide to add 3 bet bluffs, AJ would be my first choice.

Because I think KQ is a clear bet call, but AJ is borderline. Since I have no combos in range that are in between these hands, this is where I think the margin is.

So... Now I'm supposed to have assumed you were using the word "if" there even though you didn't? Great.

I posted this around 10am est this morning.

Okay. I did miss that post this morning. But that was not present previously, and the initial declaration that AJ is your guess of the "proper bluff 3 bet" is affirmative of the idea that there does exist a 3-bet bluffing range and that AJ is in it. (Also, I've already noted the role of the hypotheses and my disbelief of them in your other conditionals earlier.)

For the other ones, we're clearly talking past each other. You're right that *IF* it is somewhere, that it would be where you said it is. When I'm saying that it doesn't have to be anywhere, I'm saying that it doesn't have to exist, not that *IF* it is somewhere, then it might be somewhere else.

Bob148, thank you as always.

Aaron W., thank you for your posts as well.

Moondig, I would bet/call river in real time because I play bad and even now, I'm too much of a showdown monkey to fold rivers for one bet with MP king kicker. Also don't think checking river would be correct either. I imagine bet/folding at some frequency is correct per posts from experts like Bob148 and Aaron W. although I may have misunderstood some of their replies.

Moondig, I do not have a b3b bluff range here I don't think.

It's a bit amusing to me since I originally typed up something like "prime 3 bet bluffing candidate" but that felt imprecise.

Ok. I've already noted that never 3 bet bluffing here loses nothing vs gto. 3 bet bluffing or folding at frequency vs gto are both 0ev actions; if these choices were not 0ev vs gto then there would be a clear choice; there would be no mixing.

Never semibluffing with anything or never semibluffing with KQ? Either way I think you're missing significant bluffing value on the turn with such a strategy.

You don't give yourself or others enough credit; If this is the case then might as well close the forum. Just leave a sticky with some beginner preflop ranges that include only hands that have been proven to be +ev open raises. Otherwise we're stating (gasp) theory as fact unless we continuously preface our posts with "I think" or "If."

What about AQ? Maybe you assume that we assume that you're never betting the turn with that hand? Ok. I'll assume that.

So you're bet calling your entire river value betting range? Seems like a very exploitable river strategy to me. To fold all of your bluffs and to call all of your value hands is overly simplistic and either misses lots of river bet fold value and or loses ev to an opponent that only check raises the river for value.

I bolded the last sentence in the hopes that you'll see my problem with your strategy:

Your attempted exploit is actually being exploited by opponents that never check raise bluff the river, whether they know it or not.

Never semibluffing anything in this spot, not never semibluffing ever.

With a hand range that's strongly biased towards broadway combos on a JTxx board, I'd first have to believe that he's a flop-peel/turn-fold type of player (or a call-call-fold player) before placing value in the semibluff. I would have to be thinking that the's peeling the flop with A-high no pair (which I don't think happens). I squeeze a *tiny* amount if he peels Axs backdoor flush draws (but that's A9s/A8s, so maybe 6 hands).

I'll pick better spots for semibluffs. For example, if villain's preflop range is wider (to squeeze more folds) or when the turn card decreases the probability of being called by better hands.

That's fine. As has been stated elsewhere...

----

Only if they value-check-raise properly against my range. Which I don't think they do.

Ok then, what do you think they check raise that river with?

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the read from the original post:

your exploitive turn strategy:

your reasoning:

wider than what? op stated we're heads up against a lag.

we're given a few statements about the opponent's play by the op and you want to never bluff here? This is quite the over adjustment.

your exploitive river strategy:

No, but it's wrong because you're making adjustments that are exploited by the very tendencies that most live players exhibit; they are value heavy when they check raise the river.

The proper adjustment vs such a mistake is not to tighten our river value range. You're confusing "I can't bet call profitably so I check back more" with "I can't bet call profitably so I bet fold more." The former is chicken poker; the latter is the proper exploit.

It's a random assortment of hands that are at worst a pair of queens (as value hands) and a couple stray bluffs from the players that might see the scary board and get ideas.

But I expect far more donks than I expect river check-raises.

CO folded on the flop. I'm pretty sure his preflop range isn't a problem for me.

Yeah. But their frequency is extremely low, and they may not read value properly (that is, Qx would be interpreted as a value check-raise even if my betting range is only KK+).

I think you're doing that thing again where you wrap yourself up so tightly around general strategic concepts that you fail to adequately address the situation at hand, and then overgeneralize what's being said to apply to situations in which it wouldn't be applied. This is not dissimilar to the 3-bet-bluff conversation. I'm still rather convinced that you really care about 3-bet-bluffing in that spot because there's no other reason for you to have actually brought it up. You only hedged the "if" after the fact, and even in other places I had acknowledged the role of "if" and you still felt the need to push back.

In this spot, AJ/KJ just aren't that good of value betting hands to begin with. The river hits villain's range far harder than it hits mine. The floor has shifted upward. I'm not giving up a ton of EV by dropping AJ/KJ from my value betting range. And I can't bring myself to bet-fold an overpair on the river for one bet in a big pot. There's too much LOL-WTF going on.

My range is polarized between hands I don't want to value bet and hands that I don't want to fold. So my plan is to get to showdown. I'm either betting for value and calling a raise or I'm checking behind.

This is a reason to value bet more.
So you think players will check raise Qx for value, but they won't call enough to make bet folding AJ the best play? What kind of bs calling range do you put them on?

lol nice. thumbsup.