Well Doyle Brunson wrote about it in Super/System and he tells you what he thinks of it. He calls it a gutless bet.

5/5 300-500 game at Commerce Casino

Hero($1000) 31yo solid scary LAG
Villain(covers): Russian late 30's early 40s nice guy weak tight.

I've been talking and being friendly with the villain as he is sitting directly to my left. I always like to be especially friendly to the player on my left .

Hero(Button) 97os

A few limps to me on the button and I make it 30 to go. SB villain calls and 2 other callers.

Flop ($120) J74hh
Villain leads for $35 other players fold its on me.

What's the right play here?

Raise to $135 and take control.

Fold pre and cash out

Fold pre.

Do you think your BTN raise has a decent chance of folding out everyone? If not, then I'd probably opt to either limp or fold. On the flop, I'm at least going to call I think. But you can make it like 85 against some villains.

Fold pf.

Doyle was speaking about strong players and the post oak bluff is typically on the river. Harrington in HOC advocated a raise in this situation. My experience is that these small bets polarize into either monsters or weak hands. The problem in this case is that when a weak tight player starts betting into you, they generally have a strong hand. In addition, you have SPWK. If he has a FD with two overs, he's ahead of you. I wouldn't fold, but raising is when behind is a bad idea. He's not going to fold.

Raising make no sense. Its very unlikely u will fold out any stronger hands than yours. Given the price I think calling is the best option.

Reevaulate on the turn.
U could bluff some overcards like K or A, U could check back if he checks and go for a showdown where u might be good vs flush draws etc. U will outdraw him from time to time. All that summs up for a good spot to call this small bet on flop.

I felt like raising big here should take it down pretty close to 100%. He's just asking me to take this pot away from him. You see the thing is guys I'm playing like some hyper aggressive internet kid so this guy betting into me just feels super weak. It doesn't seem like the super sophisticated rare play of a monster hand trying to induce me into raising big but instead feels like a heart draw trying to draw cheaply. Well if that's what he has I have to make sure I charge him to draw.

I feel like a raise of $100 should be enough to get him to fold I decide to add an extra $15 just in case and raise to $150 total. In retrospect I like $175 better. He thinks about it for a minute or so and looks pained before folding. I had my mind made up that if he called I was going to barrel non heart turns and shut down on hearts. Right or wrong I like putting a guy on a hand when I can and playing accordingly. I get tricked sometimes but thats ok.

He tells me a couple of minutes later that he had a straight draw AND a flush draw. Lol, do you believe that? I'm sure everyone on here is going to think he was full of it but I actually believe him. You have to see it from his perspective, I'm scary. I mean if he does call, he's out of position with a small flush draw when I could have raised with a bigger flush draw its certainly not impossible. And if he hits his flush I'm not going to put too much money in unless he's beat. I even told him that because I want him to feel good about folding to me. So I can keep doing it...

in my OP i describe villain as weak tight and thats incorrect not sure what i was smoking but I meant to say he was weak passive but id also seen him bet strong with strong hands. i guess hes the type of player to size his bets commensurate with the strength of his hand. thats all important and i left it out. wooops.

fold pre. iso'ing at sticky tables with weak (esp. offsuit holdings) is incinerating $.

AP I'd raise to get him off a Jack, looks like he's trying to "see where he's at"

lol you're a jem

and you wonder why people give you all sorts of ish

Grunch from title alone. If it is a post oak bluff, snap it off or raise if you can't beat a bluff, ldo. If you know its a POB, that should be way too obvious to post, so I assume you are talking about a tiny river bet that might be a POB or thin value. In either case, I usually raise/fold, unless my image is crap.

Post title grunch. There is nothing in this HH related to a post oak anything. This is just a small flop donk.

Also, this:

what would you call a post oak bluff? I would categorize this bet as a post oak bluff.

Also I appreciate all the fold pre comments but my preflop strat is solid. I'm a maniac. That's my strat.

Doyle actually advocates the donk bet on p. 437 of Super System though he doesn't call it that.

"Let's say I turned a big hand on the -- a Set of Trips or even Two-Pair. I'm first to act and I'm in the pot with someone who raised before the Flop. He's supposed to have a strong hand. He's probably got a big Pair in the hole -- bigger than anything that showed on the Flop.

In this situation, there's a principle I always apply in Hold 'em. I always make it a habit to lead into the raiser whenever I turn a big hand.

Most players will slow-play their hand in that spot...or hope to get in a check-raise. When they do that, they're playing it wrong...as you'll now see."

He goes on like this for a while. I can't find the part on post oak bluffs but they're basically tiny river bluffs.

Man I forgot how terrible this book is.

P. 450 "After I've won a pot in No-Limit...I'm in the next pot -- regardless of what two cards I pick up. And if I win that one...I'm always in the next one. I keep playing every pot until I lose one. And, in all those pots, I gamble more than I normally would."

Lol...Doyle doesn't even play like this. He mostly nits it up on Poker After Dark etc. Maybe this is how he played in his degen days. It's absolutely insane advice.

It's content like this that makes me grateful this is the best selling poker book of all time.

------

Anyway I think you played the hand fine. I would probably overlimp rather than raise 97o but whatever works for you.

A post oak bluff can also be called a suck-bet bluff. It is a bluff (this is key) designed to look like a bet that is begging for a crying call to get a little more value out of a strong hand. It is only used against players who are good enough that they may fold a hand with some SDV, because they know you'd never offer such good odds unless you could beat almost any hand that could call. As venice said, this pretty much only applies on the river.

This is necessary, but not sufficient. Betting small "to see where you are at," blocking bets trying to set a price for a draw, etc. can also be very small relative to the size of the already-existing pots, but they are not even bluffs, much less post oak bluffs.

his donk bet is not a post oak bluff though because he wouldnt donk out small he'd lead big.

super system is a fantastic book and still applicable today though the advice is for deep stack nosebleed stakes against amateurs so it should be taken with a giant grain of salt. but you have to understand the underlying mentality that Doyle has in order to be a great poker player. the book is great i have it practically memorized.

i play my rushes. if i won the last pot i try to play the next pot within reason. you'll see that your opponents will start making mistakes after you've won the last few pots and it sets you up really well to win a big hand. of course you just let 72os go pretty much always.

also a post oak bluff is not necessarily a river bet. in fact in the example given Doyle says he would call a post oak bluff on the flop with as little as a three card straight, knowing he could take it away from that player on the next card.

the only example given in super system of a post oak bluff is a bet on the flop and nothing is said about the player except that maybe a tight player might try to pick up the pot with that bet. the hand the player has is irrelevant they could have air they could have AA. the bet shows their mentality that they are weak and can be pushed off the hand and thats what makes this a post oak bluff, it doesnt actually mean its a bluff.

Post Oak Bluff is mentioned on page 420. Blaze it!

That section is talking about what is now called "floating." The bet his V is making is a small semi-bluff/price-setting bet.

A lot of Doyle's terminology is very outdated. Though his book claims AQ is known as the Doyle Brunson as well as T2, no one calls it that anymore. Similarly, there are more specific terms for small bets these days, and post oak bluff is not used for semi-bluffs or weak bets with made hands in modern poker.

Also, rushes are gambler's fallacy. The only value to the concept is that you might have a scary image to others who don't realize it's a fallacy.

Hmm...I have super system 2 also but lost it. I think he he talks more about the post oak bluff there. I'm certain a post oak bluff is a tiny river bet designed to look like a strong hand begging for a call, as Garick said. But you're right in super system he gives an example of a flop bet.

There are good points in SS1 and 2 but overall the books are terrible, at least compared to modern poker literature. Any player who takes all the advice in SS literally should rapidly go broke. Just read the part on "rushes" which I partially quoted above.

You win a pot in Hand 1. Therefore you play the next hand, Hand 2 with ATC, and gamble it up more than you would have in Hand 1. If you win, play the next hand with ATC and increase your aggression factor even more than you did in Hand 2. Repeat these steps playing ATC and gambling it up until you lose.

Basically an instructional on how to be a maniac. A bad one.

Fold pre.

Call flop.

Villain lied about having a flush + straight draw (or is really really bad in abnormal way that involves folding big draws I guess)




Stupid.

And yes, if Doyle Brunson was right here in front of me and said that and asked what I thought, then I would tell him it is stupid.


I really think you have a good bit to learn. But you won't care. You're probably going to curse me out or something.

So good luck.

lol thanks.

donks on the flop are three possible hands. 1) weak made hand (TPWK/2nd pair/3rd pair). 2) draws. 3) sets. (only because supersystem suggests donking into people with a set because good players will raise you with air)

Basically this flop is so wet, its most likely to be a draw, which makes it hard for them to fold on flop, so you can call flop and bet/raise most non hearts on the turn (be careful if its T 8 or 3, but if you sense weakness you can still raise these as well. you can even raise a heart if you sense weakness).

This flop is not particularly wet imo.

I've actually used this somewhat frequently in my home games against a few players good enough to be aware but bad enough to be fooled by it. Didn't know there was name for it.

Yea, I don't know why I was expecting that. It was really late last night when I wrote that and I was very tired and I probably over extrapolated a response from a different thread to here. I wish I had left that sentence and the 2 immediately preceding it out of my post. Whatever; can't go back in time. Good luck.

dont worry i totally deserved that response(or worse) it wasnt even mean or anything and it genuinely made me laugh out loud glad you typed it. no hard feelings =D.

i need to calm down sometimes.