Table image question. I recently had a hand where I was semi tilted and spazzed out on a bluff.

The specifics are not really important, its definitely just a button click bad leak that I need to work on. I called a 4x preflop button open from a tight pro asian guy with K9o . First mistake should have folded pre. Check raised flop with air and then just continued my story when the flush came on the turn and jammed the river board pair. I got snapped off by top set rivered full house.

He just tabled his hand here so I mucked and complained out loud to myself about getting outrivered. I was honestly embarrassed that I had spazzed out especially against probably the best player at the table.

Here's my question what should I do here given that I've already put myself in this bad position. Is it better to advertise this and show my hand given that it has already happened in the hopes that I will get more calls when I calm down and maybe tighten up to get over my tilt. Should I do what I did and save my ego by pretending I had the flush? Or just shut up, quietly muck, take a break to restore my mental game and return to TAG fundamentals?

TLDR: Do you show your hand after a spewy play to advertise how bad you are and potentially induce lighter action in the future?

Sometimes.
I once spewed off my remaining $280-ish on a big blind preflop squeeze with K-6 off, didn’t need to show, but did, because there were some regulars at the table.
I show bluffs sometimes when the table is super tight just to try and get things to open up a bit as well.
Overall though, I think that I (and most) would be better off not showing hands ever unless I have to. Simply put, the odd time I level myself more than my opponents into bad decisions because of showing unnecessarily beforehand.
I’m still kind of up in the air about this. Regulars sure don’t appreciate it when you bluff them and table it, you’re just putting a target on your back, but this can be okay if you think you’re a significantly better player than the V you’re needling.

I think you should probably work on getting off tilt before you worry about whether it’s going to be profitable to advertise that you’re on tilt.

This worked much better in limit holdem where you could run a hopeless spazz bluff early in the session that costs you 3 or 4 BB and then recoup that and more with guys calling you down light after they see your idiot play.

My inclination is that in NL games, showing a spazz play is going to make people more unpredictable against you. In NL I try to manipulate the opposition. I'd liken it to a counter-punching strategy in boxing. Let them make the first move, expose their mistakes, and then counter. I'll play ABC poker while I read the table, try to figure out their weaknesses, and attack those. If I start spazzing and they switch gears against me, this gets harder.

This is probably the nuts that will be written in this thread.

I certainly can not disagree with that very sound advice. I thought it might become a fruitful discussion on showing bluffs/hands generally for advertising. Also I assume everyone has spazzed at least once in their life and was more wondering what do I do now that I’m here. I guess the best advice is to just not get there in the first place and understand poker can be a boring game for long periods of time even when you are playing correctly so to not let that affect you.

I think the rare player that can shovel a ton of money in good, get rivered by a two outer, and show no negative outward emotion and continues playing their A game is the one that concerns me most at a table.
This is what I’m trying to get to anyway.
The people that whine about their luck/tilt/berate poor players are almost always easy money.
I’ve been thinking about this lately too, the EV of showing bluffs. Sometimes it works great for me in the short term, but I feel pretty positive that long term it’s negative EV and you’re just potentially giving away subtle details to the best players at the table about how you play.

+2.

In LLSNL, the problem isn't usually getting people to call. They didn't come down to the casino to fold. I rarely have a monster but I'm often in the situation where I missed the flop and need people to fold to win the hand. Those hands are the ones that are your bread and butter.

Unless he is literally opening 10% OTB, K9o is a "standard" defend from the BB (I'm assuming BB bc I hope you're not flatting K9o from the SB...). Due to rake, folding is completely fine but from a theoretical standpoint, K9o is too high up in your range to fold. I don't particularly believe tight pros live would necessarily put me in tough spots post, so I'd call if I wanted to gamble. It's probably breakeven or at best very slightly +EV with rake but I'm not folding 80%+ of my range to a BTN open to a pro (who presumably is positionally aware and thus opens much wider than your avg live player, probably 30%+ at the very minimum). Plus if you fold too much you give off the nitty vibe and that's not as good for getting you paid.

Think it's more interesting what the board was that you xr with air. You really shouldn't be x'ring with complete air that often, you want to at least have some equity when called like a GS, BDFD/BDSD, etc. You really need to be careful about overbluffing. It's a somewhat common leak for live regs, and a very costly one. They'll 3b inappropriate offsuit hands based on whatever reason like "oh, I've been playing tight so let's 3b K7o or 83s, it should get respect, i havent 3b in the past 1-2 hours", etc.

First, you have almost no playability if you get called and you WILL get called more often than you should whether or not you've been playing tight, because people love trying to crack premiums and hate folding. Second, although it sounds almost contradictory, you are still actually overbluffing if you're choosing random hands to 3b although you haven't 3b in an hr or two. They'll try to justify their plays by saying, "but oh, it's only this one time in this one session." But I'm 100% positive it's not the only one time they do it; they're doing it in other sessions as well.


It's like the idea of not 3-betting random hands like Q9o and overbluffing vs a BTN open at the WSOP and donking off your stack vs trips.

I dont particularly like to ever show my cards, as you can really start leveling yourself in tough spots and wonder whether you showing them your cards would make a difference. I mean, if your plan is to tighten up after showing and get lighter calldowns, I can get behind that

Something that can happen when showing bluffs is you stop getting any showdown winning hands, and people are calling you down lighter now. You effectively handcuff your own ability to continue breaking even, or profiting slightly without any winning hands.
I think this is the main reason I see it as generally -EV.

Princess Azula said it best in the Drunken Ramblings post, imo.

There's a difference between showing a bluff for ego reasons, and showing your cards when you happened to have been bluffing but you got called and you are required to show first. If you never ever get caught bluffing, you will never get your big bets called. Dont make a big bet, get called and then just sit there like a clown too embarrassed to show your cards.

Either muck right away or show, but I prefer to show let them know what Im capable of. Not to mention I want to see what the guy called me with and if I muck he doesnt have to show.

I remember reading and loving that post (for multiple reasons) awhile back.

I have a really hard time not showing the hoodie/headphone/sunglasses recent adult who berates everyone’s play and thinks he’s far and away the best player at the table.
If I stop ever showing everyone else the odd bluff, I’ll be happy.
2019 goals...

FE is way more important than getting called when you have a monster. Never try to build a scenario where V’s want to look you up. Having session or image based FE is the greatest thing in the poker world.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. As far as the unintended consequences go, you don’t need to look any further than the other thread OP started wherein there’s a discussion of the merits of isolating from middle position with suited connectors and checkshoving a flopped pair+OESD. That’s a completely different conversation when you have no fold equity because you are a confirmed spewtard. I would note also that OP says in the pair+OESD thread that he would never play an actual big hand the way he blasted off this one. If you still need work on having a plan and not tilting you should not even be considering voluntarily showing cards.

Wow, that brings back memories. Getting nostalgic.

I was proud of myself for not showing a single one of the many trainwreck hands I orchestrated last night. I saved it all for myself.

Absolutely. I used to consider myself the KING of tilt at one time. I've focused on plugging this leak and watched my hourly rate double. It's not something you cure overnight, as it's been an almost 2 year process for me and I still tilt from time to time.

OP, don't worry about advertising your spaz, focus on eliminating those blowups from your game. To answer your question though, I don't show them unless I have to. If my bluff is called and I'm supposed to show first, I'll fast-roll my air like it's the nuts. Otherwise, just fold your hand face down and move on.

I want to dissect this argument a little bit, because the pair+ straight draw hand was unrelated to this hand and happened on a completely different day at a different table. For one I am PFR in that hand vs I was in the BB calling a button open for this spaz hand so my ranges are completely different.

I did not say that I would never check raise a big hand. I specifically said for the extra CRAI sizing that MikeStarr suggested I would not be using value. I also said thats why I chose a smaller sizing for my check raise because if I did decide to trap on that flop I am not going all in; I would also use the same 100$ sizing that I chose with my semi bluff.

There is a huge difference between check raising from the big blind, which I am going to be doing a lot of against a button open; and check raising 4 ways when you are the PFR. That's why I posted the hand because I realized that I don't feel like I check raise balanced when I'm the PFR. It's difficult because then you have to split your range between cbets, check calls, and check raises.

Meanwhile I don't donk so in the BB I am pretty comfortable with my check raising strategy (obviously aside from this hand where I just airball bluffed, I wouldn't normally do this). I can comfortably use my strong value hands and some strong draws.

Basically the point of this post was I didn't show because he insta called and just tabled the nuts so I quietly mucked pretended I had a value hand going along with what Garick quoted. I generally never show my hand in case I have to but after the fact wondered if showing might have been a good idea. Seems to be consensus is I was correct its best to just keep your opponents guessing

Well I guess I should be careful with the pro description this is 1/3 level so I don't really know if anyone is a pro, and I don't play in vegas. Really any winning regular player who isn't an obvious fish, not limping playing pretty tight/standard and raising when entering pots gets the pro description from me at 1/3 because even that is way higher standard then all the loose passive fish. Maybe this is just being results oriented because he had QQ here but I feel like in hindsight even his button range is maybe a little tighter than it should be. Obviously that was my logic for calling pre or even attempting this bluff is that he should be pretty wide from the button here. Unfortunately I really do not remember the flop Q high with two hearts and I don't think I had a heart either.

It was spaz because I wasn't thinking poker I was just thinking I want him to fold hes on the button. And then the turn brought the flush and I was like **** I have to keep bluffing now thats a great card to bluff. And then I get to the river with stone cold air and just shoved it in.

The idea was to show the hand and then go to super tight mode, but I just got up to cool off instead.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

8,527,273,920 games 0.000 secs 1,705,454,784,000 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 57.239% 56.26% 00.98% 4797145068 83764290.00 { 22+, A2s+, K7s+, Q7s+, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A2o+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo }
Hand 1: 42.761% 41.78% 00.98% 3562600272 83764290.00 { K9o }

Even vs a fairly tight BTN open range (33%), K9o still has very high equity. I really don't reckon he opens lower than 30% if he's RFI instead of limping like a lot of players will do, and is positionally aware. I wouldn't be surprised if he raises somewhere between 36-50% here.

I don't particularly think a turn bluff is that great, given that his flop calling range consists of many flush draws (you block none of them) and a lot of overpairs with a heart.

It's okay to give up hands, especially when you're towards the bottom of your range. We don't need to win certain hands or try to "go for it." Something I learned over the years is if I'm at the very bottom of my range, I fold and don't have a second thought. I think trying to force things or just going for things at random times can lead to a lot of stacks donked off, ime and from what i've seen from other HH over the years

I'm not trying to say I haven't done similar things before, dont get me wrong because I have lol. I've run some dumb and pretty ambitious bluffs with not much equity and just a YOLO mentality. I think it's good you had discipline to get off the table and cool down. I think a lot of players would steam there and start tilting afterwards.

Still, you aren't printing calling K9o here ever and I think folding is more than fine. You can fold and immediately get a new hand, and play against the other marks at the table = ez $. But there is some metagame to calling here, and if you ever play higher knowing how to play these spots def helps you out