Is normally a bad idea but in this case I felt it could work:

1/3 game, hero has 7h8h and $1000 on the button. 5 limpers, hero limps, BB raises to $25, all limpers call, hero calls. Pot is $175.

I don't remember everyone's stacks, but BB is very deep, and the limpers are all shallower than us; no one is super short though. BB seems to be a TAGfish - he's definitely not passive, he's never in there with stupid random hands, but his bet sizing is off, and I saw him way overplay top pair good kicker for 3 barrels in a situation where he should have been check/calling.

Flop comes A T 8 rainbow with 1 heart (the ace). BB fires out a small cbet of $40, 3 of the limpers call, I call with a pair and 2 backdoor draws. Yes we would make the idiot end of the straight, but the pot odds are good and there are a decent number of turns that we can continue on, and we have the best position. Pot is $375.

Turn comes the T of hearts, and it's checked around to hero. Do we go for it here with a big bluff?

Pot is huge and although we have 4 opponents, none have shown strength. We can rep the T and no one actually has it, fold everyone out now; and if called we have up to 9 flush outs or 6 pair outs if we're called by a higher flush draw.

If we're called by both an A or T and by a higher flush draw, we're drawing dead.

I would check behind. Think someone has a T here pretty often. Hope for a heart on the river and get a decent sized bet from them, as your hand is disguised

I like bluffing here, but there's no need to bluff big. Just bet like 200-250. There's the option to fire another barrel OTR if required.

I don't think this is a slam dunk spot, BB could have anything here, we might run into AA or TT, or he might get very sticky with AK or AQ. With some draw equity to back us up I think it's worth at least one barrel though.

The chances that anyone has just a bare T seem near nil. Nobody is checking that hand with a wet board and 3 opponents. I could perhaps see BB doing it but he's unlikely to have just a T in view of the preflop raise. He could definitely have TT or AA and perhaps AT.

Yea I was thinking that too. And I liked the idea of bluffing with a big bet because if I had a T on such a coordinated board with multiple opponents, I'm betting big. So I thought "what would I bet with Tx hand here?" and did that.

BB snap folded (wtf was his cbet of less than 1/4 pot into 6 people about? Just doesn't understand bet sizing I guess.), but I got called by a random A5o and did not make my hand on the river.

You shouldn't bet big with a T. Value as a concern trumps hand protection every time. That said, if people are going to snap you off with A5o, betting big is obviously good. You may have levelled him into thinking it was a bluff with the sizing.

When we say big, how big is big?

I usually consider 1/3 pot to 1/2 pot small bets and 2/3 and above big. Pot sized and above is an overbet. Maybe that's too online standard though and doesn't work for live low stakes where everything is sized up?

So I did bet 250 which you considered not to be a big bet.

The caller had a fairly short stack barely over the 250. She put the rest of her chump change in on the river, which was an A and counterfeited our 3rd pair, not that that matters anyways because we know we have no SDV except if we hit our hand, and then proudly showed off her aces full...

I rarely bet much smaller than half pot but I may be a dinosaur, I haven't played online since about 2013. There are some spots where sizing down is good but the LLSNL meta is calling stations, so I usually want to size up a bit and be value-oriented. A "big bet" to me is like 80% pot or more. I'd consider 300 and up in this spot to be big. I was imagining you betting 400.

I've noticed on the front page that there is a consistent theme to your threads. They are all about bluffs.

Winning LLSNL is about make solid value bets when you have a strong hand. Given the skill level you have shown in other threads, you should be doing little to no bluffing outside of cbets when you were the aggressor pf and are in position at this time.

It is about winning money, not winning hands.

Didn't read comments or spoilers if any,

I dont particularly like bluffing here, there's a good chance 4-way ott someone has a T and I'm not sure you always get Ax to fold here, you have a lot of perceived bluffs here and the T makes it less likely combo-wise you have a Ten. And people just hate folding TP, so overall I think a strat that involves trying to move people off TP or overpairs in live poker isn't going to be super solid.

And here it is again. Trying to bluff when one of the bottom two flop cards pairs. It rarely works, although when its a broadway card it has a much better chance of working than when its a lower card.

THIS^^^^^^

stop watching tv where someone runs a big bluff and thinking oh that's cool I gotta do it.

Couldn't disagree more. Except for part OP seems to be bluffing at every available opportunity.

You have to bluff. Bluffing works even at lowest levels. I tend to over bluff. Likely at a loss (at least lately at a loss).

But the amount of value it creates makes up for losses 10 fold.


OP
From reading 2 posts. And watching this guy Hero call you with ragged Ace. You don't need to bluff anymore vs some of these guys. Go to straight value town. Bluffing into 4 guys with poor image is recipe for disaster. Even with loose image. You will find many spots to fire a bluff.

Had you had a better image, this bluff was likely very much +EV. By huge margin.

Bluffing into four opponents is torching money

Haha, yea... That's pretty true. Well thanks for letting me know you think I have decent thinking in other threads! But yes, I think I do bluff too much for live low stakes.

For me, I have very good non-poker income so I essentially have an infinite bankroll at these stakes, and I want to play the strategy game more than I want to win money. But when swings go to the range of a paycheck or more, I'm still not happy, which is why I'm not moving up in stakes yet still trying plays that I'm reading about from books and poker training websites that are probably torching cash with FPS...

I need to have a better grasp of the difference between good intermediate strategy and what works at low stakes, or just suck it up and move up now, knowing I'll likely be a losing player for a while but that is the strategy area I want to play in.

I don't think a bluff in this pot and in this situation will ever work.

This is why: The pot is big at this point and is protected (5 opponents against you). Very unlikely all will abandon ship by let you have the $375 pot if you try to bluff at it. Another reason not to bluff in your situation is that if you get raised you can't call and draw and if you fold you miss the opportunity making your draw. Plus if you get raised on your bluff you fold and have "lost" so much money invested without even making that goddamned draw of yours.

So, NO! - bluffing will not make you money in the long run. What is gonna make money for you is the art to manage to get called when you make a good hand. The art to get payed. First, you need to make a good hand and Second, to get payed when you have made that hand. That's the whole art-science, so to speak, of this game. Play solid good starting hands, make a hand and get payed along the way to the river.

Its interesting, because I'm a slight winning player at 1/2 playing virtually no bluffs, and I've felt the way crush is increasing my bluffing frequency, but in general I become losing doing that.

Dude, you just used a lot of words to say that the "art" of poker comes down to being on the winning side of coolers.

That IS one of the ways to greatly increase your win rate. Even at low stakes. Actually it works really well at low stakes because lots of people are playing scared money but you have to do it correctly.

When I first started trying to increase my bluffing I sucked at it and it cost me a lot of money. I suspect the same is true for you right now. Just keep trying it and figure out what works and what doesn't. Watch other peoples bluffs that get picked off and try to determine why it happened.

Definitely in this boat! I've certainly found a few good bluff spots before; one recent one I was particularly proud of when I bluffed 3 people with almost the nut low:

I had a small SC, limped after 2 limpers, and called the button raise after both limpers called.

Flop was a rainbow ace board and got checked around so I didn't think PFR was strong.

The limpers both check again OTT so I felt they were both weak, so I bet with pretty much the nut low hand there with no draw possibilities.

PFR calls; both limpers fold; but given the prior street I'm very confident that PFR is weak. I certainly don't see him having an A, while I certainly could have a weak A that beats his 2nd pair or pocket pair - the only likely hands he calls with given the uncoordinated board. So I make a big bet OTR to take down the pot.

One of my proudest bluffs - not just because it worked, but because the entire hand I was confident that I read the players and situation very well. =)

And then I do some stupid bluff like this thread, lol....

Mistakes are how we learn though!

What I really want to say is this:
My own theory and is based upon my extensive LV experience.

In live, LLSNL games, you win money by doubling up or busting people. Anything else makes you fall victim to the rake.

You have a chance to play a big pot approximative two-three times per hour. You flop a set, have a pair+ nut flush draw, flop a double-gutter straight draw. Most of these times a big pot does not pan out. It takes two hands to go to the river and you have to get paid in a big pot. Or you just miss if you draw.

Once every other hour, you play a big pot. You are ahead every time when the money goes in. You know you don't always win, but you get your money in good. Most of these you win. On rare occasion, you lose.

When you go card dead, when you don’t find money making situations, when the draws go in the muck, when AK misses 2 out of 3 times and your c-bet doesn’t work, your stack and profits slowly melts away until you hit your average hourly rate. That’s the normal way the game goes. There’s nothing magic anyone can do to change those things.

You can play TAG and this is the usual result, three chances an hour and one big pot every other hour. You can play LAG and increase the chances of both, but your swings will be a lot bigger and based upon a lot of observation and experience the results will be the same. LAGs who are lunatics can do a lot worse with their SD being correspondingly higher.

That's my theory,

This is nonsense.

Oh, No! .., Come-on .. man,..

How can you say that my theory is nonsense. That is exactly what's going on in any game and on every table. There's no other way to make scores unless you/we get lucky and the deck runs our way for an extended period of time. That way we kill the table on very rare occasions.

does anyone else hear alarm bells go off when the BB raises pre and then bets out 1/4 pot into five players?

Either he has a set, or he has something silly like QQ, or two broadways to a gutter.

Assuming that V does not have a monster, bluffing in a pot like this is game flow dependent and player dependent. Assuming that you think that you are MORE likely to get folds, I like a bet of 175-250. But if the game is any bit sticky, and you get some dingdong calling with 99, "just because", take the free card the majority of the time.