Once a fortnight?

Because a lot of our opponents completely suck?

The more our opponents completely suck and payoff even though we haven't shown a bluff all session, the more we can ABC / never bluff things. The better our opponents are, the more we have to think about working in more bluffs. HOC actually addresses this a bit, in that in really easy games we don't have to worry about playing anything other than ABC poker (although, admittedly, these types of games are harder and harder to find even at the lolzlivelowstakes).

And bip! turned me on to another realization. When that flush card comes and we bet our flush hoping to get called, the bet is obviously massively EV. But when that flush card comes and our busted OESD is checked to, we can still bet hoping to get a fold (even though this hope contradicts the hope we have when we make our flush and want a call); the bet won't be as obviously massively EV as betting the flush when we have it, but if we size things right against the right opponent, the bet will still probably be slightly EV in itself (not to mention the added meta we add to our image when called).

GcluelessbluffingnoobG

Something like that.

I think the key thing is to not force it. If the story is there and it adds up and you're up against an opponent that can read the story, then take your opportunity. But if it ain't there, don't force it just cuz your watch says it's been 3 hours / 2 fortnights since your last bluff.

GcluelessbluffingnoobG

Poker God's please bring us useless opponents, let them live long and prosper sufficiently in their day jobs to keep reloading and give them the strength to never get bored or fed up of poker, bless them with long memories for all their winning sessions and help them to forget every loss, and please let them always fail to see that I only ever bet when I have it. Amen.

I had a villain call a $450 limp/reraise all in with K10o the other night. The fish are still calling....

I wouldnt bluff that one.

should we call you Ishmael?

Captain Ahab!

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

I thought this thread was going to be about his latest article. He talks about a couple of spots he thinks limping is okay in.

Link or any idea where to find it?

Only in the very best games is it correct to never/rarely bluff. I played in one yesterday. A guy floated my c-bet OOP with J3o on a 775r board.

The #1 leak almost all live players have is that they play too many hands pre-flop. This leads to having a weak range on the flop. How do they deal with all of those extra hands when they're up against a strong pfr's range? Probably by folding a lot. It's really hard to meet mdf with a wide range of trash against a strong pfr's range, so the pfr's bluffs are going to be profitable. If the pre-flop caller does manage to defend enough to make his opponent's worst bluffs unprofitable/breakeven, then our value bets will be printing money.

Latest issue of Cardplayer (August 23).

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news...imping-is-good

Thanks for the link. Good article and advice from Ed.

My game is very loose with a ton of action and I find limping my speculative hands to be far superior to raising them. Opening speculative hands to setup postflop bluffing situations in loose action games is potentially burning money. Refusing to play anything but pure value hands because you are only entering pots by raising or 3betting vs weak opponents is going to have you missing a ton of profitable opportunities.

Ed's point about award stack sizes is particularly useful,. That's not something I'd consciously considered before but it makes a lot of sense.

I wanted to expand on this earlier comment.

I've snipped a few pieces of advice offered in one of Millers more recent books.

"If you cannot beat the hand your opponent is representing with that large bet or raise on the turn or river, you should fold. While it’s possible your opponent is bluffing, it’s almost certain your opponent won’t be bluffing frequently enough to justify a call." - Miller on not paying people off at 1/2.

"Furthermore, you know from Skill #2 earlier in the book that when your opponents do draw out, it’s no big deal, because you can just fold. Since they don’t protect their value bets with enough bluffs in their range, you just get out of the way when they start betting big."

Miller is suggesting correctly that most villains are unbalanced toward value with their bets. Particularly large ones on turns and rivers. The obvious exploit is not to bluff catch them. Whether they should or shouldn't bluff more is immaterial to this concept for this purpose.

Now the part about them calling too much isn't really what Miller says. He says most villains play too many hands. Obv this implies they are calling preflop too much. But he's very clear that villains with wide and therefore weak ranges must either fold the junk later in the hand or bluff. Since we established they aren't bluffing they have to fold their junk. So postflop many actually become unbalanced toward folding At some point later in the hand. Millers pyramids illustrate where different players fold to correct their preflop unbalance. How their range fits the board texture is obviously critical.

In his book the course Miller makes a distinction between 1/2 and 2/5. Although he eludes to potential bluffing spots at 1/2 he doesn't advocate significant barreling until the 2/5 section. In addition he has a special section at the end of each chapter dealing with loose games with multiway pots. In that section he further divides those games into ones where there are a lot of limp folders and ones with limp callers. His adjustments here are significant.

"In multi-way pots and loose games, getting value for good hands is the primary way you’ll generate advantage over the long term. And since players are so willing to put money into a pot, you can still do quite well even though you’ll find yourself playing a fairly one-dimensional strategy."

Here he suggests if you are in the type of game where increasing pf raises is the profitable adjustment you may need to adjust pf ranges swapping more hi card value hands for medium suited connectors since often the SPRs will be substantially lower. It is here that he also concedes over limping is a thing.

So in general I think you may be misapplying Millers actual advice.

^^^ excellent summary and explanation cammando, thanks.

Good article, imo.

I know one of the problems I'm having in my game is that before my game was always awesome enough to make open limping / overlimping quite profitable, but now I have to make sure I make a much more honest read of the table / players in the hand instead of just defaulting to what worked before as sometimes the game isn't nearly as good as it once was.

Golddog;newtricksarehardG

GG I find it interesting to follow the maturation of your player pool.

My main room opened about 6 years ago. Obviously there is the 2010 to 2016 skill delta but clearly new rooms have a higher concentration of bad players relative to the current "state of the game".

The rate of change regarding softness of games is greater in the new rooms. First 6 months to a year many of the hopeless fish sort of go broke and disappear to a large extent. The ones who remain learn to give away less. The regs settle into their breakevenish strat. And by year 3-4 it becomes more difficult to improve your own play at a pace adequate to maintain a crushing w/r.

I've heard you speculate re: these things but that is my observation as well.

The other night a guy played a pot where I flipped set and raised flop multiway. I bet a turned boat he called. Then he led into me on a bricked river.

He had Q9 for top pair ****ty kicker and put 200 bb in. Later I thought that used to happen as a regular thing with multiple players in a given game donating like that. Now it's relatively rare to have someone give it away like that.

My experience has been much the same, especially with regards to seeing lol stacks go in with lol hands (I was the beneficiary of one last week, which in the past I'd chalk up as "standard lol" whereas now I go "wow, did that just happen?"). However, the game can still be good as there (suprisingly, tbh) still seems to be an continuing influx of new players added to the pool who suck (and, like the others before them, it will take them a long time to figure out how badly they suck), although the influx isn't nearly at the same rate as before. Overall, I just find that there are a lot more competent players (the ones who have survived / adapted) rounding out the tables (whereas before I was often the only semi-competent player at the table).

On top of that, the poker rooms in my area are doing everything they can possibly do to kill poker, so that ain't helping either.

GpokermarketchangesovertimeG

So you ve seen your winrate suffer?

It's hard to actually quantify for me as there are a lot of variables in my case. I changed stakes and went from close to full time hours to recreational hours. As mostly a rec I sometimes partake in the cocktails too these days.

If I just simply compare my w/r from 3-4 years ago (before I moved up to mostly 2/5+) and prior to my recent hours at 1/2-1/3 my wr is higher now. But not by as much as it should be imho. But it's sort of lol sample size. My observations were for sure anecdotal. My interest in gg's comments is that he's Been at the same stakes on the same night of the week in the same room drinking water over a decent sample.

I don't want to derail this thread but so bring it back to the topic I do think it's related in that the "low hanging fruit" , ABC , value bet better and fold better than the opposition strat eluded to by op was the bulk of winrate in my room several years ago.

I think that needs to be supplemented with nons howdown winnings, that is some bluffs, today to maintain or surpass that winrate. And I believe it's against those improved or (less bad) players that we can profitably utilize the plays op is questioning.

So I think the challenge or frustration perhaps voiced in the op is one of recognizing in what games and against what players the different approaches work.

Imo of course

I think the article that OP is referring to is the June 22nd CardPlayer article "Beware of Unforced Bets". Miller says that since 1/2 and 2/5 players bluff too infrequently, then players such as OP should be wary of calling larger, unforced bets on the turn and river as they usually represent a much stronger range by opponent.

This is one of the biggest leaks small stakes players have, calling with bluff-catcher only hands when a large river bet is made by someone that bluffs infrequently. As many of above have pointed out, Miller also says that reading opponents is important and that situational differences must be taken into account, but that generally, players should be cautious and call less frequently then they do.

There is a lot to unpack in this thread, so I am going to start here. The flip side of a a flush draw that hits being a good bluffing opportunity is that having a flush draw that missed is often a bad bluffing opportunity because that is the obvious story that your opponent can see, so a lot players who are willing to bluff make a bad try because they think that they have to bluff because that's the only way they can win.

This is why when I have a combo draw (a flush draw with other outs), I sometimes play it passively rather than semibluff, because I know I can often get paid off decently by represented a busted flush draw when I hit one of my other outs.

The counter to someone raising you a lot can be to punish them with limp-reraises. I l/rr sometimes to discourage LAGs from disrupting a profitable limp-fest with late position raises. You can/should play a lot more fit/fold with 5+ people seeing every flop.

If people are dumb enough to call without a hand that beats you, why should you ever bluff against those people? Not bluffing the idiots increases the profitability of bluffs against people who are aware enough to know that the idiots are not idiots and that you are not bluffing the idiots, especially if you imply with your table talk that you don't think they are idiots.

I've toyed with the idea that you should either bluff mainly in small pots to set up a big value bet in a big pot or almost never bluff in small pots to set up a big bluff in a big pot.

Necro-reply because I love this paragraph so much. I may link to it rather than rewriting it each time.

Also hope to engage with the bigger ideas in the OP and thread when I have time. Short impression: People are overgeneralizing one or two players per table who make fairly thin calldowns like bottom pair and concluding "Those donkeys never fold so you can never bluff them." But not everyone at the table is those two players, and those two don't always have bottom pair. 1-3 players just have too many weak hands in their range and some play late streets right or tight. Bluffing isn't the cornerstone of our strategy but it can be well times.

Heck, I make successful bluffs in loose limit games!