8-handed - we open QJ in UTG+1, we get 4 callers - CO, BTN, SB, BB.

Flop comes 2 T 2

SB and BB check to us.

Pot: 15bbs

Now I feel like if we're ever going to bluff 5 ways, this is the best moment to do so, we have backdoor equity and the flop is super dry.

We bet 8bbs

We get only one caller in the BB. We've played and discussed poker a bit and he's a player who studies the game with passion, wants to learn and is definitely capable of making folds.

Turn is: 2 T 2 3

Our hand doesn't improve. However as we only got one call and it was from a player who understands ranges, I feel confident we can get him of a Tx hand. Our line looks like overpairs and strong Tx. There is a good chance we have 6 clean outs going to the river as well as he might have stuff like T9s, T8s or KTs.

Pot: 31bbs

BB checks to us.
We bet 20bbs

Do you ever do stuff like this against opponents you know or you don't get out of line when grinding?

I know that if I faced this 2nd barrel on the turn I wouldn't be very happy with my Tx, I would fold against players I consider to be value-heavy.

Ya, I do stuff like this the odd time, but only against very specific V’s who overfold, and almost never 5 ways. I think you’re much better off longterm just checking the flop. You’re counting on too much going your way when you try to get 4 V’s off their hands.

Yes. LLSNL Vs are notorious non-believers on paired boards, and you are c-bet bluffing 5 ways on a board that never hit your range. I know you're trying to rep an overpair, but the chance of all 5 Vs believing that and being able to fold basically any pair on that flop is infinitesimal. Check flop.

OK, given that turn card and the V you are left with, a turn barrel is fine. But you got extremely lucky to get this situation after betting flop. If he calls this one, give up.

You didn’t mention stack sizes but he c-bet seems standard to me and I’m barreling turn. It’s actually really hard to have enough bluffs here when we have like 30 combos of ~nuts so don’t be afraid of barreling against a thinking player.

Not giving up on brick rivers.

ya this is fine unless V is a station - you can get most people to fold the majority of their range. sucks we don't turn equity but still a good turn to barrel.

+1 not giving up on many rivers

Ah yes, this is a deepstacked game, everyone sitting with 200bbs+. This is also important because calling ranges in this game are very wide, people call with weaker suited hands like 85s, 75s, J8s, J7s hoping to hit the flop big. That makes my c-bet potentially more effective, I see every player folding 80~% of their range there, still makes the chance of at least one caller to be 80% but I had a plan to barrel turns against the BTN/BB caller (thinking players) and give up against CO/SB who are indeed stations and draw chasers.

how many 2x is BB calling pre matters a bit too - as well as if he knows to have no raising range on this texture or if he plays face up and will raise 2x OTF or OTT

He avoids calling with garbage so probably only A2s and 22, so 3 combos. There's definitely a huge majority of Tx there.

As for the check/raise he usually fast-plays his strong hands but I don't know him well enough to be sure what he would do.

OP, just as an aside, I notice you post your hands using only bbs. You might get better/more responses if you instead use $$$ plus post steaks (might be some differences in 1/2 vs 2/5 vs etc.).

GcluelessNLnoobG

yeah i'm fine with the line - should be able to get him fold very often

I'm a European, I think it's more clear if I post bbs instead of my currency. :P

And the games I play in are not your standard low-stakes games as in they are usually more spewy and bluffy with a wide spread of skill between players. I try to always post my reads on the villains so people go on that instead of "general player pool tendencies".


The results:

Ha, if that's the case, you may be right.

Still, stating "relative" steaks might be worth considering (i.e. are you playing in the lowest steaks offered or highest, and that might make a difference). Even saying "equivalent to 1/2" vs "equivalent to 2/5" might be of benefit.

GasyouwereG

nh

Seems ok. I personally don't chase these marginal spots 5ways. But it doesn't seem too bad. I would need to see long run statistics on this spot, which is probably hard to gather playing live. Really comes down to how often players will bluff catch or hero call.

Edit: the games i play will have hero callers unwilling to fold. So for my games, we can simply print money in other spots. Definitely a table dependent strategy.

Once you get HU w BB he’s dead and you’re bet betting turn riv all runouts. You won’t always get the dream scenario heading to the turn though, so you probably have some give ups had you gotten called by one or two of the IP players the times you l turn no equity. Just find the right sizing. Bet small bet big bet biggest still works.

Flop bet I like as it's a hard board to hit, you can fold out some better/clean up equity, and you have two overs + BDFD + 3-card straight. I don't see the turn bet being +EV. Most players are not folding Tx or 99-77 for that matter on a total turn brick. You have 25 turn cards you can barrel, sadly the 3 wasn't one of them.

It’s very hard for us to have enough bluffs here. If villain wants to call down here then good luck to him. He is losing money against our range which is value heavy because the flop was 5-ways with fish in the mix. What does a player with even basic hand reading ability think we have here?

It's not hard to have bluffs when we're bluffing QJ turns with no equity...

We have like 30 combos of value that can bet turn and river against a range that has only a few combos that can beat an overpair. Try finding 30 combos of bluffs (some of them should give up on river).

This board is just really, really bad for BBs range. We should be pressuring him hard here.

Definitely in theory we should be punishing capped range. Vs donks/unknowns/recs, maybe not the best idea.

I do think river bluff/spew is somewhat mandatory AP, we block JJ which flats this spot a lot and sometimes QQ. Most people would have raised trips or better at this point, so he just has a lot of Tx.

If I’m bluffing river I’d rather block strong Tx (AT/KT) than weak Tx (QT/JT). QJ is just way over bluffing which goes back to over bluffing the turn.

I mean, if we ever bluff here ott with AK/AQ (we are since OP is playing QJdd like this), it's better to just check back because we have some showdown value and will win every once in a while vs floated backdoors. Q high has 0 showdown value. River bluff def isn't great here, ofc. But yeah we are just bluffing too much if we bluff our entire range or most of it ott...

I probably would have done the same thing with AK/AQ with BDFD therefore way overbluffing this spot. But the point is, nobody knows that I would.

And as long as villain is going to give me credit for a hand in that spot and fold top pair then I think it's worth going for it. Definitely a player-dependent spot. I would give up turns against calls from CO or SB, as I said.

QJdd isn't exactly the worst bluff candidate we have, though. Even if we bluff every single BDFD+overs hand on the flop and J9s BDFD (if we open it pre), that's 21 bluff combos, which is not enough to balance our value range {TT+, 22, A2s, AT}. Of course not everybody opens all of those hands UTG, but if they do there's little reason to check flop with any of them except TT. Most reasonable ranges that get to the turn are going to have about 30 combos of value.

We need to be bluffing AKo/AQo on the flop in order to be overbluffing turn by betting our entire range. The problem with c-betting hands like that is that they have some value as checks since they can occasionally win at showdown or cooler worse Ax/Kx/Qx when we turn TPTK, and don't have as much backdoor equity. Of course, it might not seem like backdoor equity matters too much when we're talking about barreling without improving with QJdd, but this specific turn and villain are good for it. Villain should probably actually just fold a lot of Tx on the flop.

If we bet a range of {JJ+ (24), AJs+ (9), KJs+ (6), QJs (3)} on the turn and bet a balanced range on the river with JJ+ as value, then any Tx is a losing turn call.

This might actually be a spot where it's theoretically reasonable to down-bet because we are value heavy and villain does have some rare hands that beat our value, but I think I'd just bet 3/4.

I actually find that people fold to cbets on paired boards almost always. I Cbet almost 100% on boards like this. I would Cbet a lower percentage when its 5 ways, but I still fire often and do so successfully.

How did that board never hit Heros range? He opened in EP. He can easily have an overpair or Tx. If he can have QJs he can have most suited big Tens and probably T9s as well.