I would consider this to be my first big bluff with total air. I'm mostly curious to learn how you all think about which spots are good for these types of plays

Saturday night around 9pm, 9-handed
Literally my first hand of the night and I haven't played with anyone at the table before

Hero image: younger than everyone at the table (30s WG). Sat down with a backpack and a beer. Bought in for 300 (max: 400)
V: 60s WG. Has ~700

H opens A Q to 15 UTG
V calls in LJ

Flop (~30): 5 2 4
H x, V 20, H calls
Curious what is best here. At the time I called thinking I had too much equity with a gutshot and 2 overs. But this board is so much better for the preflop caller and the gutshot has massive RIO. In retrospect I think for EV, b/f = x/f > x/r > x/c - agree?

Turn (~65): 5 2 4 4
H x, V 30, H 90, V thinks 10 seconds and calls
My thinking at the time was with the overs not hitting, I'm only winning by bluffing. But at best I'm representing a strong diamond draw (overpair would likely bet or x/r flop, and I should not have any 4's). When he calls I think he has a lot of 66-TT. Should this be a x/f AP?

River (~245): 5 2 4 4 K
H shoves for 175
I suppose I'm representing exactly AKdd/KQdd. Basically a pure exploit of x/r>shove looking strong, an overcard to his likeliest pairs hitting, and the fact that he paused on the turn

The check/call on the flop is bad, IMO. It ruins your story. However, the K on the river is nice and makes it tough for V to call w/ anything less than a 4, which he shouldn't have. I'd might look you up pretty light, though.

How does V seem (tight, loose, aggro)? If he's an average 60-year-old guy, you might be in trouble. If he's an OMC type, it might work.

I'm okay with peeling one OTF. We sometimes have the best hand and induce a bet from air. No one really has a nut advantage here imo. Unless V calls a UTG open LJ with a 6? like 66? 55 maybe? Lots of Q-9 in his range.

Turn I just give up. x/fold. I dont like the x/r. What are we repping? Smells like diamond draw to me and I'd 3-bet a lot here for value as V. Maybe as wide as 65s, A5s.

River bluff on a naked K makes no sense to me. A high blank? Again, what are we repping?

Things working against you for the bluff:

1. You’re a young guy. Young guys never have it.
2. You have a backpack. Backpack dudes overbluff like crazy.
3. Villain is an old guy. They play good hands, get married to their hands and so don’t like folding after they’ve invested money into the pot. Especially not to a young punk who never has anything.
4. You're repping very narrow.

Things in your favor:
1. You are repping reasonably and your line is pretty strong.
2. You have decent blockers

Overall I'd say probably not the best spot, but it's not terrible.

FLOP - I think checking is fine. Check-calling is okay. So is check-folding to an older guy sitting on $700 in a game with a $400 max. I wouldn't hate the occasional x/r, instead of just always c-betting from OOP, but this isn't the spot, the V, or the hand we'd want to do it with.

TURN - Oof. This isn't the spot we want to x/r.

What are we repping? Most of our over-pairs would c-bet the flop, at least sometimes. If we checked flop with an over-pair, we might donk-lead this turn card, rather than check and allow V to realize his equity by checking back.

Assuming V doesn't think we'd be opening 54s, or any 4x, we're basically repping slow-played over-pairs, some A3s that flopped a straight, and some flush-draws for bluffs. It's pretty thin. A lot of V's are going to come back over the top with their bigger over-pairs here.

If we had the Ad, I could see calling the 1/2 pot turn bet, hoping for an A or Q, or a diamond, so we could bluff on the river. Without the Ad, I think this is just a fold to V's turn barrel.

RIVER - Not having the Ad in our hand is now a good thing. Maybe V was on the nut flush draw. But if so, V is sometimes going to have AKdd that slow-played pre, and just rivered TPTK.

He might also have A5dd - TPTK on the flop, turned the nut flush draw and didn't know how to respond to our x/r, now downgraded to 2nd pair.

It does appear that V has a lot of 66-JJ in his range. But I don't know how likely he is to fold his pairs now, after calling our turn x/r. There isn't that much thick value we can have that takes this line.

We really are only repping AA, KK, AKdd, KQdd, and some A3s. I suppose it's nice to have the Qd in our hand, and to have an A, blocking some of his AKo and A3s combos that might take his line.

The problem is that if he has a hand like A5dd, blocking us from having AKdd, he might not believe we played AA, KK, or KQdd this way. I'm not sure I'd believe it, if I was in V's position.

So he might decide to hero-call with A5dd, and all his pairs from 66 to JJ. And he's never folding any A3, AK, or 4x.

Overall, I think we should just be folding turn, but if we got to the river the way we did, we should probably put this hand into the check-raise / give-up range.

It’s a run-out where I would expect a bet-bet-jam line to get through almost every time. So in that respect I like it. But a check-call, check-raise, jam line…it’s just super goofy, and a lot of players interpret “goofy” to mean “bluff.” Like, are you REALLY checking an overpair on this board *twice*?

Or to put it another way: there are a few value hands you can have that would take your line. 55 and 44 are definitely hands that could take your line. Maybe AA would. Maybe A3 would. But…that’s it. So if V gets to the River with a hand like 88, AGAINST YOUR FANCY LINE, he has to ask himself, “his value range is almost exclusively boats. Will he have 55/44 *twice as often* as he’ll have random bluffs?” I wouldn’t blame him for deciding the answer is no!

Versus: ask yourself which hands of yours take a bet-bet-jam line. You can have all the full house and straight hands still BUT YOU CAN ALSO have all the TT-AA, A4, AK, KQ, KJ, etc hands. Your Villain with 88 simply HAS to fold here, since you have so many more hands in your value range.

So yeah. Keep it simple!

Grunch: I got this far into your post “Literally my first hand of the night and I haven't played with anyone at the table before”.

This is not a good bluff. Good bluff have set ups, reads and reasons to bluff. Hard to do that with it being against 9 unknowns.

After reading OP, I don’t love it. I assume V looked you up here with whatever he had. 88+ probably calls.

TT-JJ, AK KQ KJ... you think these take a bet bet jam line on this runout?

Just x/f flop and show saying "well played flop".


After you x/r turn I don't see V folding river. You need two things to happen: 1) He thought you were bluffing turn and called. 2) He thinks you were bluffing with AK (KQ turn bluff would be pretty special).

Thanks all. I agree that the line doesn't make much sense. My other question was how often are you cbetting this flop but sounds like most are x/f, with some x/c and then giving up if unimproved

Results

Here's the real issue with it. You're saying on the turn that you have it with the check raise. Then the K comes and you shove. You're basically saying you have KK or AA. I mean ta tthis point you have no point but to shove. I'm guessing the other guy is an idiot playing 88 or 77 and calls you anyways. Saturdays are usually garbage poker.

Glad you got this one through. It wasn't a great play, but sometimes bad plays still work. Hope you didn't show your hand before you mucked. Best not taunt the poker gods that way.

If I had to guess, I'd say he probably folded 33, 66-88, or a weak suited ace, probably AXdd, or maybe A5.

My take on c-betting flops as the PFR:

1. Especially at low stakes, many players are c-betting at too high a frequency, no matter what their hand is, the flop texture, stack depth, positions, etc.

2. Because of the above, many players at low stakes are calling flop c-bets at a higher frequency. The logic seems to be, if the PFR is c-betting close to 100%, opponents need to call more.

If you agree with the above, then we need to consider our c-bet frequency. Again, my general thoughts:

A. OOP, we need to have more check-raises and delayed (turn) c-bets. Probably A LOT more, especially against loose / splashy / stab-happy opponents.

B. IP or OOP, if we're going to get called more, and check-raised with some frequency, our flop c-bets need to be stronger value balanced by better bluff candidates. We can't just c-bet close to 100% with our entire range.

Here, before c-betting, this is what I'd consider:

- You have 2 overs and an inside straight draw to a non-nut straight. An A, Q or 3 might NOT make you the best hand. V could have some sets and 2P on this flop. He could also have 66, which would make catching a 3 a complete disaster for us. He could also have some AKo/AQs combos that slow-played pre-flop.

- Only going by our appearance, opponents might think we're aggro, and call us down wider.

- V has almost 2 max buy-ins in front of him. Based only on that, he's either running well, playing well, or both.

- We're OOP. We need to plan our line out in advance. Are we going to triple barrel, or give up at some point, if V keeps calling when we bet? Is this hand the hill we're prepared to die on?

- V is an older gent, who called our pre-flop open, when we're UTG, and we should have a strong range. V has a hand he liked enough to call pre-flop, and this type of V generally doesn't like folding post-flop.

- While the big pocket pairs in our range might want to c-bet this flop for value, one over-pair isn't likely to be best if we bet 3 streets and get called. We'd probably only bet 2 streets for value. So whether we have an over-pair or two over-cards to the board, we need to think about our line. Which two streets are we going to bet? This isn't that wet a flop, so our over-pairs could check here a lot. Likewise, so can our over-cards.

C-betting this flop with AQo is conditional, based on our image, our read on V, table dynamics, stack depth, etc. We can c-bet flop, and barrel turn, but we'll likely be giving up on the river if we take that line.

Alternatively, and I think preferably, we can check flop OOP (something we should be doing a lot, especially on boards that don't favor our range, and against opponents like this), see what V does, and evaluate. If V checks back, we can make a delayed c-bet on the turn. If V bets, we can check-call, and look to play some poker on later streets.

Short version - I don't think we should be c-betting this flop, OOP, with our hand, and our stack depth, against this V.

Great post doc. Really breaks down the considerations here well. And I think emphasizes (in this configuration, but also in general) the importance of planning your hand, which I did not do here

Not sure where you play or how the room is, but Saturday night at 9pm is not the time to start bluffing.

This is prime time for drunk, loose, airball recs that are never folding.

As played, sometimes the river bluff will work because it’s only 1-3 NL. A lot of your opponents will be bad at reading hands and sniffing out bluffs, so they might think you have the king. I don’t like it but I don’t think it’s too bad.

But after your turn bluff there will be a lot of money in the pot which will tempt villain to call even more, and after your turn raise it looks less likely you have AK, KQ, KJ or a worse king because if you had those hands you probably just call the turn (or maybe even fold) like a lot of 1-3 players would.

I think the turn raise is much worse. Villain will have a lot of overpairs and they are unlikely to fold.

Nice it worked out though. Would be a pretty fun way to start the session.

The room I play 9pm Saturday is usually normal. Saturday after 1am the 1/2 game becomes a 1/2/5/20 game.