This is a reason, but I wouldn't say it's the main one.

Every time we bet with a perfectly polarized, balanced range (bluffs always lose, value bets always win), we effectively win the pot. In this hand if the board bricks out we have 18 value combos on the river, and by betting half pot we offer our opponent 3:1, so we need to have one bluff combo for every three value combos to make villain indifferent to calling with a bluffcatcher. We can bet the river with 24 total combos, 18 value and 6 bluffs.

On the turn we will also bet half pot offering the opponent 3:1. He needs to be able to win 25% of the time to make a breakeven call. Since he always wins when we check the river, and loses when we bet the river with a balanced range, we can add some turn bluffs which will give up on the river. 8 additional combos can be bluffed on the turn which will give up on the river, so we end up betting the river (and winning) 75% of the time.

The same idea can be applied to the flop. We can add 32/3 ~= 11 flop bluff combos which will give up on the turn. This allows us to bet 18 value combos on the flop and 25 bluff combos.

This isn't the whole story, though, because our bluffs have significant equity when called and our value bets will rarely be outdrawn, so we can actually bluff even more often on the flop. IDK exactly how much more often, but we can see that there is a cap on how much we can bluff. If we bet half-pot on the flop, then the opponent's JJ or whatever can jam 3.5 PSBs to win 1.5 PSBs and our range has to be about 34.5% value to make this jam breakeven. Therefore, I would guess that having 34 bluff combos on the flop for our 18 value combos is about optimal, and when we bet the flop with this range a hand like JJ will be close to indifferent between calling, folding and jamming. Does this seem reasonable?

C'mon man

"So Villain is a late 20's early 30's black guy who I don't really know. I think I've played with him before but I can't recall how good he is. I think he's at least competent though. Covers my $1.4k. 4 additional callers for $25.00"

You will be OOP on all subsequent streets. You will be getting ~5.25:1 on your money, after the rake, if you call.

It's a shame they don't have a session logger that tracks your Ev from each seat.

So yea, "C'mon man!" fold....

Anyone who played enough on Pokerstars to download 100k hands into pokertracker knows the power of position.

I'm not good enough to expect long-term +Ev playing this hand OOP in this situation. There are also plays I wouldn't make on the golf course that pros would without thinkin' twice.

Thanks, good in depth explanation. Its good to know there are some people in llsnl who are well versed im game theory. Also, im glad you used 1/2psb instead of full psb like i used, more applicable to real world.


As to your last point, im not 100% sure about, it is a good question though. Hopefully somebody more qualified can respond

Getting 5:1 pre this should never be a fold preflop. Since we have AQo, im much more inclined to 3!. The only time I would favor calling or possibly folding is if villian had sizing tells preflop. If so, we can call and look to hit a monster. If an A or Q falls we dont need to get stacked

I don't think that is the right question to be asking. The right question is "should we have any bluffs OOP vs. a readless opponent nearly 300 BB's deep with an RIO hand in what will amount to a roughly ~3x SPR pot?"

I would say the answer is no.

We don't know anything about UTG's opening/continuing range so we can't really make any arguments for or against.

My point was just looking at a hand like AQo and recognizing it's squeeze value irrespective of the specific spot is a slippery slope where before you know it you've got all of the KQo, AJo and KJo hands in there because they fit the same general criteria for what you are looking to accomplish. I used to 3! all of the trouble hands as often as I could and felt like a boss. It works until it doesn't.

Same as before, we know nothing about villain's opening/continuing range and we are simply throwing our self into the gulag of an unnecessary high variance spot deep and OOP relying on nothing more than population reads and hypothetical ifs and buts.

Yes under ideal conditions where either villain opens too wide and has a high fold-to-3bet % or opens too wide and defends too wide in a fit-or-fold manner than AQo is a great hand to squeeze with pre here.

The problem is we have no information to act on and simply looking at our hand, position and dead money out there and thinking "Wow this is a slam dunk squeeze!" is taking too high level a view of a spot that requires much more information to accurately assess.

If you feel like gambling for 300 bigs then sure, go ahead and squeeze and blame "negative variance" when it doesn't work out in your favor. Like most things in poker this comes down to a range assessment and I'm not in the business of gambling high variance spots when deep and informationless.

I understand this but I don't quite see the relevance. Not all bluff combos are created equally and a bluff combo that turns into a "value combo" may very well still be inferior to villain's holding. If we want bluff combos that can turn into value combos vs. a tight continuing range we shouldn't be squeezing with RIO hands like AQo, but rather SC type hands that provide board coverage.

Broader point remains why do we need to take such a theoretical view to a readless spot? Why do we *NEED* any bluffs here in *THIS SPECIFIC SPOT*?

Best poker analogy I've ever seen, please tell me this is an original?

Have to agree with the above is just a very high variance spot if you got the bank roll and can play good post flop poker OOP with little reads then sure why
3 bet and see what happens
Sent from my HTC 2PST1 using 2+2 Forums

We don't. And we will never ever play long enough with this specific opponent for it to matter.

In a lot of ways, bluffing has RIO in LIVE poker because if we lose the pot than our opponents will leave the game before we get to play enough hands where similar spots will come up where balance actually matters.