Hand:

$2/5, $1k eff. $10 straddle is on.

UTG+1 limps $10, Hero MP $40 10d8d, folds around, UTG+1 call.

Pot $85. Flop AcJhQh. Villian x, Hero b $25.

Pot $140. Turn 8c. Villian x, Hero b $225, call.

Pot $590. River 5h. Villian x, Hero jam $695.

Line check? *yes, I know "fold pre" is the first critique lol.

Comments/Notes: I think we’ll want to OVR every 910s and K10s (8 combos), all sets (9 combos), and top two-pair (9 combos) on turn. Maybe, just using nut AhXh flush and KcXc is fine then as bluffs? Worth noting is (1) this Villian had been playing pretty fishy and (2) his body language on turn was pretty visibly uncomfortable and he did get clock called on him while tanking on turn. On a tangent, what is the actual use case of bluffing? I've read that bluffing is only +EV insofar that it helps us get paid with our nutted hands. But, time and time again, I've seen absolute rocks get paid off at my local $2/5. Anyway, can someone speak to the theory of bluffing and how we should be incorporating it in our game for low-stakes live poker?

Cheers,
ringring

I wouldn't bluff the river when the flush comes in.

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All in. Life is bleff.

You don't just bluff to get paid off when you have it. You bluff to win money, plain and simple. You don't bluff when villain is expected to call you more often than the amount he needs to call for you to only break even.

Your bluff seems decent, but we would rather have blockers with hearts. Hard to know what you would need here, maybe ThTx to double block straights and flushes, double gutter on the turn.

Cheers,

I am of the belief, and youve seen it yourself, that making huge bluffs at these levels is totally unnecessary and it many cases is a huge punt. When absolute nits get paid off in huge pots when they always have the nuts you know that bluffing is not the way to win. You have to be very selective in who you choose to bluff, throw out theory. As a rule you want to only bluff good players.

You dont want to be trying to bluff out a guy that limp calls UTG. Hes not a good player. Plus, I can say based on experience, the fact that he limps UTG doesnt mean his range is always weak. A lot of players will be limping their entire range here, and if its not their entire range they may only be raising aces and kings. This guy could absolutely have all the sets and 2pair combos here. Some players just literally never raise and they will be way stronger than youd think here when they call.

Now that hes had the clock called on him and he still called hes not going anywhere. We know its a fold pre, but whatever, its not terrible to iso. After he calls flop im giving up. This kind of player will call down with a weak top pair a lot of the time. The way to make money is just value bet him to death, not bluff him.

I got paid off by a guy like this in a huge pot last night by jamming a set on a 4 straight board and the guy called off with 2pair. Just value town them.

I just hate this hand from start to finish - I don't mind the iso pre assuming people are playing tight, but most live games people call very loose. Postflop is just spew - I think you're burning money on these lines long term and creating unnecessary variance. I think in these live games you need to be a little more tactful and "pick your spots" for low variance profit - the players aren't that great so you should be able to scoop up small pots here and there.

I don't mind it apart from preflop. Flop bet feels mandatory and will pick up some immediate folds. Turn and river seems a reasonable follow up as well blocking straights if nothing else. What do people see as the strongest hands we can get to fold here?

Thats the biggest problem with this hand in my opinion. The strongest hand we might be able to fold out could very well be just second pair. Players like this will call it off w A9 because they are incapable of folding top pair and say to themselves "he must be bluffing" with no thought as to why that might be. Just last night i saw this exact player type call with the 9d on a 4 diamond board vs 2 barrels from a reg. I honestly thought the reg had the Ad. People looked at the caller funny and he said, "i have to call, i have a flush".

I mean I would hope to fold out everything besides sets, straights, and flushes. QJo (which he SNAPPED me with btw) is sort of bottom of range lol. In response to you guys:

- Mlark appreciate the input. yep, I just remember reading either in Mathematic of poker or Polk post that bluffing in of itself is not where the large source of our $/EV comes from. So, in a world in which people are inattentive and virtually inelastic, I'd imagine an algo would resort to only having value, idk. And, yeah, he's prob over-calling.

- Yanasuar u funny man. wholly agree with you and yeah, value is the way. just hard when card dead.

- pokerfan yep this line "costs" $1k and it feels so extra. Like I'd rather wait to just have a premium and milk value or run a more sophisticated bluff versus a more competent player

- moxterite id be folding almost all of my two pairs here if roles were reversed and even some sets (still bluff catchers at EOD). In theory, if we want to jam flushes we need to find bluffs.

Ive done the same myself quite a few times when card dead and feel like i need to make something happen trust me. There are so many more things to consider when trying to bluff live vs online. I had my winningest session ever in my life last night, but i still punted off $200 on a bluff that i had the sense to abandon on the river since i was about to leave and decided if my river bet didnt get through i was gonna be sick about throwing another 300 something away.

I bring this up to introduce another layer that is crucial to think about when bluffing live that I completely failed to consider when I attempted my bluff. What happened with the bluff target player recently? Im gonna make another post discussing this.

to win a hand we most likely will lose if we go to showdown. But we only want to do this if our opponent (s) are showing weakness, are not calling stations, and never for our entire stack. Villain calling u both flop & turn is not weakness. As played - check back river imho and cut your losses. He's never folding river, even with the flush coming in imho.

So just no reads no explanation of your table image, just yolo overbet the turn with gutshot + bottom pair on a static board after getting called om the flop? Im not really in the business of getting the fish to fold top pair or better, which is what he has here.

So he flopped 2 pair and just handed you rope to hang yourself. I got a feeling your table image is relevant to this hand.

Reads are everything here. Against an unknown limp/caller, I would never downbet an A-high flop, betting at least 1/2 pot with both my bluffs and my value. There is a ton of weak A-high hands in an unknown's limp/call range, so once he calls flop, I'd be done. Getting unknowns to fold TP is not how money is made in live low stakes.

So then from this default, we absolutely must know your reads on V and his likely reads on you before we know how we might wish to adjust.

When he tank-calls our turn overbet, he's basically decided that he's committed to his hand. Continuing the bluff is just torching money.

Low stakes rec-fish usually put us on AK or a bluff when they're deciding what to do. As a rule of thumb, when a rec-fish continues, it's a safe bet they can beat AK.

So, on the turn, I'd be giving V two pair at a minimum. I'm not in the business of trying to bluff rec-fish off 2P+ just because the run-out looks scary.

As bluffy a line as bet-check-bet seems, I would have preferred it here, when the flush comes in. Checking back turn would have kept both his range and ours wide enough that we could have rivered a flush, and target a lot of his range to fold.

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