I am beginning to implement block betting into my game, and I was wondering how I should adjust our strategy when facing a villain who will raise block bets at an abnormally high frequency (60-80% rather than 20%). Would I:

1. Block bet at a lower frequency?
2. Mix more strong value hands into our block betting range?
3. Call down V's raise at a higher frequency with weaker hands (call down lighter)?
4. Not block bet at all (versus this specific player)?

Curious what people's thoughts are on this. Thanks!

Obviously, if you are getting raised 80% you aren't block betting. You are inducing. If he's raising so much, it's probably because he has a bet-size tell on you and you are basically always bet/folding when you bet that size. So either stop doing one or the other, or mix in both.

I find block betting to be pretty useless against thinking V's, tbh.

If villain is just raising your bets because they are too aggro then skip blocking bets entirely, bet to induce raises when you have a big hand.
If villain is good then they probably have some read. In that case you need to look at your sizing to insure that it's big enough that it could be a value bet and still small enough to save you money when your beat. Hero also needs to pick situations for blocking bets carefully and probably make fewer. You have to be in a situation where you can credibly be betting river for value and villain likely has a meh made hand or air, and you can't blocking bet all of them.

Agree with Garick and QuadJ. Suspect you're just using a strategy CCB in most situations when you have have some sort of mediocre hand. Normally if you are strong, you end up raising somewhere before the river. I'd just take it out of you tool box against this villain for now.

Like other posters have said, its likely villain is exploiting your block-bet because you are playing incorrect strategies other streets and your overall blockbet range is too weak (and/or blockbet, call raise frequency is too low)

Hero will often want to block bet with a nut advantage, making it risky for villain to raise when he may be called or re-raised.

Hero may also be blockbetting the wrong textures. You may consider limited the textures you use a block bet on until you gain a better understanding of the core principles.


Block-bets are a relatively advanced concept that can increase your win-rate if used correctly, but are not necessary for live games.

I think you should really include at least one example, because idk if you're even correctly implementing blocker bets if they're getting raised all those times.

um just call every time he raises. also unless you're overbetting or something i dont see any point to use a normal sized bet if he's just going to raise your block every time

You’re trying to solve something when you’re likely misapplying the concept in the first place.

The whole idea of blocking bet is to attack what would be the weaker part of his range while repping a potentially strong part of yours. If you’re never correctly identifying his range and never repping a strong part of your own, your bets will look as transparent as they come.

Are you block betting in a situation where your range is perceived to be very weak due to actions on earlier streets? It could be the case that you're not implementing block bets in the correct scenarios. Some sample hand histories would help.

Typically the purpose of a block bet is to buy a cheap showdown from OOP with medium strength hands on the river. For balance you can also blockbet some nutted hands that block villain's value (i.e., blocking with top set on a dry K-hi board could make sense, as you block all the top-pair hands that would call a larger bet, and you induce raises from worse two pair).

Have you ever called one of his river raises to see what hands he's raising with?

Once you figure out what hands he's raising you with, you can try to craft a counter-exploit strategy.

If you have a decent sample size and high confidence in your 60-80% raise frequency then he’s way overbluffing and you can counter by block betting with most of your medium-to-strong hands (with no bluffs) and then continue vs the raise 100% of the time.

One of the common mistakes I see in live poker is a player block betting into a polarized range. If you are block betting by definition your range will consist of a lot of medium strength hands (like second pair or weak top pair). If Villain has taken a line that gives him a lot of strong or weak hands by the river, then he is correct to respond to your block bet by folding some of his air and raising a mix of strong hands (TPGK+) and some air (for balance) at a fairly high frequency.

For a block bet to be correct, you need to be betting a merged range (eg including some hands as strong as top pair) and you also need the opponent to have a merged range getting to the river so that your block can be called by worse at least some of the time (and block a larger bet from his better top pair hands).

This is why I am concerned you may be blocking in the wrong scenarios…or else, if your opponents range is in fact merged and you can identify many missed draws in his range, then he may just be way overbluffing, in which case I would start to deviate by calling his raises a lot.

It depends on the spot. I think the classic block bet spot is like 1/3 pot on the river out of position where turn went check, check.

Overall vs this specific player, assuming the opponent is raising you with bluffs a decent amount, I would block bet less, block bet with stronger hands looking to bet call, block bet more with traps looking to 3bet, and be a bit polar with some (though not many since your bet size is small) block bet 3bet bluffs. But these situations should be fairly rare. Your opponent's range should be such that he can't call a lot of big bets and he has very few nutted hands

You want to lead out when you know you'll be raised? You should only do that with hands you think are ahead or likely to be ahead on the river.

Many poker minds no longer advise block betting, in some ways its an outdated strategy. It can be exploitable. Check call is an option...........

Fixed it for you.

Sounds like you get into block betting situations often? Are you over evaluating bluff catchers as value hands?

Thank you everyone for the informative replies. I do not have an example as this was a hypothetical question. When I have seen other players use a block bet size OOP on the river, I have seen a lot of exploitative raises in response (especially from aggressive players). I understand that the hands I have observed isn't a large enough sample size to influence my overall strategy, but it made me think about how to formulate a counter strategy vs players who will interpret a block bet sizing as a situation where they should try and overbluff.

One can certainly use a block bet size with a thick value hand in order to induce a raise.