Game was 6 handed, I had just sat down.

UTG straddles

Folds to me in the BB with KQ

I raise to 16

Straddle calls

Flop 983

I bet 20, straddle calls

Turn 10

I decide to check call the turn and reevaluate on the river w my straight and flush draws.

I check, straddle bets $20 (lol)

I call

River A

Pot is approx 100

I lead into raiser for $65

He tanks, and calls.

Shows:




About 20 hands later

I am UTG with AK

I raise to 11

Folded to SB who calls 11

Flop QJ6

SB Checks

I fire 15, SB calls

Turn is a 4

SB checks

I fire $40

SB hesitates, and calls.

River is a 3

SB checks

I shove my last $126


SB tanks, and calls.

Shows:




Spewy bluffs? Correct moves? Confidence is shot at the moment. Am I being results oriented or was making these type of plays ok?


Please comment before reading the spoilers, thank you.

I like hand one a lot more then hand 2. He is never folding after calling the flop and turn in hand two.

Hand one I like it becaues it will fold almost all of his one pair hands which should make up a decent % of his range.

TBH, almost not necessary to read any further than "1/2, bluffs."

You need to know the villains well before you think about river bluffing. Since you didn't give any reads, I'm going to guess you didn't have that kind of read.

hand 1:
c-bet more on flop, give up on turn though call once he prices you in like that
i think i'd just c/f river though we CAN rep that we called turn with the naked Ah then spiked top pair its just these ******s at 1/2 don't fold here so its better to just take them to value city when you actually have it here unless you have a read that villain can fold hands

i guess if you really want to rep a hand c/r turn is probably a better line since everything just got there and villain is likely to have some kind of one pair hand and we have outs if called

hand 2:
again c-bet more otf and once you're called on that board you should probably just check back turn and take a free card since you have like 10 outs to what will likely give you the best hand

qjx just isnt a good board to barrel at

Hand 1 I like because there's a lot he can fold on the river.

Hand 2, valiant effort, but a QJx board is a difficult one to bluff, it hits the range of a lot of players pretty hard. In this particular example, your opponent couldn't get off a marginal hand. He probably should have.

i think six handed you will get called light quite often.

You are definitely getting called in hand 2 short of a busted draw, and I think you get called with any 9 or T in hand 1.

Hand 1 is well played IMO, villain prob folds all his 1 pair hands. Hand 2 is spewy, the only hands that fold are the ones u have beat (KT,9T) because they'll just call cuz they put u on AK.

This is why (c-bets aside) I almost never bluff at 1/2.

Interesting hands.

When playing poker, among other things, we should be studying our villains so as to fine a weaknesses that might enable us to stack them, or drain their stack.

So, what type of villains are you playing with? Your villains are willing to call PF raises with rags OOP. Then having done that, they are willing to call three barrels despite scare cards coming.

Given this it seems like the best plan for winning their chips is to wait for strong hands and value town them. (Not triple barrel bluff them).

hand 1 is fine, but a c/r would be sexy here especially after such a weak bet. if Vil has a decent sized stack a c/r would have much more fold equity.

hand 2 like others have said is hard especially after people have seen ur first hand. its a pretty dry board.

+1

Hand 1: I think you rep a higher two-pair or small flush pretty well, but you have to remember that this is 1-2 and players don't like folding, and don't know why they're supposed to fold. Also, he could take this line with the Ah with a pair or straight draw or something... probably isn't folding that either.

Hand 2: I prefer to check back the turn as I don't think you're folding out a ton of hands. As played, check back river. If he made it to the river, he's probably not folding to a shove and there are a few combos of hands you have beat. K10ss 910ss K9dd 98dd A10dd something like that.

This.

I can't tell you how rarely I bother to bluff any more. Once in a great while I'll pick a spot. It's called 90 percent of the time by anything.

Pretty much what people said in regards to 1-2. My general thoughts about the bluffs assuming the people were good.

- #1. I don't like it. Against a decent player, anything that called the flop bet got something on the turn. There are a lot of straights/flushes/two pairs in the range of someone who calls the flop with that turn. The ace of spades on the river has no real effect as a scare card given that range.

- #2. I like this one more. At least you told a consistent story from start to finish. Just a matter of if you think your opponent is good enough to fold Qx/AJ here.

In terms of cons to #2:

I'm too lazy to check positions to see if this is against the same villain. If so, the shove is terrible. If this villain was present for the first hand, I wouldn't shove either. The other consideration is that we actually have showdown value here.

Hand 1 I play the same way until the river, where I give up (folding to any bet). Villain called a $20 bet on the flop and the turn brought like all sorts of draws in. If he has a single pair, the A might scare him, but's he's probably going to call cuz that's what people do; if he has anything better than a pair (which on this board he could easily have), then he's insta-calling.

Hand two I play preflop and flop the same way. I check the turn. We have outs if we're behind (which we most likely are given the flop call on this board). If villain happens to be on a draw, there's not too much harm giving a free card since it's probably unlikely he'll bluff a blank river (and we'll usually take the pot with A high). As played, I don't three barrel.

I haven't put in too many hours at live small steaks NL. But I've learned people like to call. So I usually bet on big streets when I have a bigger hand than them, and usually don't bet when I have nothing. Probably exploitable to those paying attention, but they're usually too busy calling to be paying attention.

So spew in both cases on the bigger streets, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I don't think bluffing is a problem olr should be eliminated just because it's "1/2" or a "home game" or "low stakes with fish" or whatever other phrasing people use in these bluff threads. There are spots for it and it can be effective. Your arsenal has to include stuff other than set-mining. Theoretically his AcKc bluff is quite fine since there's no way his opponent should call three streets with that hand (not to mention Mercury backs into the winner often with 10 outs twice against naked Qx)

that is why we don't bluff at 1/2 barring really good spots or reads on villains.

Seemed like a fine spot to me.

So what should we do, sit and wait for the nuts all night? Nice and creative.

Well, yes, if villains dictate that we need to have a better hand every time, that is what we wait for.

Villain one apparently was a calling station. I found this out after the hand from other players.

Villain 2 in hand 2 was a solid player who made a smart ass comment about me not cbetting a flop earlier in the game.

He said "when an ace comes on the flop and you are the PFR you have to cbet..."

I said "An ace is only a small part of my button raising range... so its hard to rep"

He then made smart ass comments for the next 10 minutes regarding his range and what fell under what, laughing after each comment. He honestly acted offended or threatened by me and I believe him calling me down was more of a result of having a target on me rather than a solid read.

I appreciate the input guys. I had a much better night tonight (+600) and I picked my spots much better.

Getting involved in these type of conversations is seriously -life EV. It also sound that he then outplayed you by correctly figuring you were more likely to three barrel air cause the pair of you were in a dick waving contest.

I typically avoid those situations... not sure why I made a comment honestly.

Live and learn.

There's nothing wrong with commenting, you don't have to apologize for it, it could have easily ended up working to your advantage. The guy targeted you, lovely, maybe next time he targets you when you flop a house

I would rather you raise the turn in hand one and then re-eval the river to whether a bluff can be pulled off. Your flat call on the turn then desperation bet on the river is so typical of a bluff, he has a very easy call.

I don't mind hand 2 vs. certain opponents, but due to results it looks like the villian is quite fishy. A player you want to vbet not bluff.

First is atrocious. You can check / call the turn I guess (it's probably neutral EV to do so), but wtf are you repping on the river, only a really trickily played flush? From his bet size, he'll rarely have a flush on the turn; so if you want to make a play, the turn is the street it should be on.

Second isn't as bad as the first, but is still blind 3 barreling. What do you think he called the flop AND turn with that should be folding the river?