Hero on the button ($260) mid 20’s white male. Down a buy in for the session. Most of it lost to V2 in a hand where I paid off his FH on the river when I should have folded. Have not 3 bet yet in this session. Have been aggressive but not out of line yet. V2 and V3 are probably not thinking too much about my image anyway other than I look like some kid to them. V1 is aware however

V1 in EP (covers table) mid 20’s kid. Solid thinking player. Has successfully called down my bluff before with A high when it was pretty clear he had A high at best. Aware that I could be making moves. We played together for 8 hours the previous day (where I was definitely getting out of line, not against him tho) and an hour or two today

V2 in MP (~$450) 40/50’s Native American male. Loose passive recfish. We have some history together, he may not remember this tho. The hand where I paid off his FH (I had trips) was the only significant hand we have played together

V3 in CO (~350) 40/50’s white male. The mark at the table. Extremely loose, playing tons of hands. Calling down a lot. First time playing together

Hero dealt A3o on the button.

V1 opens for $12. V2 and V3 call. I decide to 3bet on the button to $45. V1 thinks for a while and calls, V2 and V3 both call.

I think if I can get through V1 here then there is a very good chance I can take down the pot preflop. If either V2 or V3 call I don’t think that’s a terrible result either. Unfortunately, V1 calls and that starts the cascade. I probably underestimated how strong V1’s EP raising range is since he is a thinking player.

At this point I am prepared to check/give up on most flops unless I smash them

Flop ($180) KK8

Flop checks through. Think it’s very possible someone would check a K here.

Turn ($180) 8

Checks to me again and I decide to shove.

Thoughts?

Seems awful. What are you repping? You expect them to believe you checked back a K then bomb the turn? You have two fish in the hand and are going to try to bluff them? The 3-bet seems wreckless against these guys. When you have loose passive calling station fish in the hand, put your bluffs away and stick to value hands.

What hand would you ever shove here for value?

Bleah! If you have a losing image, it is not a good time to bluff.

The three-bet pre is bad. You have a blocker, but you really don't have any equity to fall back on, if you are going three bet pre light, you want at least a suited ace, or a kicker above 7 or 8 to give pairing it some value. Also, if your V1 is solid and thinking and opened in EP at this table, his range is strong. Strong enough to handle your three bet. As you said, once he calls, the cascade starts.

AP, flop is perfect for you to bet/fold for about $100, imo. All the JJ/QQ hands will turbo muck, and any K's aren't folding later anyway. If you think they won't be believers on a paired board, just give up and check it down/ fold to any bets.

AP, turn shove is spewtastic. What folds to a shove that calls a half/pot bet? Plus, double paired boards and a flop check make them even less likely to believe.

Not a good spot to bluff, and not a good way to do it, imo.

Yeah I don't see anything in your fact patter that makes this a good idea. First the cards, what are you repping? Second, 2 v's are loose passive (aka calling stations) and the other has seen you get out of line recently.

Don't like preflop, just fold. I'd probably make a $60 flop bet, and be done with it. I'd surely not shove the turn tho

3 betting an utg open from a solid player with stations calling was asking for this. Your line is terrible. You could of bet 50 on the flop and gave up. Shoving turn is lighting money on fire. You should only be 3 betting stations for value not with Ax because you have seen it on tv before.

So no one likes the bluff. I wonder if you can post a bluff on 2+2 and have it not look like spew?

In retrospect I wish I had folded pre because of V1. V2 and V3 I am not so sure about. They are calling the initial raise wide so they should have a lot of hands that won't call a 3bet

Didn't think a flop bet was profitable with ~psb left, 3 other players a FD and possibility of a slowplayed K. V1 is tricky like that, V3 hesitated which I didn't like

The turn was interesting because I think there is some chance I have the best hand when it checks to me twice here. But there are a lot of river cards that could give someone else a better hand (22 flush cards + 8 other 9,T,J,Q's, tho some of these would be in V's hands which reduces the number). I don't expect any of these hands to be able to call a turn bet, and I think I can get Ax off chops (a bet for protection like the cotm). In the moment I went with a shove to put max pressure and prevent anyone from heroing with like 99-QQ, but 100 probably does the same thing.

Does it really matter what I am repping to V2 or V3? I expect them to think big bet = big hand and only call me down with a K or an 8 here. V1 could put it together but if he wants to call with 99-QQ or an Ax he has to worry about V2 or V3 having the FH

anyways, results:

I'll admit there's some truth to this. Most bluffs do tend to get heavily criticized on here. I bet a lot of mine would. I think a lot of the reason is that bluffs tend to be highly based on the specific player and my table image at the time, things that are hard to convey in a hand history. However I think there's some elements to a good bluff, and you miss them here.

1. Your opponents have to be able to fold decent hands. i.e. don't bluff a calling station. You've described two of the players as fishy. That alone doesn't mean much, because I have seen many players I consider fish that can still lay down decent hands, they just have plenty of other leaks. However a common theme among fish is they tend to call too much.

2. They have to believe you would play the hand you are representing in the way you are playing it. In this hand you look full of it. You are repping a monster, but no semi-thinking player would really believe you played a monster this way. Your hand looks like a bluff, and it is. You likely ran into the bottom of their ranges, and at best you bet them off a chop. You may not realize this, but your bet likely falls into the "betting for protection" category in this weeks COTM. When it checks to you OTT many of the hands in their ranges include stuff like QJ, that you can't afford to give a free look at a 6 outer too. So your bet is +ev, even though they made the correct fold. However you didn't need to shove. You would have been better off betting $75-$100 and gotten the same result, except you may have lost less when you run into a hand like TT that isn't folding. Plus it's more believable IMO, because you should be trying to sucker them in if you had AK here, not blow them out with a shove. I would believe that someone may check back a monster OTF then bet smallish OTT. I don't believe that they would then over-shove the turn for value.

Here's an example of a similar bad bluff that was tried on me recently.

Mega calling station on my right limps in the CO, I raise to $12 from the BTN with T8dd. BB who is an OK player calls, fish calls. Flop comes JJ7r. I'm not going to bluff the CO, so I check back. Turn 7. Checked around again. River 8. Checks to me. I elect to bet $15 because I almost certainly have everyone beat, and CO is bad enough to call with A high. BB elects to shove his remaining $90. He is right in that my range is not very strong, I don't check back a J or 7 twice. He likely put me on a weak hand. He is expecting me to believe that he checked a J or 7 three times. I'm never going to believe he would play any of those hands that way. This is clearly a bluff. If I had K high I may still call here. In this case he never even showed his hand.

This advice handles this problem.

As I said above. Glad that you won, but you risked way more than you had to and made calls more likely with the shove than they would have been with a value bet sizing.

Grunch

Please state the stakes you're playing at the beginning of the post, and usually again before the hand is described.

It's good to know that you haven't 3bet yet this session, but how long is the session at this point? And how long have each of the Villains been at the table? This stuff matters...

Good reads on V1, but you don't tell is anything about his playing style besides that time he Hero called you with A high. Is he a lag? Tag? LAG from LP? His EP opening range? Lots of thinking V's will hero call, but this tells us little about his PF ranges.

A3o is a trash hand. Unless these are the types of players you can bully, and they're not, this is a clear cut PF fold. Depending on table dynamics you may be even be deep enough to call PF if you A3 was suited. Although I may still make the bad PF call with A3s in the heat of the moment at 100+ BBs.

Your PF 3bet is likely better than a call, but this depends a lot on V1's EP opening range (which we know nothing about) and the post flop tendencies of the 2 callers (which seems to sticky to 3bet light). This looks like spew to me unless you're making a move with a super nitty image and V1 is a LAG. Also you 3 bet sizing is too small considering 2 players called. If you had an ultra prem hand I'd be ok with it as a high variance value play. But as a bluff it sucks. Make it like $60 if you insist on this line.

OTF I think you need to continue with your line, even though I hate the previous action. Cbet. I know you can't really get called by worse except for high FDs. But not using your beating initiative, which is the only good thing you have going in this hand, is a waste.

OTT, I check. We almost certainly can't get called by worse and if you really had a hand you would have most certainly bet the flop to charge draws. Just check it and hope you chop with ace high.

Swan,
You were right to think that you were most likely ahead OTT after being checked to twice, but you need to understand the huge difference between being ahead of their ranges, and being ahead of their calling ranges.
Every time I want to bet I ask myself what hands will call that are worse for these particular Villains. Then I ask myself what hands are better that will call my bet. The numbers have to add up. Despite the fact that you won the hand, and cheered about it on the internet, I think you know you f*cked up and got lucky. Otherwise you wouldn't have posted it here. Good for you for winning, but it would be in your best interest to not be one of the countless players that bases the quality of their decisions on the results of a hand, you should rather chose to focus on the quality of your decision-making process.

Yea I agree, so many things that are difficult to describe without stating them as fact. V2 and V3 did not look interested in the hand on the turn, but if I say this, there is no discussion. I could easily be wrong, but no one can really comment on it. Maybe that makes this a bad hand to discuss?

Didn't post everything for brevity, but to answer some of your questions this is 1/2. Session is going for 2 hours and all v's have been there since I got there (additional history with some of them). V1 is tricky, I don't know how I would classify him LAG vs. TAG. I remember him opening to 6 with A6s and 8 with KQs from EP before. Don't remember seeing a $12 open. I'm assuming it could be any reasonable opening hand from a thinking player (any pair,AK,AQ,sc's,etc.) probably weighted towards the better hands with the large raise, but he is tricky so not discounting the other possibilities.

I posted the hand because I honestly was not sure about it and wanted some feedback. Thanks. Not sure about some of your comments tho, I didn't want any callers, this was a bluff. I know not to be results oriented


I agree with you that a 1/2 psb does the same thing as a shove. Reasoning that a bet size means weak/strong just by itself seems like circular/leveling logic to me. A shove could be a bluff to put a lot of pressure on an opponent or it could be an attempt to get max value with the nuts (tho on this case the nuts could get value over 2 streets). Just like a 1/2 psb could be to suck them in for value or a cheap attempt at a bluff. How do you settle on one or the other?

It's more about how Vs perceive it, than about which is actually more likely for you. Most Vs perceive an overbet shove as weighted more towards bluffs because" if he really had it, he'd want a call."

Therefore, we can shove more often for value than we might think and V-bet size.our bluffs a bit.more, which saves us a ton when they don't work without making them work less often.