Hi all,

I heard recently that when we know opponents are bluffing even 1% too much, we should call with all of our bluff-catchers. I was wondering if the inverse is true? I.e. If they are underbluffing by 1%, should we then fold 100% of our bluff catchers?

Yes.

Okay, thanks!

Yes.

Why would the response be to fold all of our bluff catchers, instead of just folding the worst x% of them?

Are you talking about a bluff catcher or value beater? When we say bluff catcher, we are talking about a theoretical hand that only beats bluffs and never beats value. For example, A high when villain ne er bets K high for value.

So if villain is betting pot on the river, we only need to be good 33% of the time to call. If villain has only 25% bluffs, then calling with a bluff catcher is losing money. The only time this wouldn't be the case would be if you have such key blockers that it shifts villain to having enough bluffs, but a lot of the time blockers are not going to play a big enough role.

If you have a value beater hand, like TPGK on a board where you suspect V will value bet worse, then you have to count the bluffs and value combos you beat and figure out if you are good often enough to call. But if they never value bet TPNK, then you can't really call with it, even if you have some other relevant blocker.

Define "under-bluffing by 1%". Is that according to what solvers would do? Few if any humans are bluffing at the same rate solves would, so by that standard, we should never be bluff-catching.

My approach to bluff-catching is that I try not to do it very much, because I know most players are value-heavy on the river or when they jam before the river. We should only be calling for the right reasons.

If V is bluffy, his line is bluffy, we have a hand that beats all his bluffs and preferably a lot of his value, our hand blocks some if not a lot of his thick value, or we have a lot of equity to improve to the best hand, or the bet is small compared to the pot size, we have more reasons to bluff-catch.

But otherwise, I'd think we should be over-folding.

While I mostly agree with this, I find it amusing having just come from the "what should I do with KJ on AJT" thread.

I know, I know. Just let me enjoy having and eating my cake, okay?

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When does villain ever bet K high for value?

If you have TPGK on a board where you suspect villain will value bet worse, then you have a more or less obligatory call as you are beating all bluffs and some value (assuming a reasonable bet size from villain). If they never value bet TPNK you can consider calling with TPGK, but you would of course be bluff catching.

By underbluffing by 1% I mean in comparison to the percentage that villain needs to bluff at in order to make hero indifferent with his bluff-catchers (in a purely theoretical world of course). I agree that most human players do not bluff anywhere near as much as they should and therefore in general over-folding is correct - unless we are playing against a notably bluffy player of course. If we believe we are behind against any type of player then of course we need to calculate pot odds compared to our outs and see if we are getting the right price to call.

If villain is bluffing even 1% more than optimal then, as indicated, the correct adjustment is to call with 100% of your bluff catchers.

There's a whole lot of theory in there.

My opinion is that trying to play GTO works best when we're against opponents who are likewise trying to play GTO. But most of the player pool either isn't trying to play GTO, or if they are, they're mostly falling well short of it.

As a result, I default to trying to find a reasonably good balance between playing theoretically correct while also making logically defensible exploitative adjustments for the player pool as a whole and specific players when I have reasonably good reads on them.

So I tend to over-fold to aggression from the low-stakes player pool as a whole, but bluff-catch in spots that seem logically defensible, which are the spots I described - V is bluffy, or his line is bluffy, or my hand has good properties to bluff catch, or the bet is small, etc.

Sure, I agree.

Overbluffing is very easy to define. If villain bets pot he is giving you 2 to 1. If he has more than 1 bluff for every 2 value hands, they are overbluffing

Essentially never. That's why I am saying if you have A high and you are calling, you beat no value hands, only bluffs. So you have a bluff catcher.


I mean, if you are calling with AQ because they can be value betting AJ and you win, then you aren't really bluff catching.

And you don't always have an obligatory bluff when you beat value if villain is underbluffing or never bluffing. Consider you are in a spot where the worst hand villain bets for value is A8 and you have A9 that beats that, but villain is never bluffing. If villain is betting pot and you beat only 20% of villain's value bets, then you cannot profitably call.

So we need to be thinking a little bit deeper than, "I beat value, I call," when villain is underbluffing.

1. I was responding to your point that "If you have a value beater hand, like TPGK on a board where you suspect V will value bet worse, then you have to count the bluffs and value combos you beat and figure out if you are good often enough to call".

2. Sure, if villain is underbluffing then it's not an obligatory call - I just meant in general and at equilibrium.

3. Yes of course, as above - but Villain needs to be significantly underbluffing for that to be the case. At low stakes I am almost never folding TPGK in these spots.

Understood. My question was to clarify if we were discussing overbluffing according to theory or overbluffing as a live read.

To your point above, are we just looking at all the possible bluffs and value hands in an opponent's range, without regard for any reads, or are we trying to decide if his bluffing frequency is more or less because of his tendencies?

Like, just because we see that V has 5 potential bluffs and 10 potential value hands, not every V is going to find all those bluffs and pull the trigger on them. Some opponents are more capable than others when it comes to finding non natural or non intuitive bluffs.



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