1/2- table


UTG is 30s white guy. Rec player but seems competent. Won a nice pot after raising 88 in MP pf and flopping a set. Got paid off. Thinking player IMO. TAG tendencies but I've only played with him for an hour.

Hero has a TAG image. 3 bet 2-3 stupid small opens ($4-6) and have taken down a few pots without showdown. Image should be fine maybe a little Agro.

Eff stacks $380 and I'm covered

Pre flop:

UTG opens $12. 3 callers to hero who calls 56hh in CO. One of the blinds call.

Flop ($65): Qx5x2h

UTG bets $30. Folds to hero who thinks for a bit and dealer starts to push pot missing that I have cards. I alert her and then call planning to raise any 5,6, or heart OTT.

Turn ($125): 9h

UTG bets $50
Hero raises to $140
UTG instacalls

River ($405)
UTG checks
Hero gives up

Please comment on all streets. This hand is very uncommon for me. As the title says this is the first bluff spot I've picked in about 15 hrs of play. Was it a good spot? Thanks!

How big is your stack?

What was the river card?

Sorry river was off suit 10. I edited stack in. I had $380 and was covered.

If V really is a thinking player then I would just fold the flop.

He just cbet into 5! opponents from OOP. Its unlikely he's weak here.

Really don't even like the call pre. You sure you're a nit? As played calling with middle pair no kicker and only back door draws flop is a fold to. You should think about what you are trying to rep and what you think Villan will fold. Especially when you end up giving up on the river. The insta call is never a monster, more likely a top pair type hand. You needed to empty the clip or just fold flop IMO.

SCs are really better with initiative IP...

preflop: may or may not be a leak, depending on table, callers ahead help your IO. i'd personally just drop it here (results oriented ldo)

flop: when an UTG raiser bets into 4 ppl he's usually got a piece. your one pair is not often good. although you obviously have lots of good turn cards (5,6,3,4,H) most of them (2/3 of them or so) dont give you a made hand. its a cheap float though, and you are deep enough that its probably OK to call if you think he'll pay two pair AND you can barrel him off with a heart. the second part of this assumption seems questionable

turn: obviously good for your showdown equity, but clearly not so much for your fold equity in this spot. what are you repping? no draws came in. set of 9s? or slowplayed set from the flop? a TAG UTG raiser is not gonna pitch a lot of his hands here. i prefer to see the last card for $50: we probably have any H and five remaining 5s and 6s. you are getting 175/50 or sufficient odds to chase here. because we are IP we always have last say on money going in on the river.

river: good check. i dont think he's folding a lot of his turn continuation range for this price

AP, flatting turn also leaves us more ammo + fold equity on river

also, dont give results so quick!

Lol yeah we can lock this one up. I played it horribly.

I called p/f because the 3 callers before me were horrible players with decent stacks. It is out of character for me but it was just so juicy looking with so many bad players in.

And if you are conceding that he is strong here and turning your pair strictly into a bluff to move him off his hand, then I would want 3 things that aren't true here.

1. Preferably, you would be the only 2 players left in the hand. One of the blinds is still behind you.

2. I would deffinately need proof that he can lay down TPTK or overpair type hands if put under enough pressure. Sounds like you haven't known him to do this.

3. I would like a wetter board. As played, the only hand you are repping is a set. Tough to sell that specific of a story. If it was a wet board there would be a lot of turn cards that would complete potential draws and allow you to rep a wider range of strong hands.

This is why I would fold the flop. But as played, if you insist on trying this bluff you should be prepared to fire the turn AND river. I don't think the turn raise by itself has much of a chance to win based on how strong I think he is. So the bluff portion of the semibluff is almost useless. Unless you make that bluff on the river when you miss. That would put a lot of pressure on him, But I still don't think that will get nearly enough folds to be profitable.

Everything about this bluff and spot is fine

Just one question. Can he fold one pair here? Do we know? You seem to have broad inferences about utg such as he is a reg and fairly competent. But when have you seen him fold? Do you know if he is a leaky reg who likes to call one street to aggression but will fold river?

Vs an unknown, presumably by default obviously bad reg, this is a bad idea because he had a strong hand (=top pair+) and he does not fold one pair. Otherwise I like the spot and when I am playing competent I would not put you on a float 5 way and fold very premium holdings here

Pre is fine with the deep stacks but fold OOP. Fold flop always. Turn is a standard flat. Id only raise against players who have been shown to fold overpairs/tptk often to aggression.

Don't think this was a terrible spot to bluff, since there really isn't much on this board. Your line looks somewhat like a set, and a tight player might fold top pair or an overpair here.

Instacall on the turn usually means two things - 1) he never considered folding to your raise and 2) he never considered shoving over your raise.

T on the river is essentially a blank, since i don't think this guy is going to consider you just hit a gutshot after that big raise. Based on your turn raise getting called, i think your fold equity is low.

He donked into 4 players on the flop, which prob represents a weak/middling made hand. If you fire the river, I think he calls, and is likely to show down AA-KK, AQ or KQ.

This is a fold pre and a fold on the flop. We just don't have enough equity to bother bluffing here imo.

I don't think we should bluff in these random "okay I haven't bluffed in a while now so it's time" spots. Whenever I do that (and I do it about once every couple of sessions) it never turns out right.

I look for a couple things when I'm bluffing:

1) We need a "target hand" (well, a hand type) that we can fold out

2) That "target hand" needs to be a large part of our opponent's range. His most likely holding.

3) Our opponent can fold.

This works whether we are cbetting or triple barreling. If we have JT and the flop comes Q86, we should bet because we can fold target hands like: AK, AJ, KJ, KT to fold. If I have AK I'm a little less likely to cbet this board because we are beating those hands. (This is more in theory though...I pretty much cbet that board heads up 100%)

So yeah, imo the problem with our bluff here is that we aren't targeting anything specific.

Thanks everyone for the comments. I've learned a few things today. I'm only 160 hrs into playing seriously and have played and run well IMO. I've won $30/hr in this sample and have only made big moves about 3 times. I'm 1/3 IIRC. I'll list some things I learned/was reminded of today after a bad session.

1) Don't go to the casino if you don't feel like playing. This is my 3rd day in a row and I just wasn't feeling up to it, but it's Friday night and all the fish come out so I forced myself into going. Wasn't in the right mindset from the beginning and in NL one misstep can cost you.

2) Don't feel entitled to all the fishies money. This table was juicy with like 6 fish with full stacks. I was witnessing some fishy stuff and my mouth was watering. I picked up AA once and KK twice withing the first hour but didn't get action and I got impatient.

3) Don't switch plans on a hand midstream. I DO think the pf call was correct. There's 3 certified bad players calling a strong UTG range before me, I'm in the CO and the blinds are tight/passive. My original plan was to flop huge against a strong UTG range 190 bbs deep in a big pot. The key to this plan was I believed UTG was strong and would pay me off if I hit. The other 3 deepish bad players in before me only added possible value. The problem was that I went from thinking UTG would pay me off to trying to push him off the very hands I was looking to stack on a big flop . He's either the type of player who I can stack in which case the pf call is fine or he's not in which case the bluff is bad.

4) You can make very good money at 1/2 without ever bluffing. No need to look for spots, they will come up naturally once in a while and if you're on your A game you will notice them and act accordingly.

RESULTS:

Villain flipped QThh and at least a heart didn't fall! I did dust off another buy-in on QQ<KK against a different spewy fish though

Grunch,
3bet or fold PF
Fold flop.
As played, C/R larger OTT.
I give up on the river but an AI has possibilities.

A few things here that should help you in the future:
1) pre flop is fine but you have to be pretty sure you will stack someone with top pair almost always when you hit two pairs+ (so you need really bad players or a guy who raises UTG with big pairs only and can't fold). $200 eff I would fold pre, generally you want to win 30x your investment and are after the PFR.
2) you will only make good money long term without bluffing if you're at a table full of idiot stations. At a lot of tables people may be loose pre and on flop but tighten up a ton on turn, etc or they're a bunch of nits. In this case you're giving up a Ton of value and your winrate will be marginal +ev.
3) learn to play 30 to 20 vpip (and occasionally higher or lower than those numbers) depending on table. This is much harder than you think but this will help your winrate sooooo much long term. 20 vpip means playing only 6 hands an hour when dealt 30 hands an hour so you can see why most players play 50 to 80% of their hands dealt. Folding is booorrrring. So many people think its ok to limp 87o,96s, or even ATo UTG or K3s on btn against multiple limps but it's not because you won't hit often enough and when you do, most villains have a weak range anyways because its a limped pot and they're playing crappy cards. Each limp is often slightly -ev but they add up quickly
4) learn to Minimize tilt to the point where it's almost nonexistent. Try to play your A game always. This is a big key in maximizing win rate.
5) learn to thin value bet like crazy. This not only gets you max value from every hand, it can also tilt people when they call you with a second best hand. On top of that, some people will adjust by folding more to you so you can bluff them even more. Example: you have KT hu on T842A rainbow against a very loose station. Bet three streets all day

Preflop is fine with relative position and relatively deep stacks. Flop call is meh, prefer to be in position, but it's not a huge bet (I'm giving up on most turns without added equity though if he continues). Turn checkraise is ok but what are we repping that wouldn't checkraise the flop (basically 55/22 and heart draws). I think if we're going to take this line we have to play it strong and ship river, BUT, the biggest key to this play is knowing whether V can fold OTR with AQ/KK/AA. The biggest problem with these bluffs is that a lot of the time we get called (although it depends on the venue and the villains obviously). I learnt my lesson a couple of years ago:

Family pot I limp otb with 34cc, flop is 25Tcc. V leads for 20, I raise to 60 he calls. Turn is a Ko V checks I bet 95 he calls. River is an 8o V checks I bet 205 he shrugs and calls with 89cc.

So basically I want to see whether V will make a big hero fold against me (when I have it) or against other players, or if he will always level himself into calling. I'm not talking about small pots on the flop or turn, but on the river when it is pretty obvious what he has and he is put to the test. Once we have established his tendencies, then we can start to make some moves.

Also, I find having a nit image is best for taking down small pots otf and ott, but it's very tough at 1/2 to get V off a hand they like no matter what they think of you.

Grunching: I would like the turn bluff a lot more if a third heart came, you had a blocker, and you had a confident read that he would fold an overpair. I realize that I'm inventing a spot here, but 1) Your opponent has to see the hand that you're telling him you have and 2) he has to be disciplined enough to fold. As played, I think I give up on the river as well. I don't see any LLSNL player folding to a 1/4 PSB on the river after making it this far.

Side note: if you had a set here, would you be confident in stacking this guy?