Do you think I should put some river bluffs into my game? In my main cardroom, people bluff the river too often. I make most of my money calling their bluffs. I rarely bluff the river myself. I’ve learned to bluff the flop and turn with hands that have equity. I put some 3bet and 4bet light bluffs into my preflop game. Spots in my game to bluff the river are few because players love to go to showdown. But I'm sure I missed value not bluffing. Here's what I found out for free on the internet:

Consider a river bluff live when:

• Hero can get better hands to fold.

• V opened pre but checked the turn or river.

• Hero has a tight image.

• V has a fold button.

• Hero’s perceived range hit the run out (e.g. V bet pre, hero called, run out is 4c7c9h6s2c).

• Hero’s hand lacks showdown value (TT on a 2c2s7s7dAs run out).

Online strategy pros says bluff the river when you meet the “minimum defense frequency.” Bluff the river with a 2/3 pot bet if V folds at least 40 percent of the time (hero bets 33 into a 50 pot=33/(50+33)=.397). Consider bluffing the river against a V with a “went-to-showdown” below 22 percent. Never bluff against a V with a wtsd above 28 percent.

Any other ideas about when to bluff the river?

I generally play 1/2 and 1/3, and not much of my money comes from bluffs.

Most of my bluffs are c-bets, or semi-bluffs where I have some equity. Given you can't do either on the river, I generally only restrict my river bluffs to when I'm pretty damn sure they're nitty and have got a fold button, i.e. never on someone I've not seen play for a while.

You have the basic points down.

It's villain, hand, and board dependent but the general idea is you want to bluff into weak ranges and also in combination where your perceived range is strong and your story makes sense.

Another consideration is thinking about how often are people folding to your value bets? Very often? Then you should probably bluff more until that changes.

All of these are terrible reasons because:

1) most 1/2 players aren't good enough to see/remember/understand the first two.
2) WTF is V folding in the last example _that beats you_.


There are a few times it's maybe worth it, it's ok training for 2/5, and it can be "fun" to show the bluff sometimes ... but realistically I think you'd do better at almost all 1/2 games without bluffing any rivers. And minimal bluffing at all. Like just have a decent amount of equity or likely the best hand.


Saying that, if gobbledygeek had some examples we should all listen.

Players at my room can be broadly categorized into two groups: LP losing players and thinking break even or winning players.

Its about an 80/20 mix. 90/10 on saturdays. I had a guy call me IP pre when I had AKo and call three streets bet bet AI last week on a K-7-3-K-2 no flush runout. ...He had QJs. Bluffing this 80% group is torching money at my game.

The other 20% yes but they still call a lot and bluffing them is more about small opportunities here and there. Ex. I somehow had Q9ss, opened pre and was OOP and the board runout was like Ts-9h-2s-Jc-Ad and I just bet bet jammed because my hand crapped out and I knew this guy had a T or J or maybe weak 2pair. Sure enough he folded JTs.

I understand it worked for you, but this isn't a good example as the only hands I'd expect to fold are QT/KT and we hold a Q, would more expect to get shoved into on the turn with V's hand and if they just called it wouldn't be to fold this river.
Also almost everyone who can bluff over bluffs flushes, so I often call when they miss and there's a good chance V can have river bluffs.

I'd almost certainly check turn, and while it's a nice hand in theory to x/r we block QJ and I'd expect anything better to not fold (after calling flop and betting turn).

Call turn with 2 pair and fold river feels like a gift.

This is something I also need to pay more attention to, and a good place to start is take note of when your river value bets are called vs when they are not. For example: front door flush gets there, or there's a 4 liner on the board.

Literally entire books upon books have been written about this subject. Anyone who says dont bluff the river, or rarely bluff the river are people who just suck at it. Its not as simple as just doing it. You need to know the type of hands and boards you float with and barrel with, the type of villians to bluff, and you need to be able to read weakness.

As an aside, if you are bluffing at proper rates, you need to be able to bet for thin value as well, and need to know what sizings to use, especially on boards that get over bluffed (like when all the draws miss)

I had 3 barrels called off with 4th pair today, and guess what, they fold more than enough to make up for when they occasionally get randy with a hero call, and also i get pair off far more often when i have it. I also got called 1.5x pot with an unimproved mid PP that held up when all the draws whiffed on a wet board.

Bluffing by is ****ing complicated, and you cant learn where it works if you dont test it out.

River bluffing is complicated and you can't really generalize. It helps to study using something like GTO Wizard but making adjustments. For example, don't bluff calling stations as much. Bluff people capable of folding when it is very hard for them to have nutted hands and very easy for you to have nutted hands.

For example:

In 2/5/10/20, hero opens CO to $50 with QdJh. Rec button calls with 1,640 effective stack.

Flop $135 AdAcKd, hero bets $40, villain calls. It is hard for villain to have AK because he didn't 3bet while we can have AK

Turn $215 AdAcKd9d, hero bets $350, villain tank calls. Again, we can have AK while it is hard for villain to, and we have the nutflush blocker and we are likely to be good on a diamond or T.

River $915 AdAcKd9d3c, hero jams for $1,240 effective. Villain folds and says they had an ace.

In another scenario where I chose not to bluff, hero opened UTG with Ts9s and is called by rec straddle. Flop was AsQsTd, hero bets 33% pot. Turn is an Ac, hero barrels 75% pot. River is a brick 4h. Hero chose to give up rather than going something like 85% pot or overbetting. I chose to give up her because I felt it was easier for villain to just have an ace and see thst the draws bricked. This is also a spot where I probably don't want spades. Villain showed A5o.

In these scenarios, you have to ask yourself, what is villain calling the turn with thst they are folding on the river? Sometimes their range is too strong and they are just going to under fold. On the other hand, when villains only check called and didn't do something aggressive like check raise, their range is often more capped and doesn't contain things like 2 pair and sets as often.

You just have to think things through.

Some hands you are going to want to bluff even if they don't have a ton of equity, particularly if they block calls and unblock folds. Especially on the turn, hands that don't have a ton of equity like gutters can make good bluffing candidates in position as they are easily folded to a raise while your hands with tons of equity like open enders and flush draws tend to perform well as check behinds to realize their equity.

When thinking about blockers, remember on the river that your blockers might not be great if they block hands you want to fold. For example, sometimes the preflop raiser can have KK or QQ on an ace high board that plays passively to pot control. A lot of times, if villain had AK or AQ, they would have bet earlier streets. So maybe thst means you don't want to have a K or Q in your hand to unblock them having KK or QQ that would fold even though in theory you might block hands like AK, or AQ.

Everything Mlark said is true, if you are playing in a 2/5/10/20 game. Maybe even a decent amount of the time in a 2/5 game.
Probably get access to a solver though and see what kinds of hands it likes bluff with.


However if you are playing in a std. 1/2 game with people buying in for 100, or even 200 and limp calling 60% ranges ... don't try to bluff people off an A on a AAK flop just because you were the PFR in the CO.

I don’t know. Ax? The example was from blackrain79

Yes, that’s critical. Another reason to bluff the river is to get calls from your value hands. Against observant Vs, if you never bluff the river, your bets are transparent

But heres the thing, at least at my game they STILL call. Even when they KNOW. I was card dead last night for 2 or 3 hours until I picked up KQs and 3bet pre and a bunch of people still called. One guy even said "oh the tightest guy at the table is raising!" and called next to act. At my 1/3 you can be so face up because people call sooooo much.

Haven't read all the replies, but I think the most important point is that V has a fold button. Hard to find in some 1/2 and 1/3 games because they didn't get to the river to fold

Maybe I missed it in the thread but I don't think sizing tells have been mentioned yet?

Lots of the low stakes players I play with have extreme sizing tells which are most prominent on the river.

The #1 trigger for me to consider a river bluff is when I'm in position and somebody bets small, then gets called. Obviously there is nuance, it's not like I do it 100%.

At lower stakes, people are notoriously bad at protecting checking ranges. You want to be bluffing a lot in lines like bet check bet, where villain has had the chance to bet the river, but didn’t. Even if you get looked up light, your bluff itself might still be profitable, as long as they’ve bet out most of their strong hands.

On the other hand, triple barrel bluffing is typically not as advisable, because you don’t give your opponent the chance to weaken his range. So you’ll need to get folds from some pretty good hands in order for your bluff to be profitable.