Hi guys

I am having serious problems understanding these kind of bluffs

Villain looks like a reg, althought only 43 hands on him...no read on him

So i think when you are planning to 3 barrel bluff is good to block his value hands (i block with my Ace his straights and his A4 A5) and and the same time not block his draws (any 6x or 7x)

I mean, is it better to bluff with AT than with..i dont know...KJs or 98s for example...i dont know if i have the right ideas on my mind

[converted_hand][hand_history]PokerStars - 15/30 Ante 3 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

BB: 5,018 (167.3 bb)
UTG: 2,944 (98.1 bb)
MP: 2,707 (90.2 bb)
CO: 2,788 (92.9 bb)
Hero (BTN): 2,978 (99.3 bb)
SB: 3,097 (103.2 bb)

6 players post ante of 3, SB posts 15, BB posts 30

Pre Flop: (pot: 63) Hero has T A
3 folds, Hero raises to 72, fold, BB calls 42

Flop: (177, 2 players) 3 4 5
BB checks, Hero bets 71, BB calls 71

Turn: (319, 2 players) J
BB checks, Hero bets 160, BB calls 160

River: (639, 2 players) Q
BB checks, Hero bets 426,

Turn is the interesting decision point for me. Check back to get to showdown or bet big to barrel it off? I know that half pot is not the size here, full pot or close to it would be better, with bluffs and value. The bb's flop c/c range is just going to be really weak as they should c/r the 2 pairs and sets.

River bet is fine as played I guess, although you would tell a more consistent story with a larger bet on the turn. Really rep that Jx+

Oh !! I thought just the opposite, like: "ok, he didnt get his draw so with a 1/2 will do the trick"

I mean, if he was just peeling with some draw or a bunch of overcards or some Ax...wont it be an insta fold the turn bet even of 1/2?

A 6x or even like a Q2s isnt folding to a half pot bet, maybe not even A8-AJ types of hands.

The hands that we are really looking target are the opponents one pair hands, with or without a sd. Hands like 36s, 48s, A3, 25s, etc. We want to be bombing this turn for value with basically A5+ and then betting on the river Jx+ for sure maybe even 99 or TT.

A good rule of thumb when betting full pot is that you want about half as many bluff combos as value combos. So that your opponents needs 33% equity to call and 1/3 of your bets are bluffs. This puts your opponent in a 0 EV spot with pure bluffcatchers. So start by determining your value combos and work backward to find your best bluffs.

The smaller your betsize the larger the ratio of value to bluffs needs to be.

A lot of the hands where he missed the draw, you win anyway. 6x no pair, Ax no pair, even hands like 87 that got stubborn on the turn. Those are the hands you are getting to fold with your bet size; the hands you beat.

As ledn points out, you need to go bigger to put pairs in a tough spot.

Ok, i am still stuck

So:

* i can have all the overpairs of the world and he doesnt (he would have 3bet them)

* i block his A3 A4 A5 A2; even some of this combos (the suited ones) he can 3bet/bluff preflop

* He can be calling the flop with far more combos than one pair, a lot of overcards junk which i dont block

* And there is still one more street i can bet and put more pressure (as i did) so he should be folding even more right?

So some of his straights (A2) i block; i block his strongest kickers (to the ace) if he has 3, 4 ,5 so he shouldnt have that many combos above that 33% he needs right?

Nevertheless i will flopzilla this thing and try to understand but i go back to my original issue: as i have a blocker (the Ace) to all that stuff i mentioned when i visualize the hand from the flop should we not bluff more than if we didnt block his nuts and/or top second pairs?

And thanks for your time and patience; btw i will post the result on the hand later on as he called the 3 barrel too !!!

but u beat all is overcard junk and draws that call flop. The junk will fold to any size and the draws might depending on how strong.

Sounds like you are scared of bluffcatching some rivers with Ahi so you want to fold out his river bluffs.

check flop, bet turn, check behind river if called on turn. If he calls your turn bet in the check flop line then hes already decided to call river with any hand that beats you.

Dont do 3 barrel bluffs btn vs bb, people will not give you credit. You are making your money here with made hands as villain just never gives any credit. You dont have to be balanced and imo should only be cbetting this flop texture btnvsbb in low stakes mtts with the top of your range, it hits him way better than you. If you cbet this flop with ATo then you essentially cbet 100% btn vs bb.

As played on flop you essentially get the god run out and have to barrel turn and river.

Ok, now i understood better: so our "real target" when we bluff here is not the junk but the hands he will continue with (as you said in the last post his pairs and some part of his draws);

Now i get the idea, we want to make him fold right now (not OTR) his junk + "river peeling range"

It was hard to get this idea in my head haha thanks a lot

So when we use a lesser size (like 1/2) thats the reason we want to have less bluffs and more value combos, because as he is gonna call more we need to have less bluffs right?

As the opener's position gets earlier and earlier, it forces BB defenders here to play more passively pre and more passively vs cbets. So in this spot as you approach EP opens you start to see more and more 66-JJ show up in his range OTT and no matter where you're opening from he's gonna J3,J4,J5 that you don't and he only really has AJ for his Jx (KJ,QJ should definitely fold flop vs EP open+cbet). It's enough to make you not always wanna bomb turn with your 88,77,A5 etc.

That EP dynamic also means AT is pretty far down in your range on this texture, and it means blocking AJ,TT is pretty important. It would be a nice spot to barrel AT.

But BTN vs BB yeah you prob just wanna use larger sizings OTT because he just shouldn't really have much of anything super nutted and he shouldn't have much TT,99,88 anymore. Your 4x,5x are generally stronger and you have 66+ that he has few to none of so in the actual in game spot basically all your value is stronger than 1/2 pot would imply

And its pretty crappy combo selection to barrel with the BTN open dynamic because now AT is like pretty decently up there in your range (you have Kx, Qx, Tx, etc) but the benefits of blocking TT are much less. You still don't have that many 2x,3x so between PPs and Jx you're probably like still around the median of your range here with AT, it's pretty clearly a combo that gets quite a bit of worse to fold to counteract the benefits of getting some better combos like 3x to fold. Even something like A7,A8 are better barrel candidates because it's much nicer when those get OOP's own A8,A9,AT (of which he has a lot) to fold; when OOP has A8,A9 and you have AT and get him to fold, the result is not so nice.

Unfortunately, I think you blundered the turn and I think you did a pretty poor job at demonstrating your knowledge of your own range OTT. And I think you did a pretty poor job at demonstrating your knowledge of OOP's range and how both your ranges should interact in this node after he declines to donk a great flop for him, then declines to xr flop. If you had done a better job, you would not have barreled this combo and certainly not for this sizing.


River bet you probably have better candidates. You have decent showdown-value against A6,A7,K6,K7. And xr turn with AJ is very likely, so blocking AJ isn't really important

His catching range is gonna be like all 2pr and it's not really worth it to start bluffing pairs because those block his 2pr--after all, if AT has SDV than your 5x should be printing as river xb. So basically, tripling here with anything really weak that just can't ever hope to win without being bluffed.

Sir, if i had done a better job I would not be saying at the beggining of the thread that i have issues w/ these spots or that i am stuck....perhaps thats the reason i blunder so much

Anyway, just if anybody is curious i post the result

I'm not sure why you're working so hard on triple-barrel bluffs. I rarely attempt them because I rarely triple-barrel for value.

First of all your flop play/bet is just awful
You can’t just blindly bet 1/3 on every board just cuz you read on upswing that pros bet 1/3
The 456 board is very bad for your range and even worse for your particular combo so you shouldn’t have much of a betting volume in the first place. From a range perspective that is. For your specific hand you really just don’t want to put one extra chip into the pot.
Your understanding of how to use this sizing is all messed up in so many ways that I don’t even really know where to start.
But ok so you bet 1/3 and you block the hands you want to fold, and basically are getting peeled or check raised almost always. You will almost never win the pot otf
Not going to comment on turn and river play

Well said. In lower-stakes MTTs you aren't going to be triple barrel bluffing a whole lot. Now to the times you are bluffing at these stakes, I think you'd do better to focus on what his range consists of (what he's capable of folding) rather than what bluffs/value you can have.

One of the most common mistakes I see good players make at lower stakes is applying their own logic and reason to that of a rec player. They often won't pick up on what you're trying to convey, therefore, focusing your efforts more on what their range looks like (and how you can attack that) will be more useful for you when trying to bluff at these stakes.