I don't think I've ever done this before. I got in a spot where I was UTG heads-up on the river, had bet the previous two streets, so I think the guy showing no strength in calling was putting me on a hand, not a draw. In fact I was all draw, no pair. I had A-K-J-5 on a 10-Q-4-6 board, wrap and nut flush draw.

I said to my self, I"m not giving up when I end up with no pair. They turn the river off, I deliberate about 10 seconds, and bet blind about half pot, $225. He folds and I look, and I had made the nut flush. So it backfired a bit because the only thing I'm really gonna check, maybe, is the nut flush. Not checkign the nut straight or the total whiff.

So I don't know. I've played a long time, certainly have some gamble to me, but I don't remember ever even considering the no look river bet. That's probably no brag, indeed. But the situation seemed perfect for it. Heads-up and the guy showing no strength combined with I'm just not giving up if I whiff it, combined with if the board pairs its believable as me. Last second spontaneous thought: just bet in the dark. Hmm.

Just make sure you balance it with some no look river checking.

Are you serious right now?

thats a pretty solid pro tip.

Gonna take me a while to get that far with it. Does the randomizing apply when you don't even know what you have?

It's actually even more important.

This seems like a silly strategy to me. Why not just have a plan to "bet all rivers" in normal tempo after seeing the river card.

IMO villain is more likely to call your river bet if he knows you "no look river bet".

Just bet river board pairs normally without the "no look river bet" to increase chance of villain folding.

The solvers cant sim what you have if you dont know what you have.

In split pot games if you have one half locked up and outs for the scoop it makes sense to blind pot.

Of course I didn't let him know it was a no look bet. There is no way you are giving off any read or feel to your opponent about the strength of your hand when you have no idea what it is yourself. So it's gonna help me win the pot if, indeed, it's a bluff. And that's important, is it not? I'll answer: Yes, it's vital.

Live reads are overrated, generally. If you have good reads that it seems like you have a made hand _much_ better to just look and bet bricks and check obvious draws (but given you have all the draws maybe rethink). Half pot also seems like a bad size.

If V is really that good they could get a read that you are confused/unsure.

No look river betting is a really good strategy for when you're actually looking at the river but successfully pretending you're not.

In 2004 we were the Rounders generation (even though I've never seen that movie). Live reads were a bit overrated. (Keep in mind "live reads" is a lot broader than just tells during the hand, so not that overrated.)

In 2023 there's no damn way they're overrated. Almost all anyone on here (who I assume to be at least decent players) want to talk about on NL forums is GTO solutions.

BTW I'm about 75% sure there was a very obvious tell in that big LSG Hank/Doug Polk hand the other day. I've seen a lot of discussion of that hand from a GTO perspective and **** all from the perspective of, "Is this guy really so naive as to give off clear body language in a million dollar pot?" But people are going to discuss what they feel comfortable discussing. Leaves money on the table for us dinosaurs I guess.


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That said it's probably as much of a tell that you're not looking at the board as anything else. How are you going to not see the river card without them knowing you're not looking? Maybe we'll get back to the era of sunglasses in the poker room, LOL.

Live reads are generally overrated by people who aren't capable of reading them very well, in the same way that professional poker players in the 90s and 00s thought that computer sims and 3betting wide was overrated.