hmmm.... maybe i am 3betting 77 too much from the blinds

Anybody care to take a stab at a mini-primer on bluffing? Good spots, board textures, etc. Just general stuff.

if you can put your opponent on a hand that is gonna have a hard time calling your bet, and you're repping a believable hand. sorry if that seems obvious, but asking for a general bluffing lesson, i don't know if i can do better.

bluffing for me is really about hand reading, my reads and my opponent's reads of me.

a good thing to notice is when your opponents fold. right now it sounds like you don't bluff a lot and usually have the hand. when they fold, think about "i could have been bluffing right there. why did they fold?"

right now i'm trying to figure out when i can 4bet bluff. this really tight guy folded to my 4bet, and i was shocked. i know his 3bet range is super strong. i think he folded QQ or AK. i was ahead, but i thought he'd never fold.

For the most part I just bet (almost) my whole range whenever my range is clearly ahead of my opponent's range, unless I have a reason not to.

Most of the rest of my bluffs are when my opponent telegraphs that he is just done with the hand. Even online you can pick this up from fast checks and live it should be even easier.

And then sometimes I'll just randomly raise dry flops as long as I expect my opponent to be continuation betting with a lot of air.

Basically all three of those things are saying that I bluff when my opponent likely doesn't have anything. Trying to get someone to fold when they actually have something goes into the category of things where you'll recognize the spot when it comes up and until then it's probably a bad idea.

And of course, if you have a big enough draw then you get a lot more liberty to just do what you want.

Yeah, whenever I'm acclimated to a new game I'll start out by playing pretty abc and then I'll start bluffing more in spots where my hands are not getting paid off.

I don't really have a 4bet range live. Yesterday I sat down and got KK first hand, I raised, and the guy to my left who was a random to me at this point 3bet, I was thinking that I might be valuetowning myself if I were to 4bet, is he ever continuing with worse? Online my 4bet range is a bit wider but in live poker people just don't get a lot of money in preflop without AA or KK.

Which prob means 4bet bluffing is profitable in spots.

Bigger,

I'll give an example to illustrate one point. Say you raise with 67 and get called from the blinds. Flop comes say 38Q here you have some backdoor draws only, which are hands in the bottom of my bluff range. So yo fire a cbet and get called. I would continue to bluff if my bd draws improve, and give up if they don't. The strength of your betting range should be increasing as the hand progresses, which means some bluffs will drop out. In this case you are continuing to bluff if you pick up a flush draw or a good straight draw, but otherwise giving up.

Important note: this is good against good opponents, I'm not sure how good it is against live players, but I suspect it is at least decent since I suspect live players peel a lot with hands like over cards and gut shots that they will abandon on the turn. It's also good in that you usually have some equity when you get called.

The best thing you can do is when you are away from the table play through some scenarios with assumed villains and their ranges and characteristics and your range and find the most exploitative lines you can. My impression is that live players play back with bluffs and semi bluffs way less than they should, so you will be exploiting them a lot by folding when they do. I'd recommend applications of nl by Janda to you, too. And playing the player by miller. The latter is more of a cookbook, the former a text book.

Here's a spot you might want to play with that probably doesn't come up as much live. You are defending oop hu, a dry A high flop comes. This is a good spot to c/r the flop with air because villain's range should have a lot more no ace hands than ace hands, and most of those are in horrible shape v's a pair of aces. This is really a numbers game, and has lots of benefits even if it doesn't work.

And of course if you do this you should do it with some value hands, too.

I'll give an example that actually came from a live game.

I was on the button with red sevens and called a raise and the sb came along as well. The flop was something with two diamonds and the sb bet, other player folded. I don't remember what the board was or exactly what my read was, but I felt that his bet was not a sign of strength and I decided to call and see what happens. On the turn a third diamond fell and sb bet again, but he bet slightly less than what he had bet on the flop. He was not a sophisticated player and I took this to be a transparent display of fear. On the flop I had called because I thought that he might be drawing and that my pair was good, but now he has all but told me that he has something like top pair but is afraid that I have made a flush. I raised and he folded right away.

I noticed a lot of bet sizing tells in the short live session I played. It was pretty amazing.

It's also worth noting that if you're trying to represent a hand, you need to do it in a way that the audience will understand. I had a bluff fail in a live game once (or more) because the guy was too stupid to understand my range. I had 55 on the button and about five of us saw a flop of 764 and the preflop raiser called my flop raise and turn shove because he put me on JJ, which is absolutely never a hand that I would take that line with. I'd thought that the guy was competent so that turned out to be a bad read which cost me a bunch of EV.

"move up where they respect your raises" sometimes is true

Lol that reminds me. This drunk obnoxious lagtard was, well, being a lagtard. He shoved on the turn against some woman. Board was something like 23t7r. Anyway the woman called with k3 which was good and the tard went on a tirade about how stupid she was. The urge to say "move up..." was overwhelming.

Good bluff stuff. I'll be asking questions when i get home.

player reads are so important. some players will absolutely look you up, and some players will absolutely fold.

there's one kid in my game who 5bet me, and i folded, and he showed a 2! lol! there's another guy in my game who will never 3bet without QQ/AK

noice job pwns

no stats i don't use hud and play on brovada anyway so normally not many stats

never bluff a calling station

but people try to do it!

I 4-bet pre twice over this past weekend and that's a lot for me.

One was a unique situation against Anarchist where I 4-bet/called off with TT and the other I 4-bet bluffed QTs vs. a pretty decent TAG. I don't have a specific 4-bet range constructed since I do it so rarely, both hands were purely situational.

I also flatted AA in position to a 3-bet because it was a spot where it just looks ******ed strong to cold 4-bet and I wanted the other guy in. That didn't work out.

I love how live players freak out when they see you make a semi bluff.

I had a hand where I raised like 3 limpers OTB to £15 with AK and get two callers who only have £60. The flop comes 963 and one guy leads for £12 the other calls and I shove given they both have like £30 left, and one guy calls. I end up hitting and taking it down, the guy couldn't believe it and acted like it was the worst beat of all time.

Half an hour later the guy stacks off £250 to me with KJ against my 44 on K64 mumbling that I'm always bluffing and it's so sick etc.

77 is an awful hand to 3b, right?

3-betting small pairs from the blinds has always been sort of controversial. In the online world, you could make an argument for doing it, or you could back in the day, if you're playing against late-position TAGs who are folding often enough.

Flatting 22 OOP vs. a BTN open isn't really profitable, but it's not awesome to 3-bet it either.

In live poker, most of the arguments for doing either are probably incorrect. You shouldn't 3-bet them because no one is folding, and playing 77 OOP vs. 2 overs isn't the most profitable situation either. Online, flatting a small pair to set mine isn't profitable vs. the BTN because you aren't getting paid off enough; in live poker perhaps you do (opponent dependent).

I tend to flat them because I'm playing aggressively enough on low boards that I want to make some nutty hands (sets) once in a while to give some credibility to my range.

it's not a semi bluff if you get your money in when you're ahead

people fold a lot to 3bets. some people fold to a 3bet unless they have a monster hand.

vs a few guys in my game i would 5bet 77 sometimes

I can't understand why people complain about other players' play. To me it is simply information.

people like to whine

Threebetting small pairs depends somewhat on the dynamic. If your opponent will stack off with just one pair quite a bit then you have some equity for winning huge pots now and then, and presumably still good folding equity for times that they miss the flop or just fold preflop. Against people who are more conservative, I'd rather bluff with different types of hands. Kinda hard to cover in one simple post, and I haven't fully fleshed out the theory anyway. It's something I'll mix in sometimes, especially since flatting with small pairs oop kinda sucks. 77 has a lot more decent boards for calling down than 22. I generally would only threebet medium pairs in spots where I think my opponent's range is massive - eg people who minraise the button.