Hi,

Can people review this hand for me please?

I'm tilting really bad right now to be honest, and was doing so before this hand played out! After losing a couple of buy-ins last time I played, and then being card dead in this session.

I think my flop raise is okay because I have a lot of outs (4 outs to a straight, 6 outs to top pair, and a backdoor flush draw).

Was I bad to continue the bluff from the turn onwards? And was it a bad call on Villain's part? It must look like I could have 22/33/44/56/A5 right?

The preflop raiser has VPIP of 19%, PFR of 19%, and 3bet of 8% but this is only over 35 hands.
The SB is unknown.

Vs an unknown I don´t think it´s a good idea to run a bluff otr. His SB defending range might include a lot of pps, suited aces, suited kings, off suited aces, and as he called you down on the flop and on the turn, it looks like those cards hit his hand pretty good. I would only try this if I had a strong sample on him.

While it is good that you are considering bluff-raising opportunities I question the risk/reward of them at a limit where the population most likely over-calls. If you do choose here then you need to make the sizing a lot larger. Finally I wouldn't try and make volatile plays like this when I'm tilting regardless of the limit. In fact you shouldn't really be playing at all if your head has already gone.

You're laying villain 3.8:1 (.20) so as a bluff you should only be using a few high equity semi-bluff combos like A2, A3, A4, 45, 55, 66. If you used a bigger bet sizing you could add your top suited A's with back door flush draws and 67s with back door flush draws and that would be plenty.

I think 68s is a little too loose preflop, especially at these stakes where you want to be playing mostly for fat value.
On the flop your hand has enough equity to flat with position and see how the sb reacts. You'd have more information on the turn, and depending on how it helps your hand, and what the action is, you could consider betting then.

As played, you turn no additional equity facing a tight sb flop calling range. You should assume you have very little fold equity on the turn. Check behind, and if villain checks again you could then consider making a pot size bluff only if your hand has valuable blockers.

If you are going to triple barrel bluff this board your hand should be blocking straights and diamond flushes. AdQx, AdJx, AdTx, Ad6x, 45, A4

Great post

Thanks, that was a useful post.

Just noticed I didn't post what villain called with. He had 99.

Wow, what a non-believer. Give it to him hard next time you are there and you do have it--he gets the whale treatment for being brazen on wet flops.

Thing is when he does have it he is unlikely to play Hand this way hence why villains call wasn’t completely terrible.

Hi Manko. I have some questions. I am trying to get my head around bluff/value ratios. My question really is about how you determine how many bluffs to balance value on the flop/turn etc. Please correct me if I'm wrong at any stage ...

According to GTO theory, if hero's raise was on the river then his ideal bluff to value ratio would be 4:1 that is 1 bluff for every 4 value. We know this because, as you have demonstrated, hero is offering Villain those odds, and in order to aim for balance and thus theoretically make our opponent indifferent, our optimal bluff ratio is 20% or 4:1, right?

However, this is the flop we are dealing with and not the river...

So I am also aware that it is often stated that one should generally aim roughly for a 2:1 ratio of bluff to value on the flop, 1:1 on the turn and 1:2 on the river. Is this a rough template that you use?

I have watched a couple of Matt Janda's videos on youtube and using these I have started to play around trying to balance ranges with Flopzilla. In his excellent video "Flopzilla part 1" he states that in general "you should be raising approximately 1.5 - 2 combos of bluffs for every 1 value made hand you raise [on the flop]". He obviously goes into much more detail, explaining that there are a number of factors (board texture, how wide you raise, ...) that effect this ratio, but certainly as a base this is good.

I assume this flop should be a relatively easy one to attack, as we shouldn't really have a huge number of value raises here flatting a MP open from the BTN, right? So..having plugged this flop and a BTN flat vs MP range into Flopzilla, I played around with a potential value raise range and looked to see if I could work out were you were coming from with the range you suggested for bluffs.

So...If our value raise range here was as tight as only raising straights and sets, (which potentially it should be? considering Villain has a stronger over-pair range than we do, in that he has QQ-AA, and we don't?) then, going by my flatting range, we have 16 combos of hands we can raise for value (A5s, 65s, 44,33 and 22. So If we were to follow Matt Janda's template then we would be aiming for roughly 32 combos of bluffs, is this close to what you would be aiming for, assuming Hero had made a larger sized raise? And did you recommend a smaller bluffing frequency to this because the raise was so small?

I found that the bluffs you recommended (A2s, A3s, A4s, 45s, 55, 66) added up to only 21 combos, which is evidently well below 2:1 ratio, but with AQs, AJs and ATs combos that have the BDFD we have 30 combos which comes very close to balancing the value raise range mentioned above at a ratio of 2:1.

Thanks in advance Manko, I know there's a lot there, any help is much appreciated. I'm hoping Brussels might have a word or two to add too....

Yes


I use what my opponents pot odds to call are as a general rule of thumb for all streets.



During game play I am flatting this bet in hopes of flopping nuts to stack off, good top pair to call down, or a decent draw to semi-bluff this tag off his cbet.
When villain bets weakish into me on that flop I would go ahead a raise him with 55, A3dd, A3ss, A4dd, A4cc and probably a few of the AJ AT with back door flush draws.
My raise would be closer to $1.


As played villain's pot odds to call are 3.8:1 (20%) so I would use that as my bluffing frequency.

Using my own hand range in this spot I would bet A5s, 22, 33, 44, and JJ for value, that's 19 value combos. 13 value combos if JJ is removed.

I could bluff 5 combos per my 19 value combos.
5/24=.20
I think my best selection would be A3dd, A3ss, A4dd, A4cc
That's only 4 but I think that's okay because I wouldn't always value bet JJ, and I don't think this is a very profitable spot to bluff a lot.

To be honest I've only recently started reading up on the whole GTO area myself. That means that when it comes to bluffing I do and have always under-bluffed. However, since I have been playing in the micros during that time this has served me well. Matthew Janda says himself that his work is aimed at people who are playing in difficult games. If you game select well I think you can avoid difficult games, in this sense, right up to 25 or 50nl.

It is really good that you are thinking about these things and it will serve you well as you move up but I think at 5, 10 and 16nl you're going to be making a lot more money on good old fashioned exploitative play. Most of your money is going to come from bad players who mostly call too much and are not thinking about your range. To borrow a phrase that I heard recently "Most players aren't playing poker, they're playing a game called 'Do I have the best hand?'". There's not much point in designing your range so that he is indifferent to his particular action since he's not thinking about your range in the first place.

On that note, the two of you do seem to try to balance your value range with bluffs. How has that been working out for you at 5/10nl?

I'm genuinely curious as I never did that stuff myself because anytime I did try, once in a blue moon, I always seemed to get looked up.


Edit: I should add here that I'm primarily referring to post-flop bluff raises and big river bluffs (not flop and turn c-bets as I of course have used them all the time)

I recently started to implement this into my game because the idea behind it is so matter of fact and plain as day it blows my mind.

My concern was that I was bluffing to much on flops and turns, so for me balancing my ranges meant bluffing less made hands and choosing better semi bluffs to use. Now, when I review my hands, I count up my value combos, choose the right proportion of bluff combos, and I make a note of it.

I also wanted to have a balanced range when I am 3betting, not just 3betting for value all the time. So I went through my 3betting ranges and made sure to add in the necessary amount of bluffs.

Post-Flop my strategy has always been to play straightforwardly. I will almost never go for a river bluff unless I have several things going for me (uncapped range, range advantage, blockers, fold equity, etc).

There are certain situations though where your range is so value heavy that you can bluff a lot more recklessly, and I embrace bluffing these spots more willingly now knowing that villain will not be able to defend often enough making your bluffs immediately profitable.

For example, you are pre-flop raiser, cbet, villain calls; villain donks turn--I will re-raise here with a lot of air and follow through on a lot of rivers simply because my range is uncapped and I have a strong range advantage on most flops and turns. I find that to be effective.

Also, when raising from early positions. Your range is top-end value heavy, and you won't flop a lot of natural draws, so you can afford to bluff a lot of flops and turns, and favorable rivers. That is something I do and find it to be moderately successful, esp considering that you are usually out of position.

This seems to be a very unusual flow As in I see villains donk flops (usually draws or middling strength hands) and rivers all the time (polarised value/bluff holdings) but donking turns is something that I rarely see. Do you have some example of this?

Can you explain what you mean here in more detail please? (I understand about an EP range not being conducive to flopping drawing hands)

My DB has only 9k hands. These aren't exactly what I was describing, but somewhat close.

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker Tracking Software

NL Holdem $0.10(BB)
BTN ($6.57)
SB ($5.52)
BB ($12.37)
HERO ($10.89)
MP ($10.95)
HJ ($9.85)
CO ($4.79)

Dealt to Hero K K

HERO Raises To $0.4 (Rem. Stack: 10.49), MP Folds, HJ Folds, CO Folds, BTN Folds, SB Folds, BB Calls $0.3 (Rem. Stack: 11.97)

Flop ($0.85) 5 7 5
BB Checks, HERO Bets $0.32 (Rem. Stack: 10.17), BB Calls $0.32 (Rem. Stack: 11.65)

Turn ($1.49) 5 7 5 T
BB Bets $0.54 (Rem. Stack: 11.11), HERO Raises To $1.28 (Rem. Stack: 8.89), BB Calls $0.74 (Rem. Stack: 10.37)

River ($4.05) 5 7 5 T 6
BB Checks, HERO Bets $1.72 (Rem. Stack: 7.17), BB Raises To $5.36 (Rem. Stack: 5.01), HERO Calls $3.64 (Rem. Stack: 3.53)

BB shows 8 A

HERO wins $14.04


Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker Tracking Software

NL Holdem $0.05(BB)
CO ($2.64)
BTN ($3.49)
SB ($4.39)
HERO ($5)
UTG ($1.84)
MP ($4.45)
MP ($2.92)
HJ ($4.31)

Dealt to Hero K A

UTG Folds, MP Folds, MP Folds, HJ Calls $0.05 (Rem. Stack: 4.26), CO Folds, BTN Folds, SB Raises To $0.13 (Rem. Stack: 4.24), HERO Raises To $0.45 (Rem. Stack: 4.50), HJ Folds, SB Calls $0.35 (Rem. Stack: 3.89)

Flop ($1.05) 5 A 5
SB Checks, HERO Bets $0.42 (Rem. Stack: 4.08), SB Calls $0.42 (Rem. Stack: 3.47)

Turn ($1.89) 5 A 5 4
SB Bets $0.6 (Rem. Stack: 2.87), HERO Raises To $1.8 (Rem. Stack: 2.28), SB Calls $1.2 (Rem. Stack: 1.67)

River ($5.49) 5 A 5 4 8
SB Bets $1.67 (allin) (Rem. Stack: 0.00), HERO Calls $1.67 (Rem. Stack: 0.61)

SB shows T T

HERO wins $8.39



You can afford to bluff more often and with less valuable holdings when opening from early position because you are protected by the top-end nature of your range.

On many flops your early postion range will have a lot of strong value combos because of the overpairs. But because your range is so narrow you may not have many natural semi-bluff combos. You will have to bluff with hands that may not have much equity to draw out, but because of all the value combos you are still balanced.

I've largely been quiet on this thread but have been reading.

I recently read Carroter's book and have been basing my play around that. But to be honest, I've largely ignored being balanced. Because of the fact that in these games, most players won't pick up on an unbalanced strategy.

Or do you guys like to make it a habit now, in preparation for when you (hopefully) move up to higher stakes?

Also, above, where you write about what hands you would bluff with... is this something that you're able to figure out when at the table? If not, then during gameplay, do you have a method of quickly estimating it?

I mostly bet for value at the moment, but just throw in the occasional bluff if the situation feels right (it did feel right in this case because villain hadn't shown any strength by raising).

I play on Bovada and it's anonymous. Vs a bunch of unknowns I think it is important to have a balanced strategy since you can't accurately determine what player typed your opponent is very often.
However, I have recently started using a HUD and that has made a huge difference how I mix up my play against different opponents.

Really though, I think having a balanced checking range has been most beneficial to me.
Before I ever tried to balance my ranges at all I would cbet the flop, check the turn, the fold to a river bet almost every single time that happened to me. Now, I play a little more defensively and will check back on the turn with some hands I can call a bet with on the river. It's trappy and defensive, works well.
Or, I will check behind on the flop, call the turn bet, then bet the river for sick value. Nobody expects you to have top pair there, I get calls all the time by pocket pairs and middle pairs.
I am finding those lines to be profitable because there are a ton of villains stabbing turns and rivers after you show any weakness post-flop.


During game play I try to keep things as simple and straightforward for myself as possible, and I haven't reached the point yet where I am efficiently and effortlessly counting up and calculating hand combos. I do think this skill could be highly effective for tough river decisions though, especially when trying to determine how many bluffs your opponent has in his range to make a call profitable.

I play my obvious draws aggressively, and if I notice a situation where my range is lacking a lot of obvious draws I try to pick the ones that will capture, or deny, the most equity throughout the hand.
Only when I am reviewing my hands do I really try to determine specifically what hands to bet for value, what hands to bluff.

Firstly, thanks for your responses guys! I have been reading but haven't had time to respond.

I think that what is most pertinent, at least for me at the moment, is what Brussels says here about it being good to think about these things and it will serve well as we move up but that at 5, 10 and 16nl one will make a lot more money through exploitative play!

I have said it before, and I am believing it more and more, that in a way I think I have tried to start running before learning to walk, in that, through studying Doug Polk's Upswing material, which is entirely based around balance, and reading into GTO, I have focused on aspects of the game that will help me hugely if and when I manage to get to a higher level, but for the time being is not optimal. I will refrain from saying that it has been waste of time (for micro levels) because, i think in order to employ exploitative play effectively, one must first have an idea of what standard optimal play looks like, would you agree?

I believe that the result of trying to employ a balanced strategy at the lower levels (I started at 5NL and have played only 18k hands) is that, whilst I am a winning player, I am not winning nearly as much as if I were bluffing less and focusing more on exploitation and less on balance. I am currently winning at 7BB/100 (which is frustrating because I thought I was killing it at 14BB/100 after 10k :/ )

I think that for me perhaps the most beneficial advancement would be to focus on learning to use my hud stats more efficiently in order to be able recognise more exploitative spots...hint hint for future posts Perhaps If I were to post the stats I have on a few of my most commonly seen regs, as well as my own!! Brussels and Manko might be willing to offer their thoughts on what sticks out, and how one might be looking to exploit said player types? Now that I say it, i think that could be extremely helpful!

Manko you say that you "use what my opponents pot odds to call are as a general rule of thumb for all streets" As far as actual GTO is concerned would this not mean that you are underbluffing on flops and turns? I'm not at all trying to suggest that it is not a good strategy and as I am almost certainly trying to bluff too often perhaps this would be a better rule of thumb for lower stakes!

First off 7bb/100 is a great win-rate. I certainly wouldn't be getting too disheartened by that. In fact I'd be considering moving up to 10nl.

Out of curiosity who is the Upswing lab geared at? As in do they say that they're trying to teach people to learn the game from the ground up?

Does it have a bias toward 6max since that is more popular?

Doug Polk's analysis and hand breakdowns are pretty amazing so I guess the quality is very good for beating higher stakes but do they discuss the basics about extracting money from bad players which is really the most important thing for micro stakes.


In terms of playing your opponents there are 4 levels. If you don't have any exploitative info for level 1 then you go to level 2. If you don't have anything on leve 2 you go to level 3 etc:

1. Notes and observations about how that particular player plays certain spots
2. Inferences based upon your HUD stats for that player
3. Population stats for that limit
4. GTO

Level 4 is of course not exploitative at all but is used when you don't want to get exploited yourself.

I am going to stick at 5 for a bit longer. I want to see if I can't tweak some things to get back to the same sort of win rate I had for the first 10k. The way I look at it is this. I know I am making lots of mistakes and I know there are better players than me at this level therefore I can continue to learn and play around with different strategies without it costing me (or disheartening me - which concerns me more lol) but thanks for the vote of confidence, i appreciate it.

Yes the lab purportedly aims at offering a ground up learning platform. It is therefore supposedly offering a learning tool that is accessible to beginners. However....What i think I have come to understand is that what it does not offer are the tools that would make lower stakes players MOST profitable, that is exploitation of the weakest player types. But what I believe it does is allow you to build a solid base of understanding of good poker strategy that will hold up certainly to upper midstakes if not higher stakes also. I think it is excellent. Unfortunately my 6 month subscription just ran out. I 100% recommend the lab and I intend to get back onto it....once i've focused for a while on "good old fashioned exploitative play "

Q1) I do take notes. some. Would you mind giving me some examples (the more the better of notes you take. Because that may give me some better insight into the common leaks that you look to exploit.

2)What are population stats for limit ? Is this what typical / average stats look like? Where does one get said stats ?

Yes, because effectively exploiting an opponent begins with identifying the areas of their game that are unbalanced and exploitable.

My experience is a little different. Overall, after 10k hands at 5nl, 10nl and 25nl, I am winning 14.33bb/100, but my EVbb/100 is 22.62.
Even during the ****tiest of variance I think I am able to keep a good win rate because a lot of my winnings are coming from having a well balanced check back range, any by balancing my 3betting and flop/turn betting to include more bluffs (prior I would almost exclusively be betting for value).

Definitely true. I am still new to the HUD so this is an area of my game I am trying to improve on as well. I will start looking for hands to post that are more exploitative.

Possibly... I guess, I don't really know. I am cbetting flops at 60.3% and double barreling at 67% so I don't think I am bluffing flops and turns too infrequently.
Most of my ranges are pretty snug and I usually make 2/3-full pot size bets which allows for a bluffing frequency of 28-33%. If I remove some value combos to strengthen by check-back range, and play pot control with my marginal made hands, then I am not usually left with many hands to bluff. Except for in later positions, but I tend to cbet and bluff less in those spots because you get way less credit than when you open from earlier positions.