Preface: This is about bluffing without initiative. I prefer to fold.

G’day Gents and Ladies!

We really are starting to get into the interconnectedness of topics. We have targets in mind when we Table Select (jasons0147) and play to Isolate the Limpers (KurtSF). But neither skill helps if limper is 5 seats away, as using Position (CaptVimes) is such a HUGE component of the successful poker player’s arsenal. So now we are swimming too far away from our flounder with a variety of environmental factors between our teeth and the fresh meat…… barracuda, Goliath grouper, shark and in today’s sea of poker, a whole bunch of bait stealers (TAG,NIT,sLag, shorties). So, how do we eat?

Well,,,,, we adjust because the pokers is like Roshambo (not SouthPark version). We can eat some things….others things can eat us. We can’t always be The BigAssed Shark because sooner rather than later, all the baitfish will run and hide when they see us coming..so we don’t get to eat and wither away. The other top O’ the line predators will slowly sink into the shadows and trap us into a false sense of security before they launch out with a ninja strike to our loins…. OUCH.

So we adapt at times by cold calling preflop. It is a nice little weapon that Alex outlined so well here:
Basic Cold Calling.

What we take from that article is the main reason we cold call to begin with….. to Bust or Bluff. We can bust certain villains if we hit the flop pretty hard. We can bust certain villains if we only slightly hit. But I can only think of a handful of times where we can bust villains with complete air….an example being cold calling (for a variety of possible reasons) with AK and villain empties the clip OOP with air. So this article now will explore the possible +EV choices in continuing after we have cold called preflop and missed the flop completely….. er,,,,,, bluffing. So why isn’t this CotW called “Bluffing”? Well my interpretation is that we will be bluffing without initiative. The “Bluffing” CotW that is scheduled for later will (I am hoping) explore the maths behind bluffing and bluffing with initiative.

Example

In the BB you CC an EP 4X with a small pocket pair,SC, or Axs…..but only in spades because the Ace of Spades is the “prettiest card in the deck.” You miss the flop completely HU and check. Villain dutifully CBets and you fold. Next hand please.

That’s it, right? Well, not so fast Slim. As a general strategy, I am folding here 200% of the time but first let’s consider:

What does it mean to “miss completely?”

Miss completely may take on two figurative meanings. (1) Did the flop miss you completely in villain’s eyes or did flop miss villain’s range in your eyes? (actual cards) But more importantly, ( 2) Did flop miss your intended strategy (you can play ATC if the flop is XXX). You cold called for a reason AGAINST THIS PARTICULAR VILLAIN. Get out of the habit of looking at your cards and saying “Oh, I have 44 against one player (EP raiser) and we have 100BB effective stacks so I have IO.” Do you REALLY have IO? Even if you hit your set,,,can you extract?

I offer this example and further explanations from a 2006 Tichner thread :

100BB stacks at x stakes

You have 6H 7H in the BB.

UTG opens for 5BB, Button and SB call, and you in the BB call.

Flop 2S 8H KH (20.5BB)

To me, this is the top end of my Miss range. (But I have a FD!!! I hear the masses screaming). It took me a while to get past that one and I assume that some of our noob readers are still at this crossroad. So to C/P further from the Tichner post:

Checked to UTG who bets out a PSB of 20BB, and its folded to you, do you call/raise/fold?

When it gets to you the pot is 40.5BB and its 20BB to call. According to pot odds you should fold, getting 2-1 on a 5-1 shot. However, many players call and justify it be saying they have the implied odds to make the call profitable.

But they they ever really think about it? How big exactly, are their implied odds? That's the tricky part. It's so dependant on many many things, but most importantly, your opponent’s tendencies.

Let's analyze it.

We are going to assume for this example that if we hit we will always have the best hand and never be outdrawn - which is not true but we need to assume it for our example.

We will hit one of our 9 outs, 9/47 times. Or, approx 20% of the time.

So lets just say 1 out of every 5 times we call the bet, we will win the hand.

This means that 4 times we lost 20BB and 1 time we win 40.5BB + Implied Odds...

So our Profit...

x = implied odds value
P = .8(-20) + .2(40.5 + x)

x is such a volatile value (meaning it has a wide range and is dependent on so many factors) that we should find the breakeven point to help us figure out the approx. value we need it to be on average.

So, solving for x when profit = 0 (breakeven)...

0 = -16 + .2x + 8.1
-.2x = -7.9
x = 39.5

So we need to, on average, extract exactly 39.5BB from our opponent every time we hit.

Considering the stack sizes in our example, the pot will be 60BB after you call and there will be 75BB remaining in each stack. Out of the 75BB in his stack we need to extract almost 40BB JUST TO BREAK EVEN. We need to do this every single time we hit (on average).

It's going to be pretty clear to our opponent that a FD is in our range, and that if we come out betting when we hit, he may not pay us off often enough for our initial call to be profitable.

Against many non thinking players (and even many thinking players) we can usually do this on average because the pot is so big. But what if the effective stacks were smaller? Even slightly? What if the stacks were much bigger? What if we remove our assumption that we will always win, and include the % of times we are outdrawn or are already behind when we make our hand?

This is a marginal spot on the flop. If we hit our hand, we NEED to extract more than half of his stack EVERY TIME we hit or it's just a bad call. We need to use our judgment to determine this, but if we overestimate our implied odds, we can be making bad calls left and right, and not even know it.

Sometimes, its ok to muck a flush draw. Do not overestimate the value of your implied odds.

Goofballer added …..a quicker method you can use at the table to figure out how much you need to extract is to subtract the pot odds from your required implied odds. For example:

With the flush draw, you're getting 2:1 pot odds on a 4.2:1 shot (you said 5:1 but didn't use that figure anywhere else so your math looks ok). So, 4.2:1 - 2:1 = 2.2:1 implied value you need to make off of your hand when you hit; when calling a 20BB bet, 2.2 * 20 = 44BB you need to make when you hit to break even.

Another example is with pocket pairs; say you open to 4BB UTG with 55, one person calls, and CO squeezes to 12BB. There's 22BB in the pot, so you're getting 20:8 or 2.5:1 pot odds to call the bet. Since you need 7.5:1 implied odds to flop a set, you need to collect (7.5:1 - 2.5:1) = 5:1 implied odds postflop, or 40BB to break even. If CO is tight and you know this raise means QQ+, you can probably call profitably expecting to stack him often enough for calling to be +EV, but against a looser player you might consider letting it go (although you can factor in that you can usually expect to snap off a CB of ~20BB against most players).

“WOW, I just cold called and hit a flush draw. Now the maths are telling me I need to fold. Geez Louise, what’s this world coming to?” In the example above, if we change the King to something that will give us a pair along with our FD…or an OESD/FD combo, we can definitely play. But unless your opponent is TRULY horrible, having a FD or an OESD alone seems to be –EV. (A hidden OESD has potential, no?) Remember, I am talking about playing draws WITHOUT initiative. I am sure Rapid Evolution will expand upon this when he does the next CotW “Playing Draws”.

Part II
As is often the case, the best laid plans of mice and men can go by the wayside pretty quickly in poker. You bet at a fish and two sharks climb all over you from behind. You limp in hoping to get a multipot going, only to be OOP HU. There are a number of ways that calling PF is acceptable….but things change and we end up playing against a different villain than the intented fish. So we have to know:

Out of Position - When CAN we continue if we missed the board?

Answer: When we can bluff villain off his hand. And in general (85% is my guess), we can’t when playing OOP. So FOLD is the +EV choice. However for the remaining 15% of the time, we need to explore which villains to exploit….and how? ((Of course you will need to take this back one step to preflop play/fold decision making.))

<<For complete noobs: FOLD might be the best option 100% of the time. For all: consider whether you have enough stats (or reads) on villain to accurately pinpoint the type of villain you are exploiting.>>

On the flop we can:

1.Donk lead into the preflop raiser. Board texture and villain’s propensity to fold may create a few nice opportunities. Please Please Please make you bet sizing fit the occasion. When sizing ANY bet you should always consider whether you want a fold or a call. Here we want a fold (DOH!) so please please please, NO SMALL BETS. Put villain in the nutcracker. To balance, make sure you donk into a station with sets. If there is a showdown, the regs will notice and type a note that says “Donks sets into PFRers”.

2.Checkraising against fit/fold regs can work if not abused. I try to really know my reg in this situation. If we battle constantly, then I realize my FE may be essentially zippo. If we mostly stay out of each other’s way, this c/r can be very effective if used sparingly.

3.Check/Call flop and c/fold to a turn bet. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww. Nuff said.

4.Check/Call flop Cbet and lead the turn when a blank hits. Works well against players that CBet a ton but have less than 50% CBet turn stat. I don’t like to let the hand get to the river in this case since we maximize our FE by leading the turn. This is an application of The Hammer of Future Bets. Very effective imo.

5.Check/call flop and then c/r turn. Sexy. You are announcing in your best Baluga voice “I have a set…you wanna play for stacks?” Very expensive bluff that needs to work often. I use this against thinking, good regulars up to 1000NL. At the micro level, you need to be VERY convinced you aren’t up against a hand that villain will get sticky with like TPGK. Think about it from villain’s seat. What do you HATE when you have TPTK? A decent reg saying “I know you have a TP type hand and I SOOOOOO wannna play for stacks against you!”

Notice with the last three, I have already planned what I am going to do on the turn. Always have a plan! And stick to it unless circumstances change…like a bad turn or villain’s betsizing sends up a flare.

Or on the flop, villain checks behind. Again to reiterate, 1-5 above are only for 15% of your ccalls…the rest you will be folding away. However, with a flop check behind (especially from someone that CBets often enough) and against the right type of villain, the game changes from Poker to a game of Chicken. (SPR book reference) So you might not want to play just 15% at this point. You have now picked up some valuable FE.

On the turn we can:

1.Donk just about anything except an Ace or King after a flop of unders. Yeah yeah yeah, put em on AK and fold. Without A or K, if the board improved or not, be the aggressor. Scare cards are scare cards for villain also. So scare him. Remember, he checked behind on the flop. Donk and fold to a raise. However if villain calls you turn donk, it is almost imperative that you lead the river. If your three streets are check/bet/bet, villain HAS to give you credit as it looks like you probably wanted a flop c/r. And important part of this strategy is to make sure you and villain have enough stack left for an effective bluff. Particularly if the complete board is uncoordinated, almost all micro players have to fold to a good sized OOP river lead. <<remember our basic premise… we can continue only if we can bluff villain off his hand. So we are NOT doing this against a station.>>

2.Check/call. Double EEWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

3.Check/raise. Expensive, but doable. Hopefully you have chosen your victim for his ability to muck. Here you must unload on the river and have already written off the cost of doing business with a garbage hand. As with the Donk lead, the river bet has to convince villain he is beat without reasonable doubt. If you are going to bluff, emptying the clip has to be a BIG part of your arsenal. Here’s where most players get a bit skittish. Forget how much of your money is in the pot. Look at what remains of the effective stack. What do you estimate the FE to be and how much will it cost?

4.When 1 and 3 look unappetizing and you don’t play chicken well, then c/fold is definitely your best option. There is no shame in folding a bad hand with so little invested.

On the river we can:

1.Look toward pot odds. I’m not a fan of bluffing a river after two streets of checks. If we rivered a pair you can consider leading as a value bet, but I am more inclined to check it through and find out what kinda hand villain would raise PF, yet check through to the river. And sometimes be mildly surprised/amused. Played an unknown yesterday that checked behind all the way after flopping top set on a wettish board.

As a general Spew Decree, I will fold like a little school girl if I flop nothing and villain isn’t having connection problems where he is timing out every other hand.

Part III

In Position - When CAN we continue if we missed the board?

Answer: When we can bluff villain off his hand. Geez does that sound familiar?

Folding is STILL THE BEST OPTION! However when we have position, missing the flop isn’t the end of the world. Missing the flop against a call station is pretty close though. By being in position we get to see villain’s actions before we have to finalize our plan for the hand. THAT is very helpful when assessing the situation. “Is villain Bluffable”? should pop into your head anytime you get heads up after a cold call…..not ”Am I ahead with my small pocket pair?” Hand strength has nothing to do with it whether you are IP or OOP. You are playing the situation. As we learned in Alex’s Cold Calling Part I, we cold call to Bust or Bluff. And again, we are discussing hands where we missed the flop so bust is not an option. And to bluff, does it actually matter what we have? Not to us…but it certainly does to villain. What does villain think we have when we show aggression? Can villain put us on a hand that hits “this” particular flop?

And here is the part I like the best. When we cold call villain and still retain positon, villain will assume our mostly likely hand is a small pocket pair or some form of SC, gaps and all. Maybe he can think we’ll have a coupla Broadways or Axs….but in most hands, villain will think we are setmining off his AKo or QQ. We would have raised hands he was truly hoping to avoid. So villain thinks we are setmining and when he CBets and we stick around via a call or raise, villain ALMOST ALWAYS can’t be happy. If we have chosen our villain well, he will check/fold the turn. Doesn’t matter what we have, now does it? So to drive home the point again and again, when you are playing speculative hands because you are either playing to bust or to bluff…. I love bust em! But since we have failed to hit our hand, can we bluff em? IP or Out, if you can’t bluff them, don’t try. Muck and move on.

Some of you will notice that I didn’t give specific strategy about playing IP like I did above for OOP play. Most of the “plays” above just need to be tweaked a tad to play IP and I didn’t want to duplicate the effort. If you follow the logic of OOP play described above, IP bluffing is remarkably easier and somewhat intuitive. Bet at weakness. Make notes on ALL villains that run contrary to the notes/HUD stats you have on them. Bluff in moderation at the right targets.

For me, I will only play against villains that have shown a propensity to fold. Calling Station passives are obviously not bluffable. Aggros that can play effectively with position are not good candidates to “make a play” against. While there are a few other types of players, shorties and bad regulars come to mind as my preferred targets when OOP.

Shorties that don’t CBet unless they hit can be bet at on the turn if a “blank” falls. These are BY FAR the easiest to bluff OOP. An added bonus is you bluff sizing can be miniscule…. somewhere a tad bigger than a minbet works a huge percentage of the time. But if you are HU to the flop with a shortie, you have to stop and understand why. Most likely you were hoping to go multiway with a speculative hand. Against most shorties, isn’t our preferred PF action to fold without a showdownable hand? And against a shortie, cold calling PF with a showdown hand seems…..bad.

Bad regs….well, why are they bad? Tight passives that play fit or fold are optimal in this situation and are the most common form of Bad regular. General strategy against them might be to raise their CBet or call flop but lead the turn if board “did not hit” villain. Also try to find (and take notes on) regulars that often CBet the flop, but rarely continue on with a second barrel. Sometimes these villains check behind the turn with ~ TPGK, but generally you are looking for the habitual CBettor that doesn’t follow through….and therefore is likely on air. <Remember, the flop misses everybody almost always  > The bluffing options you have here are to lead the turn or lead the river after a check behind. Personally, I like to lead the turn if the turn completely blanks me and therefore I am completely bluffing. If I pick up a draw on the turn against someone not likely to bet behind….. I would like to get to the river. This is different from flop donking as these should probably be made with hands that are semi-bluffs or as value bets if you feel you are ahead of a villain that doesn’t CBet much.

NITs….well, kinda a tricky subject. You can assume that you can 2 or 3 street bluff a NIT until proven otherwise. Then I write a note that simply says “sticky”. While I watch what they do with others, I really want a direct read on a NIT on how he deals with me. Sometimes it takes a 3 street bluff however. Don’t chicken out if you feel villain can fold to a large river bet. In the back of my mind, I “try” to always remember that NITs love to fold.

Multiple villains….fold seems to be the prudent play. If it gets checked around on the flop and a blank hits the turn, you can always take a shot if you are IP….and I often do this with good results. Sometimes if you are on a very NITty table and the flop gets checked around, donking the turn from the SB can yield good results. But I recommend checking it down even (or especially) if you have no showdown value multiway.

An important part of bluffing is bet sizing. Where slowplaying suggests weakness and is in many ways the Antibluff, bluffing announces strength when you are weak. Therefore to bluff successfully, your bet sizing should be relatively close in pot percentage to give the impression of strength. But not very much more. As others have said, bluff enough to get the job done but not a penny more. Can’t really say what that amount is though. Sometimes 50% of the pot is enough. Sometimes 75%. Sometimes you will run into an opponent that will fold to any sized bet. Table dynamics, your image, board strength, and stack sizes all play a part of the calculation. Consider how you would play the nuts when OOP and use the same tactics to bluff. I am sure this will be explored with more depth when we get to the CotW in August that is titled Bluffs but as a general rule of thumb, size your bets for the outcome you want. Do you want a call or a fold?

Board texture can be used against some villains. If it is a scare card for you, it probably doesn’t make villain happy either….or else he’ll tell you in a BIG way. Time to review Bostik's CotW on evaluating board texture.

Finally, what is our image? 2+2ers come in all shapes and sizes of Nit, TAG, LAG and all the other alphabets. In general, if you play nitty, you bluffs will work more often. Tighter TAGs (14/11) also have this luxury. What I consider the weakness of this style of play is in the level of hand reading skills shown. We Nits and TTAGs win by brute strength against any and all villains. There is not a lot of bluff in our game…therefore when we do bluff, it succeeds… almost always. Loosen up a bit to becoming a “standard” TAG and sLAG and hand reading assists where brute strength leaves off. Here we can make much more situational bluffs against specific villain. We get “less FE”, but our success rate is still very good. LAGs….well, I’m a tad clueless other than they abuse everybody for a street or two and triple barrel against a select few. It seems to work for the best of them…I just seem to wear my Spew crown too much when I’m really LAGGing it up.

Bonus Section. As an added bonus to your new found bluffiness, you may find yourself getting all kinds of action from the minnows and sharks alike. Most (if not all) of the players at the table will see you spew a few chips to someone you were sure was a foldaholic. Most (if not all) will not notice why you spewed to this particular player….they only see the spew. So when the shark gets action from you during the next cycle, he is going to have a hard time narrowing your range. So you get to rake a pot or two out from under a shark’s nose… I like it! Better yet…..(1) shark will see you spew more and STILL think you are a fish or (2) win pre-river pots by betting where he KNOWS you are bluffing so he STILL thinks you are a fish. Well my friends, you are a fish. You are the Biggest Badassed Shark in the Ocean and you eat little sharks for breakfast.

AntiBonus Section: Chill out. You CAN overdue a good thing. My favorite four letter word is fold.

Again: Why are we cold calling? To Bust or Bluff!

OOP=Opt Out of Play. Just fold. Play only against one villain that can fold. Find the villains that take a shot on the flop and give up. Additionally, you have joined this particular table because you have a particular fish targeted. Try to play most hands against this fish and fold marginals against everyone else.

*****Summary******

When OOP, check/fold is the default strategy.

When IP, fold is the default strategy.

When playing back at someone with only a remote chance of improvement, you are balancing on the knife edge between true Greatness and true Spew.

When cold calling PF and you miss the flop with little chance to improve, your hand strength doesn’t matter.

Well said, Mr. Spew.

5 stars.

First of all: Nice post!

If you cold call with 67s in the BB against a raise and you have such a nice flop you have to get it in. Check-calling is the worst option. Check-folding is reasonable because of the K, but the best imo is Check-raise all-in. I do not want to elaborate too much on this but try to put it simply: Fold equity and even if you are called you are 40% against nearly all hands.

Most people should not call with 67s in the blinds against a raiser in the micros because you have to play it very hard even if you 'just' have a Flush draw. Most micro players would Check/call here and this is bad! Do not do it!

very nice post about PLAYING poker

highly unsuitable for 25NL or below!! may be even 50 NL.

LOL donkaments

Nonsense. It is unsuitable if you are playing 24 tables on autopilot at 25nl or 10nl. A player that floats against the flop cbet festival that is 10nl is going to pick up a ton of pots on the turn.

King, well done. I need to read it a few more times to fully absorb it.

Thanks King your comment about overestimating implied odds should cause everyone to review there game in this area. It took me forever to finally "get" this.


It's suitable for all levels, but it's harder to find the right situations at NL25 and below. Mostly because you are looking to use these weapons against players who can think. There just isn't many of them at these levels and even the ones that do turn into calling stations with Top Pair. The other factor is, you aren't gathering a lot of data on players before you move up, they move up, or they go broke.

Or you go broke... err wat?

Digga, I did say it was at the top of my Miss range. Therefore the flush draw will become profitable against the right opponent. I think this idea may be the key to this whole bluffing thingy in the micros....learning to spot The Right Opponent.

And to continue on........

TBH, I struggled with the writing part of this. To me it seems too much of a hodge-podge of thrown together facts. I had hoped to spend this past weekend coordinating and putting it into a much more easily readable format.....but life got in the way. Plus at almost 54 years young, my power naps seem to take longer and longer and longer and longe...................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Zug, I just copied my favorite sentence from all that crap I posted above. I saved it for last because I'm a sucker for drama.....

As we are learning this game, the easy first steps are always directly related to our own two cards. For some..... my crapola (and especially the above quoted sentence) may be the impetuous to hurdle their first barrier to improvement and remove the constraints that bind us when playing only with hand strength.

We all follow this right?

tl;dr x3

Ok... meant to say you move down... but we're all winning players, aren't we

VNH, sir...I would've preferred a crappy post so that I could half-ass my follow-up, but no such luck for me!

masterpiece, imo. five stars.

Yeah, I knew I would disappoint some......

tl;dr x3
In ALL honesty, I cut another full page of drivel and had a hard time with each paragraph as each might command a full chapter if explored to complete depth. Be lucky it was only three full loads......

Hey not complaining. I'll try and add something useful when I have some time to read this (grumble grumble term projects, presentations, and finals grumble...)

nh/wp sir.

I agree totally that c/f is the dominant option.

Checkraising with air OOP occasionally can be a profitable strategy, with the following caveats:

1. Board that probably missed opponent. Low monotone and low paired flops are great.
2. Opponent is a habitual C-better
3. C-bet is on the low side (sign of weakness in micros)
4. Opponent is likely stealing (eg generally LAGGy and/or opened from LP)
5. Opponent can fold
6. You don't overuse the play

For a check-raise bluff to be profitable outright, you have to get a fold ~60% of the time or more, so the situation has to be pretty ideal to do it.

Wouldn't that depend on bet sizes (both the cbet and the c/r)?

I'm finding that, heads up, pausing for about 5-10 seconds after the flop comes down and then donking into the PFR (after calling from the BB, usually) on favorable boards is pretty effective in making them fold if they missed and didn't start with a pair. It's especially nice against nitty types who open from, say, MP1 and their opening range is mid-high pairs and ace-king, and the flop includes a queen and a ten, for instance--more often than not he has ace-king and whiffed, or a pair under the ten and hates the flop. And either way, he's going to fold to a donk bet more than half the time.

Oh, and the flop should be monotone, or else he's liable to put you on a flush draw and raise. And the donk bet needs to be sized as if it's for value, at least 2/3, preferably 3/4 of the pot. If it's 25NL and he opened for $0.75 and you flatted from the BB, the pot is $1.60; you should lead for $1.25.

It's not a play to use very often; you need

1. The right opponent (one that has a fold button),
2. The right image (you haven't been showing down losing hands lately after betting them),
3. To be heads up (on very rare occasions it can work 3-handed);
4. An opponent that DOESN'T cbet too much (check/raising makes more money in that case);
5. The right flop.

But it has a high success rate in the right circumstances, and some metagame bonus, if you also at least occasionally donk into the PFR when you flop 2 pair-plus, especially against regs.

Got damn need to read this a few more times. Nice post.

Yeah, for sure. Required fold percent varies from about 50% (1/2 pot sized bet + half pot-sized raise) to 66.67% (PSB/PSR). So its an eaiser play to pull against a 1/2PSB C-bet than a full PSB C-bet....

Read the whole thing again...I hate you because I have to follow up on this.

Nice post!

I over-do this so much, I've gotta learn that it's okey to fold aginst a cbet.