Posts Tagged ‘bluff catching’

Thanks again for all the great comments on this week’s What’s Your Plan?. I was a little worried since the question was more open-ended than usual, but once again we had a lot of really though-provoking contributions. I actually write about this hand in some detail in the new issue of Two Plus Two Magazine, so I’m mostly going to refer you to that for my thoughts and address a few of the comments, starting with Prabhat:

“Putting this person on a range is very difficult as a result of his unusual stats. I can’t help but think that if this person really plays 18/17 over an adequate sample size, its virtually impossible that he flat-calls a lot of suited connectors here. If he calls T9s, he also calls JTs and 78s etc, and this already makes his flatting range much wider than 1%. I find it tough to believe that he doesn’t flat anything except from the CO and Button. Accordingly, I will slightly discount the suited connector portion of his range. ”  Read the complete post...

Sorry for the recent lack of posts; it’s been a busy week. I don’t have a lot to say about this one, it’s just a fun hand that I played today:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $6.00 BB (6 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($618)
UTG ($884.80)
Hero (MP) ($1112)
CO ($673.35)
Button ($935.05)
SB ($603)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A♠, Q♣
1 fold, Hero bets $21, 1 fold, Button calls $21, 2 folds

Flop: ($51) 8♥, 8♦, 6♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $36.30, Button calls $36.30

Turn: ($123.60) 6♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $108, Hero calls $108

River: ($339.60) 3♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $389, Hero calls $389

Total pot: $1117.60 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had J♥, 9♥ (two pair, eights and sixes).
Hero had A♠, Q♣ (two pair, eights and sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $1114.60

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $4.00 BB (2 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($819.50)
Hero (SB) ($1000)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 6♥, J♣
Hero bets $9.60, BB calls $5.60

Flop: ($20.80) 2♠, 5♣, 5♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($20.80) K♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($20.80) A♠ (2 players)
BB bets $12, Hero calls $12

Total pot: $44.80 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero had 6♥, J♣ (one pair, fives).
BB had 8♦, 10♥ (one pair, fives).
Outcome: Hero won $44.30

With my line, it looks a lot like I have either A-high trying to showdown cheaply or air that I declined to bluff. In either case, I’m likely to bet the river. Thus, it doesn’t really make that much sense for Villain to bet if he paired the Ace, and it makes even less sense for him to try to value bet a K. There’s also not much point in bluffing if he has Q-high, so my Jack starts looking pretty good.

Of course this all falls apart if Villain realizes how FOS his river bet will look and expects me to call with J-high

We had an interesting discussion in last week’s Extracting Value seminar about slowplaying on wet boards (i.e. when there are a fair number of draws possible). It’s overall not a great idea, but I do advocate doing it with often with top set. Good hand readers don’t expect you to slowplay on such boards, and consequently they won’t give you credit for a big hand on future streets. Thus, I like to have a few strong hands in my checking range, and top set is usually a good candidate. Even if an opponent makes a flush or straight on the turn, top set has a lot of outs, and you usually aren’t missing out on a flop bet since it’s hard for an opponent to have a second best hand.

This isn’t the best example of a wet flop, but it is a good example of an opponent refusing to give me credit because I checked the flop:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 162 Tournament, 150/300 Blinds 40 Ante (5 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB (t13725)
Hero (UTG) (t6371)
MP (t9263)
Button (t14823)
SB (t15087)

Hero’s M: 9.80

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10♣, 10♦
Hero bets t750, 3 folds, BB calls t450

Flop: (t1850) 10♥, 5♥, 2♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks  Read the complete post...

Whenever we get a lot of new visitors at Thinking Poker, and probably a lot of people who haven’t read my more monolithic trip reports (understandable), I reprint select stories that are buried in much longer narratives but that I consider among my best. This article is part of that series, so apologies to those who have already seen it. If you have suggestions for other stories that deserve to be reprinted with their own dedicated post, please leave a comment!

Excerpted from my WSOP 2007 Trip Report:

As we are taking our seats on Day 1, there is a lot of commotion, and someone saying he needs two seats. I immediately think of US Airways’ controversial policy requiring overweight passengers to purchase two seats, but it turns out the gentleman who will be sitting two seats to my right is William, a twenty-something missing one arm and almost completely unable to use the other, who plays with his feet and needs the second seat to balance himself. One at a time, he pins his cards to the table with his big toe, slides them up a little wooden ramp, and looks them. He’s adept enough with his toes to take individual chips out of a stack and then push them into the pot. He has an assistant who stacks his chips for him when he wins a pot. Apparently he made it into the money last year, and obviously he is popular with the press, so there are a couple of cameras taping him as he gets set up. Maybe I will be on TV after all!  Read the complete post...

My latest poker strategy article, Out of Position Against a LAG, has just been published in the March 2011 issue of 2+2 Magazine. It’s a street-by-street analysis of a single hand, highlighting a lesson that can be learned from each. Here’s an example:

Lesson: Against an opponent who is capable of reading your hand, you can determine which hands he will value bet and which hands he will bluff based on what kinds of hands he will expect you to hold.

As always, check it out and let me know what you think.

This hand is a good example of being aware of your own range and what your hand will look like to Villain. I had recently folded to a triple barrel from this same Villain, who generally exhibits very aggressive tendencies. I had no idea whether that history would make him more or less likely to try to bluff me here.

Consequently, I made the decision to call down based on the fact that the board came out very badly for my range. I think Villain would (correctly) expect me to bet flush draws on the flop, and the check-call probably indicates either a pair of T’s or a pocket pair to him. QT isn’t the absolute top of my range here- that would be something like AT or KdT, but it’s close enough to the top that I think it needs to be in my calling range against a Villain capable of triple barreling on a run-out that’s bad for my perceived range. The fact that draws missed on the river should also increase his bluffing frequency, as he may expect me to be on a pair + draw planning to fold if I don’t improve.  Read the complete post...

The first video in my new four-part series about HUD-based decision making and using statistics to exploit opponents has just gone live at Poker Savvy Plus. In conjunction with that, I’ve got a twist on the old “What’s Your Play?” series. In this hand, calling or folding are your only options, and it’s an extremely read-dependent decision.

Take a look at the hand, and then sound off on the question I’ve got for you at the end:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($1570)
MP ($1124)
Button ($2200)
Hero (SB) ($1000)
BB ($1017)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7, K
3 folds, Hero bets $40, BB calls $30

Flop: ($80) 6, 8, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $55, BB calls $55

Turn: ($190) K (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $150, Hero calls $150

River: ($490) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $772 (All-In)

Suppose that you were going to have to make this decision. I tell you that he is a winning regular at these stakes, and I offer to give you just ONE of the following statistics that I have on him, based on a sample size of 397 hands played in 6-max games. Which would you choose and why?  Read the complete post...