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Finding the right bluffs
I’ve always had trouble finding the right bluffs, or at least it seems to me. However, maybe I only really remember the ones I lose! RecPoker home game, first hand dealt. I’m in the cutoff with 2 black 10s. Main villain is on the button. He is a solid player, but my read is that he is on the tight side. I’ve never seen him show a bluff, and never seen him (that I remember) call down with a hand that was clearly beat. I relied on this description for this hand.
Everyone has 3,000 chips. Blinds are 15/30 at the start, I believe. Two limps to me. I raise 3.5x to 105. Button 3 bets to 418. SB cold calls. Even though this is two late position players who should have fairly wide ranges, I believe this player is only doing this with 10s+, AK, and maybe AQs. So in reality I’m way behind this range…in fact it is 65%-35% (if we were heads-up). However, thanks to the SB call I have to call 313 to win 1314, so I only need 24% equity to call.
Flop is 5K5 rainbow. I check. Villain bets 300 (23%). Not sure why but this just screamed JJ or QQ to me. It just seemed like a “see where I am at bet”. I just felt that AA and AK would have bet a little more trying to get more value. And KK may have either checked to try and induce from the SB, or maybe raised a little larger. Not saying that his bet ruled any of these hands out, but I just felt it really weighted him towards JJ and QQ. SB folds. Just based on that read I felt that I could get him to believe I had a K with an almost snapped off check raise to 1350. I had no illusions at this point that my hand was good, and didn’t even consider the 2 outs I likely had. So in essence I was of the any 2 cards mindset (within the range that had gotten me there). The question is would this player description fold JJ or QQ on a 5K5 given the action so far. On a roughly pot sized bet I believe my bluff has to work 50% of the time to be profitable. ( I know the 300 he had already put in changes that a little, and his odds for calling are improved).
He tanked and ran his time bank down more than halfway and called. I got really lucky on the runout (5K) so that we chopped when he turned over QQ. So I thought it was a reasonable bluff, even though I had no blockers and basically had no equity if called. What confused me was the dialogue that followed. I said “Thought I could knock you off those”. He replied “not after the preflop action”. I said “I could have AK”. He replied “no”. I said “I wouldn’t have 4 bet AK there” he replies “You wouldn’t have limped”. I say “I opened to 3.5x”. And his reply was “limpish”.
I realize bluffs are going to go wrong a lot. Was this bluff destined to fail from the start? Did my bluff go wrong because he didn’t remember the preflop action, or is it just not going to get enough folds anyway? (or does his comment “limpish” actually shed some light that I am missing?)
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2 Replies
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So I think that the “limpish” comment is in response to your sizing. Your raise is rather small over the two limpers as the pot was already 75. I would probably raise bigger there and my guess is that is what he meant. I think that a 4b! of AK is reasonable here (particularly off suit as you will be out of position), but I think he is wrong to assume that you don’t have it as a call OOP with AKs could be justified. That said, the call caps your range somewhat and reduces those combos and he blocks KQ. KJs might call, but probably plays best as a 4!. I think this is what got him over the finish line, since he blocked the most likely calling hand (KQ) that has him beat. In the end, I wouldn’t listen to the musings of the person who just called your bluff and was right. History is written by the victors, but you should probably recognize the biases inherent.
I do think that your read of his 3! range from the button may be a bit tight if he is a solid player. I am not certain he can get away with only 3betting TT+, AK, AQs. If you open that 3! range up, to 88+, KQo, AQo+ and all suited broadway, you will have nearly 50% equity in the hand with exactly TT. TT is a clear call and you could 4! reasonably here. On the flop if he Cbets only with value that beats you (i.e., JJ, QQ, TP, Boat) then you are crushed. However, against his entire range you still have 24% equity in the hand, which means you have the odds to just call. By raising you are throwing away all that showdown equity by turning your hand into 72o. Further, you are banking on him folding 50% of the time, by targeting JJ and QQ. However, this doesn’t give you enough bluffs in his range (using your predicted range) to meet the 50% level (it is close only if he Cbets his entire range). I think that you are going to see a lot of calls on this board with that range. This is particularly true since he only needs to win 22% of the time (3.6:1) to be profitable. Honestly, I think that you gave him the odds to call by your sizing. A bigger bluff may have gotten the job done, use a sledgehammer, not a scalpel in this situation. That said, getting people in a low stakes/(no stakes?; please don’t hit me Rec.Poker overlords!) tournament is probably expecting a lot, particularly in an essentially winner-take-all tournament. I would save the bluff for a hand where I didn’t have quite so much equity or later in the tournament when you can put his tournament life at risk (thus increasing his fold frequency).
Whenever I ask a coach whether a bluff I ran was a good one, invariably the response is “well, if it got though it must have been good!” While that is cheeky, the meta message I have taken is it is best to think of bluffs as a frequency, rather than a spot. In other words, construct your ranges so that you are bluffing at optimal rates, and worry less about the “spots” to bluff. In that way your long term return on your bluffs will be positive.
My 2nl.
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“Limpish” a new term for the poker lexicon. I believe the player was referring to your pre-flop raise sizing. With two limpers in front of you, I would expect to see a larger 2 bet. Something like 4.5x to 5x. This player interpreted that this “too small” raise kept AK out of your range. Or did this player think that AK would have 4bet pre? Would AK check raise this flop? If you had AK would you want to continue getting value from a sticky JJ or QQ? It is all about the story and in this player’s mind AK was not the main protagonist.
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