How often do you double triple barrel bluff?

V

vax1op369

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
May 21, 2009
Total posts
252
Chips
0
I have noticed that triple barrel bluffs never work. Opponent always views it as a bluff and just calls off.

Over past month I have played Nl .10 all the way up to 2.5/5 and I can say from what I have seen from myself and others that bluffing doesn’t work that often.


How often are you double barreling into a pot? Or even triple barrel? What would be he optimal conditions?



Maybe it’s me, I have found that I run into player after player that is willing to play for stacks with just top pair. Any thoughts?
 
N

NickNation

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
May 18, 2018
Total posts
159
Chips
0
i used to double and triple barrel bluff a lot more before i started playing at higher stakes. it works a lot more at the lower levels, but for some reason freerolls and micros... bad people dont fold for some reason so bluffing and 3betting pre works less often than you would think
 
V

vax1op369

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
May 21, 2009
Total posts
252
Chips
0
i used to double and triple barrel bluff a lot more before i started playing at higher stakes. it works a lot more at the lower levels, but for some reason freerolls and micros... bad people dont fold for some reason so bluffing and 3betting pre works less often than you would think

I have done it a few times here and there and can say that I’m done with the triple barrel. If they call your turn bet it’s over.
 
A

AlbieTross

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Sep 17, 2015
Total posts
1,302
Awards
1
Chips
1
Very rarely. Seems too risky of a move to be honest.
 
Sil3ntness

Sil3ntness

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Oct 14, 2014
Total posts
1,171
Chips
0
It depends on the player. Don't level yourself versus new players. New players and calling stations do not like to fold. The old saying "I didn't drive a hour to fold" means that some players come to play any two cards and want to see rivers. If they catch any piece of the board prepare for them to call down light even with bottom pair.

What that means, you need to play stronger ranges and get full value out of them when you hit strong hands like top pair with good kickers, two pairs and etc. Their lack of folding means more money for you when you get to showdown. If they are calling your flop and turn bets it should be an alarm going off in your head that they are either on a draw or have a made hand.

Save the double & triple barrel bluffs for people that fold a lot and actually pay attention to ranges and your perceived hand strength. They will think themselves out of calling with the bottom/middle of their range.
 
V

vax1op369

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
May 21, 2009
Total posts
252
Chips
0
It depends on the player. Don't level yourself versus new players. New players and calling stations do not like to fold. The old saying "I didn't drive a hour to fold" means that some players come to play any two cards and want to see rivers. If they catch any piece of the board prepare for them to call down light even with bottom pair.

What that means, you need to play stronger ranges and get full value out of them when you hit strong hands like top pair with good kickers, two pairs and etc. Their lack of folding means more money for you when you get to showdown. If they are calling your flop and turn bets it should be an alarm going off in your head that they are either on a draw or have a made hand.

Save the double & triple barrel bluffs for people that fold a lot and actually pay attention to ranges and your perceived hand strength. They will think themselves out of calling with the bottom/middle of their range.



Great post, it’s funny, at my local casino I would play 5 tournaments a week. I would tell myself no bluffing. I would usually win 2/5 events. And cash min 4. As long as I didn’t bluff. Why do you think players have a tendency to bluff more at cash game than tournaments?
 
Empress

Empress

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Dec 28, 2017
Total posts
229
Chips
0
Very rarely, but I've done this before. Only if I'm raising and the other player is simply calling the bets and (mostly) if I get a good sense of what the other player is holding & hoping for in the cards.
 
Spaceman

Spaceman

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Mar 16, 2018
Total posts
1,345
Awards
4
Chips
0
Do you just bluff or play the board?If flop comes :4h4::5s4::qd4: and you bet the flop and villain holding lets say :10s4::ad4: and when the turn comes :as4: of course he may believe he is ahead and want to see a showdown. What is he really scared enough to push him off the pot? A pair of queens? Straight? Do you really bet preflop with 2 3? Triple barelling that flop accomplishes nothing most of the time when he pairs his ace on the turn. Even if river came a spade, your opponent might think that you wouldn't lead a rainbow flop holding just two spades.


Then its bet sizing. If you triple barrel min bets you may give your opponent good pot odds to just call you river bet with top pair.


Then its how often you triple barrel. If you do it like every hand, what do you expect your opponent to think? "Oh, he triple barrelled for the tenth time already, maybe I should better fold my top pair here".


For triple barrel to work, you should have a read on your opponent first, you don't triple barrel calling stations or fishes that believe top pair on a wet board is fine. Also you should be aware of your table image. Triple barrel works better when you sold a tight image rather than a loose one.


Just my 2cents, I may be wrong, and maybe you just playing against a lot of calling stations!
 
Last edited:
playinggameswithu

playinggameswithu

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Nov 7, 2017
Total posts
2,250
Chips
0
Bluffs over 25% of your stack are an advanced move. People don't believe and are not folding.You really need to keep your mind on the emotional pulse of the table and the hand action per action. That said I triple barrel when the flush did not get there.I always small bluff in MTT's especially blind steal post antes and ALOT of C-bets. If they hesitate my C-bet I then double barrel. I tapered down my bluffs and my cashs went way up in freerolls. Bluff over 25% of stack you need to understand the emotional communication of the hand, you really need to know the player, you should be in position and couple other variables. Just stick to blind steal c-bet,scary boards and bluff for less than 20-5% stack. If they call your turn bet and they arent drawing then STOP. All in bluffs are also idiotic in MTT,like literally the worst move a player can do. All in bluffs are obvious and can be and infrequently scare opponents. Best of luck 2 u.
 
WabiSabi

WabiSabi

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
May 17, 2018
Total posts
153
Chips
0
Double barreling is a bit more simple as you can fire lot's of turns when you pick up equity,so look for flops with backdoor potential.Tripple barreling as a bluff doesn't really need to be used that often and would be on very bad run outs for villains range.
 
C

CrashMcCarran

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
Mar 19, 2018
Total posts
29
Chips
0
The best spots to 3 barrel bluff imo are wet boards where the runout doesn't complete big draws. I also don't like three barreling OOP because that makes it way too easy to get trapped even when villain doesn't complete a hand, because regardless of their holdings if they flat you with a strong hand they get value and villain has a great spot to bluff.

There was a hand I saw played between Dwan and Antonius where Dwan picked a really bad spot to three barrel but the hand works out for him. I don't recall the exact details but it's something like this.


200/400 effective stacks 300bb
$800 straddle
CO raises to $2500
BU (Antonius) calls with 6d4d
SB (Dwan) calls with AJo
Flop 2d 2s 3d
Dwan leads for 5k, CO folds, Antonius calls.
Turn 10h (? I could be wrong but the card is irrelevant to the hand)
Dwan bets 12k, Antonius calls
River Jh (this is actually a really bad card for Dwan because if Antonius had missed he had the best hand anyways, if Antonius had a made hand here, he trapped himself)


Dwan leads 35k on the river. Antonius raises to 140k.
Dwan flipped out for about 3 minutes.


Click to show the result of the hand.
Dwan makes the call. Bad result for Antonius but imo he made the correct play. The story Dwan is telling here doesn't make any sense to me. Especially with the flop lead into Antonius and the open raiser.
 
Shrops

Shrops

Legend
Bronze Level
Joined
May 14, 2018
Total posts
1,083
Chips
0
Not often

I do it. But, I don't do it very often. I seem to have the best luck when I do it to players that want to see every flop.
 
Dorugremon

Dorugremon

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 23, 2013
Total posts
456
Awards
1
Chips
19
"Over past month I have played Nl .10 all the way up to 2.5/5 and I can say from what I have seen from myself and others that bluffing doesn’t work that often".

This subject comes up a lot, and 10NL is definitely u-stakes. 500NL not so much, but hardly a big game either, and still dominated by rec-fish. At the Micros, the players I'd target for a triple barrel stack-off are few and far between. A couple sessions ago, I pulled one off. It was early in the session at 10NL and we both had ~100BB stacks.

I opened for 3XBB from middle MP (9-handed) with red sevens, and got repopped out of the BB after the rest of the field folded. My usual inclination is to lay it down unless I figure the fish will pay off a successful set mine. I knew this player, and even though his game still has leaks, he at least is capable of thinking. I called his 3-bet. I knew more about his range than he knew about mine. Being OOP, I put his 3-bet range as:

QQ+
AK, AQ-s

Flop comes down: ( Ad, 8d, 5d ) He 2/3rds pots it. Totally standard.

Since the Ace of Trump is on board, all the suited diamonds just departed from his range. Even if he has TPTK, or even top set, I figure my flush draw is likely good even though it's seven-high. The only risks here are he flopped nuts with ( Kd,Qd ) and I'm not sure he would 3! that OOP, I figure he'd just flat instead. The only other danger is he has an accidental flush draw with ( Ax,Kd ) ( Kd,Kx ) or ( Qd,Qx ) There are more combos without the over flush draw than with it. I call.

4th St brings a black nine and I know it's a brick for his range and he doens't have any straight draws. He leads out again, and I call. Another black card brick for the river and he checks. I know that a pair of sevens isn't going to win here, so I shove into his check. This play looks like one of two things: a trapping play with a made flush. or a TPTK that was waiting to see if any more diamonds rolled off before dropping the hammer. I know more about his range than he knows about mine, and I have all the diamonds in my range, and he knows it. If he knows I know he knows that, he might have called, but he can't be sure I'm not four-leveling him, and I'm not sure he's three-leveling anyway, as he does have leaks, and not being completely observant is one of them.

It took him about five seconds to find the fold button, so I figure he had the underpairs in the pocket. He might have tanked longer with sets and TPTK.

A triple barrel bluff like this doesn't work against fish. A fish just might show you anything, even something ridiculous like ( 9d,2d ) and he 3! because boredom. A fish will definitely call with any aces, kings, or queens because aces! He'll call his pocket kings or queens because he doesn't get them that often and will figure he's gone this far, so why not? Hope springs eternal with these players. A fish thinks "range" is where the deer and antelope play, that "equity" has something to do with real estate or the stock market, and that "GTO" is a car. You don't make plays that depend on thinking opponents when those opponents are thoughtless if not downright clueless. You stick with basic, ABC poker, and take 'em to Value Town instead. Fish are unbluffable after the flop. If he's in there, he has something, and if he didn't he'd be gone. It's as simple as that.

You don't have to worry about balancing ranges or any of that fancy stuff: trust me on this: they're not paying any attention. I've seen the nittiest players sitting behind EEEEEENORMOUS stacks. He'll jam it in and some fish will call only to be shown Pocket Rockets. What else did you expect? That guy hasn't played a hand in ten orbits, and he adds another stack to his pile. I see that all the time: I'd drop Cowboys like they were on fire in that situation.

Fish don't think.
Fish notice nothing.

Just because you saw Tom "Durrrr" Dwan pull off a sick triple barrel with a river AI on Super Duper Mega Poker After Dark with the Stars doesn't mean you can do it in your 10NL game. Those are TV shows, not Poker lessons, and I can't guarantee they aren't scripted in at least part. If you open. get called, your c-bet called, and he's leading on the turn, you don't worry about defending, you don't worry you're being floated: he's got the goods, and so you fold. Don't worry that this makes you look exploitable to turn leads. They're not noticing, they're not exploiting: THEY'RE FISH.
 
Spaceman

Spaceman

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Mar 16, 2018
Total posts
1,345
Awards
4
Chips
0
"
Just because you saw Tom "Durrrr" Dwan pull off a sick triple barrel with a river AI on Super Duper Mega Poker After Dark with the Stars doesn't mean you can do it in your 10NL game.

Nice post you made with good points. But, what is "a river AI"? Is it for Artificial Inteligence, so you mean like river bluff? Never heard that term before..
 
Limited_Al

Limited_Al

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
May 4, 2018
Total posts
70
Chips
0
Almost never... I’ll call off with a semi bluff, or I’ll try a single bluff with I’m in position and I feel that my opponent is playing particularly tight. If they call off and c-bet on the next card, then I’ll probably lay down the x-high hand...

I guess one exception is if the bord is particularly bad for my opponent, assuming I have them on a correct read. In that case, I may try to double barrel.
 
jfmcd86

jfmcd86

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Total posts
608
Awards
5
Chips
8
never have i tried triple bluffing, its too risky for my chips lol, i can do double....but that's how high i can go with bluffing
 
blueskies

blueskies

Legend
Loyaler
Joined
Jan 31, 2009
Total posts
3,643
Awards
9
Chips
304
You can't just triple barrel to triple barrel. You gotta do it against the right opponents and often on the right board texture. At lower levels sometimes the other guy feels like he's pot committed so he just calls.

If a guy doesn't fold top pair ever, your representing a straight or flush ain't gonna scare him off.
 
A

AndrewK1988

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Jul 5, 2017
Total posts
14
Chips
0
I try to take things into consideration, but I'll sneak them in after I've established a showdown image at the table. Good or bad, I've been busted on a bluff and then bluffed again soon after successfully.

I try to keep my bluffs successful or not to about 5% of hands tops.
 
S

Sorin Iliescu

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Total posts
391
Chips
0
i double barrel much often then tripple barrel. you can allways want to double barrel with a hand like AK and a dry ten high flop, then barrel the turn again, because you sometimes have the best hand and if you don't, you have enough equity to turn it into the best hand. tripple barrel is when you are certain an opponent has something like middle pair(he probably won't fold better) and he doesn't fold to your double barrel. also, an important aspect in this matter is sizing, which is also very important to make your story make sense
 
pirateglenn

pirateglenn

Legend
Bronze Level
Joined
Apr 17, 2018
Total posts
2,440
Awards
4
Chips
0
Hi there,

it varies dependent on the stakes and your table image..often at high levels if a villain is holding a decent hand, he or she is taking that all the way so your triple barrel had better hold the goods..better players will look to exploit any weakness and will see a exposed bluff as a chance to hit you on streets later on..sometimes its good to mix that play up to give yourself better business later on
 
K

Klito

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Nov 6, 2017
Total posts
180
Chips
0
Tripple barrel bluffs are made usually on tournaments when the battle begins with stealing the blinds and ends up into a big pot

But on cash 3 barrels are less often
 
quick

quick

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Total posts
1,348
Awards
1
Chips
67
I have done it a few times here and there and can say that I’m done with the triple barrel. If they call your turn bet it’s over.


Not so, depends on the opponent and the board texture on turn and river. If we think they're on a draw and the river seems to be a blank, a final river bet could induce them to fold if they missed, even if they caught a small piece on flop and were drawing to bigger hands. That said, I think against competent loose aggressive players on one end of the spectrum and calling station whales on the other end (i.e. didn't come to fold) you're right, the triple barrel bluff is an exercise in futility in most cases. But against most nits (who will be raising if they got a big piece on the flop), most tight aggressive players (who also will likely be raising your bets on flop or turn if they have a big piece of the board). and almost all passive players (who will try to get their draws cheap as possible), we can have some success barreling a board that seems like they missed big.


I think you mean to say if they raise your turn bet then you should strongly consider giving up the bluff and fold.


Others thoughts on this?
 
D

DeadRev

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Jun 20, 2016
Total posts
20
Chips
0
Depends on the other player. Is he new? Does he call everyone? But also depends on what I have. Big draws? Than yeah I’ll shoot a few bets out there In a semi bluff. You have to pick your bluffs.
 
Top