Picking bluffs on the turn

Guys, can we share strategies on how you pick your bluffs on the turn. So, let's say we open from BTN, BB calls. Flop comes: A83 rainbow, we c-bet range with a small bet sizing, BB calls. Turn comes K. What hands would you bluff and why?

In that situation, I bluff almost everything! It might well be a major leak in my game and I should probably put some time and effort into collecting the actual stats but, just from my own anecdotal experience in that situation, a double-barrel gets the blind to fold after the turn far more often than not. The amount that I bet (half-pot, two-thirds, full, etc) would vary depending on what I know of my opponent, such as if I bet half-pot on the turn will they recognise that as seeming value-y and hence are they more likely to fold, or will two-thirds be more likely to scare them off, etc. Of course, the check-raise from the BB does bite me in the bum every now and then in this kinda situation, but hey, c'est pokerrr!

When we are bluffing we are allways telling a story. And the story got be good enough that our opponent will believe it.

So ask yourself what is my perceived range and what my opponents range. How hard does this board hit my range, how many value combos do I have/ how many bluffs should I have. Is my opponent over or undercalling etc.

liuouhgkres said:

So, let's say we open from BTN, BB calls. Flop comes: A83 rainbow, we c-bet range with a small bet sizing, BB calls. Turn comes K. What hands would you bluff and why?

Click to expand...

As a hint, a UTG open vs BB tells a better story than a BU open in this spot
For instance let's assume we had QJo and no FD possible on the Turn. Vs a vacuum at nl2 f.e. I would not bluff. Vs certain Villains stats I would again. Do we pick up equity and so on also plays a big role. Work with you're range and understand boardstructures, as you can't replicate every play on every board.

As for balancing you're range that's solely villain depended. Do we have a CS with WtSD 40 or a nit with WtSD 20? And so on. There is no simple answer to this. People use solvers for things like these, and if you don't have the money to afford one you got to do it the old fashioned way with pen paper and lot of time.

@Luepso,
well even though UTG tells a better story, BTNvsBB situation happens 10 times more often, that's why we need to analyze this spot.

When I study I don't want to think exploitatively, I want to study how to have GTO-ish, balanced ranges. In this spot for example, on the turn I like overbet, but it's very hard to have enough bluffs.

ldw22 said:

In that situation, I bluff almost everything! It might well be a major leak in my game and I should probably put some time and effort into collecting the actual stats but, just from my own anecdotal experience in that situation, a double-barrel gets the blind to fold after the turn far more often than not. The amount that I bet (half-pot, two-thirds, full, etc) would vary depending on what I know of my opponent, such as if I bet half-pot on the turn will they recognise that as seeming value-y and hence are they more likely to fold, or will two-thirds be more likely to scare them off, etc. Of course, the check-raise from the BB does bite me in the bum every now and then in this kinda situation, but hey, c'est pokerrr!

Click to expand...

If you bluff almost everything, that's a huge leak in your game.

liuouhgkres said:

@Luepso,
well even though UTG tells a better story, BTNvsBB situation happens 10 times more often, that's why we need to analyze this spot.

When I study I don't want to think exploitatively, I want to study how to have GTO-ish, balanced ranges. In this spot for example, on the turn I like overbet, but it's very hard to have enough bluffs.

Click to expand...

well playing GTO is only the best strategy if you're opponents also play GTO. Every deviation from that is playing exploitatively. What funilly enough also makes you exploitable, but who's going to exploit you? So what you should aim for instead is maximizing your ev vs the player pool and the players.

If you play lower stakes keep your strategy simple but consisted. If you move up to nl50 you can worry about that. If you haven't been trying yet and are interested get something like a trial for pokerstove or snowie.

But as said focus on range. Take you're range and run it against certain random flops /turn... Look up your hands in you're hm2/pt...
GTO is not the strategy we win the most past a certain skilllevel. And as good players are few in between Maxev can boost our win rate much more than GTO. You only want to play that aggressive vs Regs. And z25 on stars is still beateble as biggest nit on earth. So set priorities

Well, if you are going to run a bluff from the btn what does it matter which cards you have? Your bluff has little to do with your cards. It's about your read on the opponent, the nature of the board on the flop, stack sizes, your image, etc.

gryphon3005 said:

Well, if you are going to run a bluff from the btn what does it matter which cards you have? Your bluff has little to do with your cards. It's about your read on the opponent, the nature of the board on the flop, stack sizes, your image, etc.

Click to expand...

Not true. It's better to bluff with straight than complete air. Other example would better to bluff with blockers to top pair than complete air.

liuouhgkres said:

If you bluff almost everything, that's a huge leak in your game.

Click to expand...

I did say "In that situation" at the start of my post - the key details being that I'm the Button playing vs just one villain in the BB. The BB is going to defend against my Button raise with a wide range because she knows I'm going to be raising to steal the blinds a fair amount if nobody has VPIPd by the time the action reaches me on the Button. She also expects me to C-bet on the flop as standard, too, so she's likely to get sticky and stubborn, calling my half-pot C-bet even if she's only made a weak connection with the board (e.g. bottom pair). But me also betting the turn is far less expected so if the turn card hasn't improved her holdings significantly, a bluff with the right sizing to suit the board texture is likely to get her to fold a good amount of the time. But like I also said, that's only my anecdotal experience of that specific situation, so if you know for sure that me playing THAT specific situation so aggressively is a major leak in my game, please tell me what you do (with rough percentages if possible) cos I AM on this forum to learn and improve my game!

In my opinion, giving bluffing strategies is very difficult, since they are things that we all use and it is like a secret of state ald art those tips the same opponents of the forum will know when you do or try to make a bluff now to make a bluff is just in some occasions because when you meet a person who makes many lanterns you will almost always lose in tournaments

ldw22 said:

I did say "In that situation" at the start of my post - the key details being that I'm the Button playing vs just one villain in the BB. The BB is going to defend against my Button raise with a wide range because she knows I'm going to be raising to steal the blinds a fair amount if nobody has VPIPd by the time the action reaches me on the Button. She also expects me to C-bet on the flop as standard, too, so she's likely to get sticky and stubborn, calling my half-pot C-bet even if she's only made a weak connection with the board (e.g. bottom pair). But me also betting the turn is far less expected so if the turn card hasn't improved her holdings significantly, a bluff with the right sizing to suit the board texture is likely to get her to fold a good amount of the time. But like I also said, that's only my anecdotal experience of that specific situation, so if you know for sure that me playing THAT specific situation so aggressively is a major leak in my game, please tell me what you do (with rough percentages if possible) cos I AM on this forum to learn and improve my game!

Click to expand...

I'm also talking about that specific situation. the only difference being on flop our small bet is not half pot, it is 33%.

On K turn we have a lot of hands that we want to check back. Like Kx, 8x, weak A. As value bets we have A with good kicker and better. That means we have very few value bets, and if we bet all out air we will be ridiculously overbluffing.


On this turn I like overbetting, because K gives us extra 3 sets to our range, so it improves our nuts advantage. We can have roughly 1 bluff for 1 value. I would say from top of my head we will have roughly 75 value hands and we should hat 75-80 bluffs.

The problem is to pick these 75-80 bluffs, hence this thread.

I bet any increase in nut potential, even picking up back door draws. I also bet more vs people who fold allot of the turn.

liuouhgkres said:

I'm also talking about that specific situation. the only difference being on flop our small bet is not half pot, it is 33%.

On K turn we have a lot of hands that we want to check back. Like Kx, 8x, weak A. As value bets we have A with good kicker and better. That means we have very few value bets, and if we bet all out air we will be ridiculously overbluffing.


On this turn I like overbetting, because K gives us extra 3 sets to our range, so it improves our nuts advantage. We can have roughly 1 bluff for 1 value. I would say from top of my head we will have roughly 75 value hands and we should hat 75-80 bluffs.

The problem is to pick these 75-80 bluffs, hence this thread.

Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your reply and for the insight, this is obviously an area I need to put much more thought into, I'll keep following this thread. Couple of questions, does your personal opinion of how many value/checkback/bluff hands there are vary, depending on whether it's a cash game or tourney? And, is 33% your standard small c-bet - and if it is, why so low?

Holy Makeral

Yikes! Ill make sure to keep an eye out for that one!

ldw22 said:

In that situation, I bluff almost everything! It might well be a major leak in my game and I should probably put some time and effort into collecting the actual stats but, just from my own anecdotal experience in that situation, a double-barrel gets the blind to fold after the turn far more often than not. The amount that I bet (half-pot, two-thirds, full, etc) would vary depending on what I know of my opponent, such as if I bet half-pot on the turn will they recognise that as seeming value-y and hence are they more likely to fold, or will two-thirds be more likely to scare them off, etc. Of course, the check-raise from the BB does bite me in the bum every now and then in this kinda situation, but hey, c'est pokerrr!

Click to expand...

JohnRambo said:

Yikes! Ill make sure to keep an eye out for that one!

Click to expand...

Well, yeah, if we ever share a table please do look out for me playing that way and please do exploit me if you spot it, cos that's the best way for me to learn what not to do - and I AM here to learn and improve!

I think I'm either firing a 30-40% barrel at that board or giving up. The K is a good card for villain if they called a cbet on the flop. They'll have a lot of Ax suited and the K is a pretty good card. The only hands you are folding out are 8x, which will probably fold to a small barrel.

ldw22 said:

Thanks very much for your reply and for the insight, this is obviously an area I need to put much more thought into, I'll keep following this thread. Couple of questions, does your personal opinion of how many value/checkback/bluff hands there are vary, depending on whether it's a cash game or tourney? And, is 33% your standard small c-bet - and if it is, why so low?

Click to expand...

1. Well, in tournaments we have wider ranges, so in most cases we will have more value bets and we will need more bluffs. However, depending on the bet sizes, ratio of bluff to values should remain same. For pot bet for example it is roughly 1 to 1. However, this is deepr topic, because, before reaching flop it is better to think of your hands not as bluffs or values, or rather bet-calls and bet-folds. Because in some cases you bet fold with value hand and bet call with bluffs(for example with nut flush draw). Regardless, you never want to have more than 45% automatic bet-folds, otherwise villain would print money raising every hand. Also in tournaments we should use smaller bet sizings, because of icm. Icm implies that every cheap we earn is less valuable than every cheap we have(and risk to lose). Thus, it is better to play for smaller pots. Also, in tournaments, a lot of time we have 20-30-40bb stacks, where on turn or river villain can check-raise all in, so we need to bet narrower ranges in general.

2. I use 25% and 33% when I range bet. It is just simple way to simplify your complex strategy. Because, no way we can implement GTO strategy, and on some boards we simplify it by betting whole range, 100% of our holding. It works great really, because villains never raise or/and call enough. With small bets a lot of our second, third pairs become thin value bet, and our bluffs have great price. If we bet half pot, now suddenly our small pairs are not profitable bets and our bluffs are more expensive, which in the end means we can not range bet and we need to have complex mixed strategy.

liuouhgkres said:

1. Well, in tournaments we have wider ranges, so in most cases we will have more value bets and we will need more bluffs. However, depending on the bet sizes, ratio of bluff to values should remain same. For pot bet for example it is roughly 1 to 1. However, this is deepr topic, because, before reaching flop it is better to think of your hands not as bluffs or values, or rather bet-calls and bet-folds. Because in some cases you bet fold with value hand and bet call with bluffs(for example with nut flush draw). Regardless, you never want to have more than 45% automatic bet-folds, otherwise villain would print money raising every hand. Also in tournaments we should use smaller bet sizings, because of icm. Icm implies that every cheap we earn is less valuable than every cheap we have(and risk to lose). Thus, it is better to play for smaller pots. Also, in tournaments, a lot of time we have 20-30-40bb stacks, where on turn or river villain can check-raise all in, so we need to bet narrower ranges in general.

2. I use 25% and 33% when I range bet. It is just simple way to simplify your complex strategy. Because, no way we can implement GTO strategy, and on some boards we simplify it by betting whole range, 100% of our holding. It works great really, because villains never raise or/and call enough. With small bets a lot of our second, third pairs become thin value bet, and our bluffs have great price. If we bet half pot, now suddenly our small pairs are not profitable bets and our bluffs are more expensive, which in the end means we can not range bet and we need to have complex mixed strategy.

Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your detailed reply, that has given me a lot to think about. (I play tournaments 99% of the time, it's very rare that I play cash tables.)