$2 NLHE Full Ring: Semi-bluffing OOP versus 1 player

Hello everyone.
I have a very short bankroll ($10, I've topped it up to $16-20 twice but then when I come back to NL2 I start getting ****y and making dumb plays) but I try to keep that from affecting my aggressiveness.

So anyways I read "The Theory of Poker" and the chapter on semi-bluff says that you should bet yourself OOP whenever you think your hand is worth calling. This is an example of me trying to put this to practise:

poker stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players -View hand 2669704

SB: $1.75
Hero (BB): $1.92
UTG: $2.14
UTG+1: $1.44
MP1: $2.15
MP2: $2.14
CO: $0.59
BTN: $2.00

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BB with
2 folds, MP1 raises to $0.06, 1 fold, CO calls $0.06, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.19) (3 players)
Hero bets $0.08, MP1 calls $0.08, CO calls $0.08

Turn: ($0.43) (3 players)
Hero bets $0.16, MP1 folds, CO calls $0.16

River: ($0.75) (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.10, Hero calls $0.10



Ignore that river call. I know it was bad, I knew it was bad when I did it, and I know why :/
This is how my semi-bluffs turn out most of the time, either with gutshot + flushdraw, or flushdraw + OESD/double gutshot (I tend to 3- or 4-bet in these cases so it gets wayyy more expensive than the example above).

So I decided to reach out and see how good I'm semi-bluffing. Do you think the problem is in my bet size? The idea of a semi-bluff is that a fold should be possible, so maybe my bet size isn't good enough (ie. Maybe if I had overbet that flop, I would have found out he had a pretty good hand that he wasn't going to fold, hence I would be check/folding or check/calling river depending on the odds)? Or am I semi-bluffing with the wrong type of hands? Or should I have checked Turn?

Thanks in advance

EDIT: @CardsChat crew: your "preview option" allows the hand converter's HTML and it shows me the hand perfectly. When I submit, I get stuff like "River: ($0.75) 8 <font color='red'>♦</font> (2 players)" and I have to re-edit the whole thing

Okay first of all your not semi bluffing here at all.

For example with those cards and players raise/calling you could opt for a squeeze. So bet say 24c or whatever you would with AA.

Get some callers... Now this flop we love, especially with making a squeeze play it makes me all warm inside but also I know we could easily lose here but nah fck it we stay strong!!!! cuz we will crush those who oppose us!.

I'll raise on the flop 3/4 to pot size... .hope to end the hand, if someone gets smart and raises me... i'll over the top shove cuz this is my mofo hand! and leave it to the poker gods to decide if it gets that far.




So look at the difference I played the hand... your bet sizing is way too small, and your calling rather than being the aggressor. You need to put your opponents in tough spots to semi bluff, The only reason why it would be a semi bluff with top pair is if our opponent re-raised us on flop and we shoved. Sure we have a hand but we are most likely behind their Overpair, 2pair or set, even a straight.... But we have a flush to come and also a gut shot we should feel good unless we are unlucky enough to run into ATs of hearts then we are totally screwed hah. but highly unlikely .... could run into opponetns with a ten most often but we will have the flush to counter that sht.

Also 3betting should get rid of hands like KT from medium position and cancel out some more straight possibilities but who knows with some of these villains they'll call with ATC

Aces2w1n said:

Okay first of all your not semi bluffing here at all.

For example with those cards and players raise/calling you could opt for a squeeze. So bet say 24c or whatever you would with AA.

Get some callers... Now this flop we love, especially with making a squeeze play it makes me all warm inside but also I know we could easily lose here but nah fck it we stay strong!!!! cuz we will crush those who oppose us!.

I'll raise on the flop 3/4 to pot size... .hope to end the hand, if someone gets smart and raises me... i'll over the top shove cuz this is my mofo hand! and leave it to the poker gods to decide if it gets that far.




So look at the difference I played the hand... your bet sizing is way too small, and your calling rather than being the aggressor. You need to put your opponents in tough spots to semi bluff, The only reason why it would be a semi bluff with top pair is if our opponent re-raised us on flop and we shoved. Sure we have a hand but we are most likely behind their Overpair, 2pair or set, even a straight.... But we have a flush to come and also a gut shot we should feel good unless we are unlucky enough to run into ATs of hearts then we are totally screwed hah. but highly unlikely .... could run into opponetns with a ten most often but we will have the flush to counter that sht.

Click to expand...

Notice we have medium pair, not to pair on that flop; the Queen beats us he actually turned out to have AQ. So I wasn't betting for value here.

So if I understood your post correctly, for this to be a small-bluff, we would have to raise pre-flop and bet more post-flop? Makes sense thanks for answering!!

Woops but still doesn't make a difference. The top pair and medium pair makes no difference with that board... It's all about our draws, I mean look we are never happy with a J if it's top pair ... so only good thing bout medium pair is that it's easier to fold. But we have a real draw heavy board and folding is never an option and we still think about raising it up.


And I still play it the same cuz we will definetly get it in and get more chance of a caller and on the flop you'll find we should be favourite 58.89% favourite against his AQ so our play is +ev. our opponent is 41.11% so it's not the worst spot to play like that.

we are still favourite even if we run into top 2 pair QJ... The only hand we don't want to see is a set. then we are 36% but that's still not the worst

Our opponent has KT we are 38%

Our opponent has T8 we are favourite with 51%

if our opponent has AT hearts we are 44% ... that one surprised me.

Awesome I got it!!!
Thanks for answering