£200 NLHE Full Ring: Good bluff or bad bluff (£1-£1 live cash game)

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lewisf20

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So this is a live cash game at a casino at £1-£1, 8 players at the table.
My stack is around £200.


I have Kh Jc


I am on the cut off, it folds around to me. I raise to £5.


Button (been at table for 5/6 hands) re-raises me to £15, sb bb fold, I call. Pot = £32.


Flop is Qc Jd 5c


I check, villain bets £15, I call. Pot = £62


Turn is Qc Jd 5c 8c


I check, villain bets £45, I call. Pot = £152


River is Qc Jd 5c 8c Ad, I push all in for £140ish


I thought it was a good chance to bluff, since I looked quite strong from his perspective, there is a potential flush out there, 9 10, K 10 make straights.


His range was pretty tight there though, AJ, 99, 77, AQ.. What do you think? Stupidity or a good bluff? Thanks
 
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1dkp0k3r

1dkp0k3r

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You are representing a very narrow bluffing range. The most likely hand that you have here is :kc4: :jc4:.If you had :kc4: :10c4: or :10c4: :9c4: you would have probably check raised the flop with the combo draw. Any set, or two pair hand here would probably also check raise the flop, even the :ac4: with another club probably check raises the flop. If your opponent has the :ac4: in their hand, then that would be good for you as it blocks potential bluffing hands, but then again they river a pair of A, possibly making 2 pair. You block KK and JJ, still possibilities, but less likely.


Villains range here, considering his pre flop 3 bet, and betting 2 streets IMO is, AQo+, JJ+, and suited broadway club hands :)ac4:, :kc4:, :10c4:) You block the :jc4:, so realistically you are only going to get KK to fold here


IMO, bad bluff. What ended up happening?
 
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mikeisthebestever

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I think at least a small range of hands you open with, you should be folding to 3-bets in cases where you could be dominated. I think this hand would be a very good one to include in that range just because the 3-betting range at low stakes live are super narrow. More importantly, low stakes players dont like to fold big hands. They would rather lose money and show the bad beat than fold. If this bluff got thru I think it would be largely player/read dependant more than something we can analyze. If the player you tried this against is a thinking player and/or 3-bets light sometimes it could be profitable long term.
 
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Gildog89

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The problem I see here is that you really have no information on your opponent. At live low stakes games, its hard to bluff a lot of weak players. He could call you with a hand as weak as QTs here because he thinks its a strong holding. You just don't know yet. I think I would fold to the 3 bet pre flop here with your trouble hand, and not try to run a bluff from out of position against this unknown villain. Later, when you have more information, if he shows the ability to fold, maybe you can bluff him, but try to select a hand with position.
 
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lewisf20

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He thought for 20-30 seconds then folded, so I took down the pot.

I realise that it was obviously risky having no info on him, but he had none on me too, so it was kind of even. I didn't want to check, then he value bets like two pair, and i fold, so I went for it, maybe a bad play but it worked this instance.
 
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RakeMyLife

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Good bluff. You can be pretty sure he doesn’t have the flush and there’s enough suited hands in your range for him to believe you.

However, I’m with the others that it’s generally a bit risky with no information on villain. You assumed he was smart enough to fold with such a scary board (and I think the fact that it was a live game probably helped too), but this may not be the case typically. In other words, the play was fine, the context maybe not.
 
Matt Vaughan

Matt Vaughan

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I actually think we can just release preflop and not worry too much about it. With minimal info and at these stakes I don't expect a lot of 3bet bluffing to be going on, and we perform very poorly (especially out of position) against a value heavy range.

I really don't love this bluff. We CAN hold a decent amount of nutted combos on the turn, which is good, but I think it's pretty likely that most of our strong value holdings would check raise or even lead the turn. T9 and non-nut flushes are vulnerable so I'd think we play those for an aggressive action on the turn usually. We definitely can't rep sets here for value either - it's straights (probably suited only) and flushes for sure that we rep. Possibly just flushes in his eyes.

Plus the A on the river is ultimately a better card for the villain's range than for ours. His primary bluff holdings will be AK, and that just improved. People hate folding when they improve, and we also only have a hair under pot to jam so he's getting over 2 to 1 on a call. Even if people FEEL they are beat here with AK, they just have a ton of trouble releasing.

AQ improves, AA improves, and those are not folding. KK may hate life and fold now regardless of whether our line makes sense, but we even block that so there's only 3 combos. TT likely doesn't even bet flop and turn (and we beat that anyway). I just don't expect most typical opponents to fold QQ or JJ here either. So what are we realistically hoping to get to fold out?

And therein lies the problem. We don't actually know anything about our opponent. So how are we supposed to know whether he folds AK or even AQ here? We don't. We have to guess, or use player pool tendencies. I'd rather use player pool tendencies as a default, and in that regard, the primary mistake the pool makes is not releasing hands they deem "strong" which should be most of your opponent's reasonable range at this point.

Not in love with it. Not saying it NEVER works, but potting it all in, we need it to work pretty often (> 50% of the time) to be profitable.
 
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lewisf20

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I actually think we can just release preflop and not worry too much about it. With minimal info and at these stakes I don't expect a lot of 3bet bluffing to be going on, and we perform very poorly (especially out of position) against a value heavy range.

I really don't love this bluff. We CAN hold a decent amount of nutted combos on the turn, which is good, but I think it's pretty likely that most of our strong value holdings would check raise or even lead the turn. T9 and non-nut flushes are vulnerable so I'd think we play those for an aggressive action on the turn usually. We definitely can't rep sets here for value either - it's straights (probably suited only) and flushes for sure that we rep. Possibly just flushes in his eyes.

Plus the A on the river is ultimately a better card for the villain's range than for ours. His primary bluff holdings will be AK, and that just improved. People hate folding when they improve, and we also only have a hair under pot to jam so he's getting over 2 to 1 on a call. Even if people FEEL they are beat here with AK, they just have a ton of trouble releasing.

AQ improves, AA improves, and those are not folding. KK may hate life and fold now regardless of whether our line makes sense, but we even block that so there's only 3 combos. TT likely doesn't even bet flop and turn (and we beat that anyway). I just don't expect most typical opponents to fold QQ or JJ here either. So what are we realistically hoping to get to fold out?

And therein lies the problem. We don't actually know anything about our opponent. So how are we supposed to know whether he folds AK or even AQ here? We don't. We have to guess, or use player pool tendencies. I'd rather use player pool tendencies as a default, and in that regard, the primary mistake the pool makes is not releasing hands they deem "strong" which should be most of your opponent's reasonable range at this point.

Not in love with it. Not saying it NEVER works, but potting it all in, we need it to work pretty often (> 50% of the time) to be profitable.
I guess the only explanation is, he 3 bet pretty light, but he double barrelled so maybe he was just trying to rep something, I don't know.

But thanks for your long detailed response it is really helpful, will consider more things in future when bluffing!
 
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