$5 PLO 6-max: How much do you bet as a bluff on this river?

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KFlint

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Hi,

Interesting spot I faced yesterday, 3better is 37/20 and seems to 3bet pretty much only aces.

Pot Limit Omaha $0.02/$0.05
pokerstars
6 players
Formatted by pokercopilot.com: Poker HUD for Mac and Windows

Stacks:
UTG - UTG ($1.83)
MP - Hero ($5.00)
CO - CO ($6.02)
BTN - BTN ($9.40)
SB - SB ($12.52)
BB - BB ($3.74)

Preflop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is MP with T:club: T:heart: A:heart: Q:heart:
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.17, 2 folds, SB calls $0.15, BB raises to $0.68, Hero calls $0.51, SB calls $0.51

Flop: 7:heart: 3:spade: J:spade: ($2.04, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: 6:heart: ($2.04, 3 players)
SB checks, BB bets $0.35, Hero calls $0.35, SB calls $0.35

River: Q:diamond: ($3.09, 3 players)
SB checks, BB bets $0.25, Hero raises to $3.72, 2 folds, Uncalled bet of $3.47 returned to Hero

Total Pot: $3.59

Hero wins $3.45


With so little interest from villains so far in the hand, having a queen in my hand and a EP range that can rep easily top set here I decided to go for it. The problem is that I didn't know how much was reasonable to risk here. Potting it seems like I want people to fold, I would normally want a crying call here so I would bet smaller. How much would risk in that spot and do you like the bluff?

Thanks!
 
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RunningLikePluto

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$5 PLO 6-max: How much do you bet as a bluff on this river?

At .02/.05 PLO you’re giving villain(s) waaaay too much credit if you think they’re paying attn to your sizing or your EP opening range. Most of these guys are just clicking the “pot” button. I don’t mind potting the river here. Problem being you can only get called with worse. I kind of think you might have the best hand here anyway, so maybe mix in a thin value bet in this kind of spot every once in a while... imo


Edit: you are probably playing in the hardest micro stakes pool in the world (stars) but still i kinda wonder what kind of impact it would have on ur winrate if u were betting thin for value in spots like this. There’s a good post about it on another forum PM me if u want link to it.
 
vinnie

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I am not sure I am a fan of calling a 3-bet with this hand against someone whose range is almost entirely AAxx (according to your own impression). In general, there are two things you don't want to be holding when you call a 3-bet from known aces. Those are an Ace or a pair. And, you have both of those. And, you have an extra heart, which decreases the small value of your flush possibilities.

The following is a graph of your estimated equity across various flops, if the SB folds.
sdxsk3g.png


If the SB folds, the pot will be $1.53 and the effective stacks will be $3.06, for an SPR of 2. That means we are risking 2 on the flop, to win 3. We need 40% equity on the flop. That means we can only continue on 24.68% of the flops.

Our EV from Calling when SB folds: 24.68% * ( 69.87% * $7.65 - $3.74 ) + 75.32% * (-0.68) = $-0.12

When the SB calls out flop equity graph looks like this:
JnAZBxB.png


SPR is 1.5 to 2.12, and we need 37.5% - 40.5% equity to play for stacks. I am not going to put the specific numbers, but we have to fold more often and have less average equity when we do call. So, we're doing worse overall. There's even more complication in that we don't know which flops are good for us against the SB, due to his poorly defined range. We could also call and have the SB 4-bet, and we're in horrible shape there.

---- Raw numbers for Second Graph ----
UnderGraph(38)
"Percentage of flops: 19.79
Weighted equity: 63.34335522991408"

UnderGraph(41)
Percentage of flops: 17.62
Weighted equity: 66.28149829738932"


Flop: I probably fold, if there was a bet. Flop is horrible for our equity, but it checks through. Turn is not great. We have like 20% equity, but are getting better than 5-1. There is some concern about being check-raised by the SB, but it's not a high chance since the flop checked through. The river, meh. I probably check it back.

But, most of all, I would fold pre-flop. This is not a good hand to take against knowns Aces.
 
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KFlint

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Yeah, I absolutely agree regarding calling 3bet with a double suited jt98 for example would be much better here. Ace proximity or having an ace is bad here. Bad call no doubt.
 
vinnie

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Yeah, to be honest, I probably would call myself. But, from the outside, I know it's not a perfect call. And, there's not a whole lot of flops that I will be happy with.
 
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Tricktappic

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Love the raise on the river and bet sizing is fine. It's great you are recognizing you have a blocker and reading the board well to take advantages of good little spot for a well timed bluff.

Its ok to take a flop in position facing a 3bet, even if we think he is only 3betting AAxx. Alot of the time if people wiff the flop on a scary wetish board, they will just check there AAxx especially OOP. We can take advantage of this and exploit it. It is never ALWAYS incorrect to call a 3bet in PLO. Of course, it is player dependant and position dependant also.

Well played. Nice hand.
 
Omahahahaha

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Seems a bit risky to bluff three way.
 
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RunningLikePluto

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$5 PLO 6-max: How much do you bet as a bluff on this river?

That’s another reason I like betting razor thin for value. Something I’m blown away by is how frequently villain is folding to 20-25% pot river bets because they look like value bets with monsters, I can’t imagine an Omaha hand with ANY showdown value that shouldn’t call a 20% pot river bet, particularly if they’re closing the action by calling....


I’m pasting the text of the write up I mentioned previously below for reference. This has affected my WR more drastically than anything else I’ve studied or worked on since making the leap from NLHE to PLO.


Here goes, what I think is the number 2 leak of all players and what truly separates solid thinking players from the zombie player talked about above.

I could write for pages about this subject so I hope this isn't too TLDR.

Bet Sizing!!!

Alright so let me preface by saying, a little about what I think of "balancing your ranges". I think this is pretty useless at any stake below 2/4 depending on the players of course. Ideally you should be playing super exploitable so you can exploit your opponents.

I am sure a good % of you have heard this before but because excellent players like Phil Galfond and some others preach having balanced ranges, we can get confused what really should be doing. So ultimately the majority of what I am going to say is going to apply towards weaker players specifically, the loose passive weaker player (fish).

In order for someone to exploit you they must be very observant and even more unlikely, they have to understand how to exploit your exploitable actions.

So I am going to talk about one player this time that you can use bet sizing to actively exploit and should be the most obvious.

Loose passive weak player (Fish)

The thing to realize about most fish is that they rarely bet thin for value themselves and do not bluff near as much as you might think, we are assuming this player is very passive and loose, both pre-flop and post-flop for the sake of this discussion.

One of the easiest ways to increase your winrate without really doing much is v-betting very thin, razor thin against fish. Instead of just checking back hoping your good with marginal made hands, you should be getting value from the fish, he will call with worse I promise you. In fact if you are never getting called by a better hand I would guess you missing insane amounts of value when you could be value betting thinner against fish. Another application is to use bet sizing for maximum value against a fish's weak hand range.

This seems fairly obvious, except I see students of mine play hands where they bet really large on a turn or river not remotely thinking of the hand range that could call a bet in that situation. Generally for lack of a better term, fish, are not thinking players. If they like their hand they hate folding but if you bet 3 times into them with a very large sizing you will probably get more folds then you expect unless they are a very special fish.

So generally when a fish gets to the river when he calls a flop on flop and turn, his hand range is very weak, lots of made weak hands and lots of weak draws that might have some SD value. Rarely does he have a very strong hand to call a large bet, this will vary from situation to situation but usually his hand range is very weak.

So why do I see players and students make a huge PSB on the river when they expect to almost never get looked up? Again they are not thinking of what their opponents hand range is or they are worried they will notice you bet small with strong hands and vise versa with bluffs. Also depending on stack sizes if the fish can raise over bets depending on his aggression level you rarely have stack sizes large enough to where there is more than a pot sized raise to call.

However, what if you bet large with your bluffs because you know their hand range is weak and small with your nutty hands?

He would call most if not all weak made hands instead of folding this weak hand range when you bet very large.

Ill end with an example that illustrates this concept of bet sizing against weak passive players.

[converted_hand][hand_history]Merge, $0.25/$0.50 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 4 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand
#10921182

BB: $37.49 (75 bb)
Hero (MP2): $53.99 (108 bb)
CO: $25.77 (51.5 bb)
BTN: $57.17 (114.3 bb)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A[emoji815] Q[emoji814] 3[emoji813] A[emoji813]
Hero raises to $1.50, CO calls $1.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($3.50) 8[emoji813] 8[emoji814] T[emoji815] (2 players)
Hero bets $2.62, CO calls $2.62

Turn: ($8.74) 2[emoji812] (2 players)
Hero bets $5.70, CO calls $5.70

River: ($20.14) 3[emoji812] (2 players)
Hero bets $4, CO calls $4

[spoil]Results: $28.14 pot ($1.40 rake)
Final Board: 8[emoji813] 8[emoji814] T[emoji815] 2[emoji812] 3[emoji812]
Hero showed A[emoji815] Q[emoji814] 3[emoji813] A[emoji813] and won $26.74 ($12.92 net)
CO showed Q[emoji815] Q[emoji812] 2[emoji815] J[emoji814] and lost (-$13.82 net)
[/spoil][/hand_history][replayer=10921182][/replayer][/converted_hand]


Play until turn is standard, given this player rarely folds flop I still feel I have the best hand a high % and he cannot raise a worse hand here or a bluff given my history/reads.

So I decide to bet again for a small amount expecting to still be called by worse a really high %.

River, same exact idea, yes we could be crushed by a bunch of 8s but his hand range is much wider than that, and we can surely be called by all worse over pairs and even top pairs if we bet a small amount.

Sure enough I bet 1/5 pot, which is a blocker bet but I know this opponent will not raise this unless he has a better made hand. I could bet slightly larger but I expect to have him call all his weak made hands. If we check, we miss over 20 big blinds on the river which is a great addition to our winrate.

So more or less, instead of thinking about the 10%-15% of hands that are strong and how you want to stack them or being afraid of them when you have a marginal made hand. Think about the other large % of his hand range that is much weaker and how to get max value from it.
Last Edited by jacktensuited13 10/28/11
 
T

Tricktappic

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That’s another reason I like betting razor thin for value. Something I’m blown away by is how frequently villain is folding to 20-25% pot river bets because they look like value bets with monsters, I can’t imagine an Omaha hand with ANY showdown value that shouldn’t call a 20% pot river bet, particularly if they’re closing the action by calling....


I’m pasting the text of the write up I mentioned previously below for reference. This has affected my WR more drastically than anything else I’ve studied or worked on since making the leap from NLHE to PLO.


Here goes, what I think is the number 2 leak of all players and what truly separates solid thinking players from the zombie player talked about above.

I could write for pages about this subject so I hope this isn't too TLDR.

Bet Sizing!!!

Alright so let me preface by saying, a little about what I think of "balancing your ranges". I think this is pretty useless at any stake below 2/4 depending on the players of course. Ideally you should be playing super exploitable so you can exploit your opponents.

I am sure a good % of you have heard this before but because excellent players like Phil Galfond and some others preach having balanced ranges, we can get confused what really should be doing. So ultimately the majority of what I am going to say is going to apply towards weaker players specifically, the loose passive weaker player (fish).

In order for someone to exploit you they must be very observant and even more unlikely, they have to understand how to exploit your exploitable actions.

So I am going to talk about one player this time that you can use bet sizing to actively exploit and should be the most obvious.

Loose passive weak player (Fish)

The thing to realize about most fish is that they rarely bet thin for value themselves and do not bluff near as much as you might think, we are assuming this player is very passive and loose, both pre-flop and post-flop for the sake of this discussion.

One of the easiest ways to increase your winrate without really doing much is v-betting very thin, razor thin against fish. Instead of just checking back hoping your good with marginal made hands, you should be getting value from the fish, he will call with worse I promise you. In fact if you are never getting called by a better hand I would guess you missing insane amounts of value when you could be value betting thinner against fish. Another application is to use bet sizing for maximum value against a fish's weak hand range.

This seems fairly obvious, except I see students of mine play hands where they bet really large on a turn or river not remotely thinking of the hand range that could call a bet in that situation. Generally for lack of a better term, fish, are not thinking players. If they like their hand they hate folding but if you bet 3 times into them with a very large sizing you will probably get more folds then you expect unless they are a very special fish.

So generally when a fish gets to the river when he calls a flop on flop and turn, his hand range is very weak, lots of made weak hands and lots of weak draws that might have some SD value. Rarely does he have a very strong hand to call a large bet, this will vary from situation to situation but usually his hand range is very weak.

So why do I see players and students make a huge PSB on the river when they expect to almost never get looked up? Again they are not thinking of what their opponents hand range is or they are worried they will notice you bet small with strong hands and vise versa with bluffs. Also depending on stack sizes if the fish can raise over bets depending on his aggression level you rarely have stack sizes large enough to where there is more than a pot sized raise to call.

However, what if you bet large with your bluffs because you know their hand range is weak and small with your nutty hands?

He would call most if not all weak made hands instead of folding this weak hand range when you bet very large.

Ill end with an example that illustrates this concept of bet sizing against weak passive players.

[converted_hand][hand_history]Merge, $0.25/$0.50 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 4 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand
#10921182

BB: $37.49 (75 bb)
Hero (MP2): $53.99 (108 bb)
CO: $25.77 (51.5 bb)
BTN: $57.17 (114.3 bb)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A[emoji815] Q[emoji814] 3[emoji813] A[emoji813]
Hero raises to $1.50, CO calls $1.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($3.50) 8[emoji813] 8[emoji814] T[emoji815] (2 players)
Hero bets $2.62, CO calls $2.62

Turn: ($8.74) 2[emoji812] (2 players)
Hero bets $5.70, CO calls $5.70

River: ($20.14) 3[emoji812] (2 players)
Hero bets $4, CO calls $4

[spoil]Results: $28.14 pot ($1.40 rake)
Final Board: 8[emoji813] 8[emoji814] T[emoji815] 2[emoji812] 3[emoji812]
Hero showed A[emoji815] Q[emoji814] 3[emoji813] A[emoji813] and won $26.74 ($12.92 net)
CO showed Q[emoji815] Q[emoji812] 2[emoji815] J[emoji814] and lost (-$13.82 net)
[/spoil][/hand_history][replayer=10921182][/replayer][/converted_hand]


Play until turn is standard, given this player rarely folds flop I still feel I have the best hand a high % and he cannot raise a worse hand here or a bluff given my history/reads.

So I decide to bet again for a small amount expecting to still be called by worse a really high %.

River, same exact idea, yes we could be crushed by a bunch of 8s but his hand range is much wider than that, and we can surely be called by all worse over pairs and even top pairs if we bet a small amount.

Sure enough I bet 1/5 pot, which is a blocker bet but I know this opponent will not raise this unless he has a better made hand. I could bet slightly larger but I expect to have him call all his weak made hands. If we check, we miss over 20 big blinds on the river which is a great addition to our winrate.

So more or less, instead of thinking about the 10%-15% of hands that are strong and how you want to stack them or being afraid of them when you have a marginal made hand. Think about the other large % of his hand range that is much weaker and how to get max value from it.
Last Edited by jacktensuited13 10/28/11
Very interesting and a nice read!

So what do we think about when our opponents pick up on the fact we are always betting marginal hands thinly for value, with those bet sizings, on a Board that is similar to the example hand?. Do we ever change our bet sizings against opponents that are not necessarily great players but observe quite well? Or do we ever change our bet sizings against the same player when we recognize other opponents at the table are picking up on these tendencies? I ask this because this seems to be easily exploited by players that are thinking at least at a level 2. For example, what happenes if you get raised pot on the river after you put in 1/5 bet size bets on turn and river. Sure, we give ourselves a good enough price to fold even if it in incorrect, but surely we gotta mix up our bet sizing from time to time even against players that are less skilled or fishy.
 
P

PKRNRS

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I dot play PLO but from the betting patterns I clearly a flush draw or straight draw. From a betting standpoint you seem on target and it's a good pot to take down uncontested. It's clear they missed their hands and I will don't see a problem with your pot size bet. You would have only gotten another .25-.50 maybe with a mine raise
 
K

KFlint

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Well thanks all for your input! I see it's not a consensus, I still think it was a good spot to bluff. Glad that some people say that my sizing made sense.
 
Last edited:
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RunningLikePluto

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Very interesting and a nice read!

So what do we think about when our opponents pick up on the fact we are always betting marginal hands thinly for value, with those bet sizings, on a Board that is similar to the example hand?. Do we ever change our bet sizings against opponents that are not necessarily great players but observe quite well? Or do we ever change our bet sizings against the same player when we recognize other opponents at the table are picking up on these tendencies? I ask this because this seems to be easily exploited by players that are thinking at least at a level 2. For example, what happenes if you get raised pot on the river after you put in 1/5 bet size bets on turn and river. Sure, we give ourselves a good enough price to fold even if it in incorrect, but surely we gotta mix up our bet sizing from time to time even against players that are less skilled or fishy.



Huh, that is only the last 1/4th or so of what I️ was trying to post — when I️ get to a computer I’ll figure out how to get the whole thing posted.
 
Omahahahaha

Omahahahaha

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However, what if you bet large with your bluffs because you know their hand range is weak and small with your nutty hands?

I'm not sure that having reverse BSHS (bet size = hand strength) is a great idea.
 
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