This is why you don't bluff at micro-stakes?

akaRobbo

akaRobbo

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He wasn't a fish, his stats were 15/11/2, mine were very similar, slightly higher.

Thoughts?


full tilt poker Game #33949550162: Table Casa (6 max) - NL Hold'em - $0.02/$0.05 - 10:26:55 ET - 2014/02/25
Seat 1: GRSCZY ($7.66)
Seat 2: will4017 ($6.25)
Seat 3: artudas ($1.13)
Seat 4: akaRobbo ($5.42)
Seat 5: pot444 ($8.41)
Seat 6: FanFCSM ($3.88)
artudas posts the small blind of $0.02
akaRobbo posts the big blind of $0.05
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to akaRobbo [8c 8s]
pot444 folds
FanFCSM folds
GRSCZY has 15 seconds left to act
GRSCZY folds
will4017 raises to $0.12
artudas folds
akaRobbo calls $0.07
*** FLOP *** [Jh 9c 4h] (Total Pot: $0.26, 2 Players)
akaRobbo checks
will4017 bets $0.22
akaRobbo calls $0.22
*** TURN *** [Jh 9c 4h] [2s] (Total Pot: $0.70, 2 Players)
akaRobbo checks
will4017 bets $0.60
akaRobbo has 15 seconds left to act
akaRobbo calls $0.60
*** RIVER *** [Jh 9c 4h 2s] [7c] (Total Pot: $1.90, 2 Players)
akaRobbo checks
will4017 bets $1.35
akaRobbo raises to $4.48, and is all in
will4017 has 15 seconds left to act
will4017 calls $3.13
*** SHOW DOWN ***
akaRobbo shows [8c 8s] a pair of Eights
will4017 shows [As Ad] a pair of Aces
will4017 wins the pot ($10.32) with a pair of Aces


Is it bad play on my behalf or is it a bad call by him? His c-bet percentage was something like 90% so theres no way im folding on the flop. And when he fires 0.60 into 0.70 on the turn it just looks like another barrel to get me off the hand. Pre he didn't even raise to 3xBB.

Obviously repping a straight after the river, even a set of Jacks/ 9s didn't have him worried. He's happy with his pair.
 
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micromachine

micromachine

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Fold the turn imo.

I can see why he called your river raise, there are missed straight and flush draws and the only straight you rep is if you hold 8T, which you should be folding pre really.
 
akaRobbo

akaRobbo

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Yeah I think it was the way he just kept firing which made me think and play differently. Usually when ive got just a strong pair and im getting snap called I slow down, but this guy just kept on going. Also the raise to not even 3xBB pre is weird. AK or AQ is what I thought he might have had. And when someone raises on the river at these limits they seem to have the nuts, so I thought it was worth a shot :(
 
micromachine

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If you're going to turn your hand into a bluff you probably should've done it earlier, by check raising the flop for example. Even a c/r to ~$1.50 on the turn and folding if he shoves would've been better.

Trouble about bluffing the river here is that he has fired 3 bullets so you can be fairly certain he has something decent by this point, and the stack to pot ratio is lower. For these reasons you have less fold equity.
 
Arjonius

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Yeah I think it was the way he just kept firing which made me think and play differently. Usually when ive got just a strong pair and im getting snap called I slow down, but this guy just kept on going. Also the raise to not even 3xBB pre is weird. AK or AQ is what I thought he might have had. And when someone raises on the river at these limits they seem to have the nuts, so I thought it was worth a shot :(
Fold the turn. Sure, AK and AQ might be in his 2barreling range here, but maybe not, and even if they are, what proportion of that range do they represent?

Also, how worried should he be about a straight considering the cards you'd have to hold and your series of actions? You might also have taken other lines with JJ or 99.
 
John A

John A

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c/f turn for sure. I'd consider leading at the flop. In a spot like this it's ok to donk into the open button. You're protecting against draws etc... I know it's an unpopular line because everyone expects that people will play back at you etc... and it's true, some people will, but most people will not. And this guy never would w/o a hand. Just don't tell anyone I said that.

Any ways, against this guy if you want to c/c he's probably only betting the turn for value or with ubber good draws, so I'd c/f if that's the line I'm taking.
 
U

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Why you don't bluff the micro-stakes:

Consider the reason that we bet at all, to get people to pay us when we have a better hand.

Lets say that we had a theoretical opponent who always called when we bet. This would be our ideal opponent. We would only place money in the pot when we knew that our hand was beating theirs and we would stop betting when we knew our hand was beaten. We would never bluff, because we knew our opponent would always call.

Most of the time we should be betting because we want out opponents to call. We should be building a pot when we have a strong hand and hope that our opponents with worse hands are going to call. This will not always happen.

So, what other reasons are their to bet? We also bet to get someone to fold a better hand. What if we had a theoretical opponent who would always fold when we bet. We would only bet when we had a worse hand and otherwise would call his bets when we thought we were beating him.

Most of our opponents fall somewhere in between these two realms.

Again, ideally we should be doing most of our betting when our hand is better than our opponents. However, if we only bet when we have a good hand our opponents will begin to notice this, over time, and will begin to adjust their play. So we must occasionally bluff in an effort to allow us to bet with our value hands and get calls.

The bluff is really just a tool we should be using so that we can get more money. We want our opponents to question what we have and make a bad call.

So, there are effectively two reasons that we don't bluff often at the low stakes, and additionally against weak players.
1: They already think people are bluffing all the time, so we don't need to vary our play. We will already get calls for our value hands.
2: The bad player is more likely to call your bluff, similar to #1, they don't give us credit for the hand so our bluff is more likely to be found out.

What this means is that, we can make more money more easily if we just play a tight aggressive game with better hands than our opponents do.

When you notice that people are always folding to your bets, then it is time to start introducing bluffs. This will let you make more money by taking advantage of the deference the table is giving us. When they start calling more often, then its time to play it straight again.

Bottom line: don't bluff at the microstakes, because you don't need to.
 
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