$10 NLHE 6-max: $ : Was this a good spot to bluff catch?

[JackOscar]

I go for a small range-bet on the flop since I think I should clearly have enough range advantage to justify it, he is likely to 4-bet KK+,AK so the king just hits my range much better.

The turn I am not really sure about, maybe I should just have checked it back here already and go into bluff catching mode if he bets, and probably go for a small value bet on safe rivers. Getting check raised on the turn would suck obviously.

When the 4th spade hits on the river I felt I had a pretty clear spot to bluff catch since I will never get value from weaker holding on this board. I don't have any stats on Villain except that his stack size is 150BB so that at least makes it a little more likely that he's a reg than a fish and is capable of bluffing on run outs like this. Would you always bluff catch here?


Some maths below if anyone is interested in that type of analysis:

There's a 45% chance of Villain not being dealt at least one spade pre-flop given that we don't have a spade ( 1 - (37/50*36/49) = 0.456) ), and since it's more likely than not that he would raise the turn with 2 spades to protect his equity in case I have AA,KK,AK and am drawing to a boat on the river (not sure if this is totally right so correct me if I'm wrong) we can maybe reduce that 45% down a bit. You're also more likely to play suited hands in the first place which should reduce the number of combinations with spades in them.

We're getting 33%~ pot odds so we need the probability that he's bluffing to be at least 33% in order to make calling profitable.There's a 45% chance of Villain *not* being dealt at least one spade pre-flop given that we don't have a spade ( 1 - (37/50*36/49) = 0.456) ), and since it's more likely than not that he would raise the turn with 2 spades to protect his equity in case I have AA,KK,AK and am drawing to a boat on the river (not sure if this is totally right so correct me if I'm wrong) we can maybe reduce that 45% down a bit. You're also more likely to play suited hands in the first place which should reduce the number of combinations with spades in them.

We're getting 33%~ pot odds so we need the probability that he's bluffing to be at least 33% in order to make calling profitable. So we need that:

P( no spade | Villain bets) = 0.33 = P(No spade) * P(Villain bets | no spade) / (P(Spade) * P(Villain bets | no spade) + P(Villain bets | spade) * P(spade) ) If we assume that Villain always bets with a spade (so P(Villain bets | spade) = 1) we can solve for P(Villain bets | no spade) and we get P(Villain bets | no spade) =~ 0.6.

So this call is profitable if villain bluffs more than 60% of the time that he doesn't have a spade here, would you say this is a reasonable assumption? We can probably reduce this number down a bit as well given the arguments above (then again villain is also more likely to not fold turn if he has a good spade so maybe not). If we also suppose villain doesn't bet river for value with some weaker spade holding like AxTs then we can reduce the number even more


888Poker Snap, Hold'em No Limit - $0.05/$0.10 - 6 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

Radu1229 (UTG): $15.46 (155 bb)
Pavel_Invest (MP): $10.00 (100 bb)
gasmeoutside (CO): $20.37 (204 bb)
MxJbb23 (BU): $14.17 (142 bb)
JackOscar95 (SB): $10.84 (108 bb)
kwikacz123 (BB): $5.40 (54 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.15) Hero (JackOscar95) is SB with K♦ A♣
Radu1229 (UTG) raises to $0.25, 3 players fold, JackOscar95 (SB) 3-bets to $0.85, 1 fold, Radu1229 (UTG) calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) 3♦ K♠ 7♠ (2 players)
JackOscar95 (SB) bets $0.65, Radu1229 (UTG) calls $0.65

Turn: ($3.10) A♠ (2 players)
JackOscar95 (SB) bets $2.11, Radu1229 (UTG) calls $2.11

River: ($7.32) 2♠ (2 players)
JackOscar95 (SB) checks, Radu1229 (UTG) bets $11.85 (all-in), JackOscar95 (SB) calls $7.23 (all-in)

Total pot: $21.78 (Rake: $1.08)

Showdown:
Radu1229 (UTG) shows T♥ A♥ (a pair of Aces)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 31%, Flop: 2%, Turn: 0%, River: 0%)

JackOscar95 (SB) shows K♦ A♣ (two pair, Aces and Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 69%, Flop: 98%, Turn: 100%, River: 100%)

JackOscar95 (SB) wins $20.70

 

[JackOscar]

Edit: Did the math a bit wrong, rough probability that he doesn't have a spade is more like: 36/45*35/44 = 0.636

Making the break even point for his bluffing only 31%

 

[gustav197poker]

The call on the river is balanced when we know that the villain is capable of turning his hands into bluffs. The villain will hardly ever show a lower set here, because our range contains mostly AA and KK. Anyway, you will see a lot of lower sets here because we are in micro stakes. Also, the river bet will often have one of the 13 combos that contain a spades card. The important thing here is that it is a UTG opening, that allows to shorten a little the number of combinations that this villain could have. On the other hand, when we bet on the 2/3 turn, if the villain is a NIT he will only call you with hands that defeat you. Without information about this V we must protect our check / call range. And on the river we arrive with a lower proportion of SPR. I like the river check / call line when we are committed to the pot. We only have to beat 5 combos in rank V to be balanced, but this will by no means be the case since micro stakes players do not think in balance, and most likely they will bluff you lower sets or club combos (these are reduced since the position of the opener is UTG). In this case the villain made a very unbalanced call on the flop and then thought that maybe you would fold, but in a 3-bet pot and with an effective 100bb stack, the most likely is to reach the river without fold equity.
Greetings.

 

[arenaci]

I am not an expert but I would make a similar calculation assigning him some ranges and calculate on equilab also inserting the full board:

I would assign (his flatting your 3-bet range) something like JJ-99,ATs+,KJs+,QJs,AQo+

When we run the calculation your two cards are 66.67% vs his range 33.33%.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
Out of position I prefer to 3-bet 4x especially against a small open, so I would have made it 10BB exactly. This also create a slightly lower SPR, where a TPTK type hand tend to play better.

Flop
Standard C-bet. Anything up to around half pot would be fine.

Turn
Standard value bet.

River
Interesting spot. I normally fold here, because I dont think, people are bluffing 50% of the time on average. But hey you caught him, so well done

 

[Sidetracked]

Whether to call or fold has everything to do with what you know villain is capable of. Some players are incapable of shoving their whole stack in as a bluff. others seem to be able to do it much more easily. this guy seems to fall into the latter group.

 

[John A]

Any stats on opponent? Whether someone is bluffing more than 1/3rd of the time here depends a lot on any stat / data you might have.

In general, this is probably a narrow fold at these stakes. In micro I think the general rule of 1/4th or better odds, it's a call with better than TP in a spot like this. 1/3rd it starts to become much more player dependent.