PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

BTN: $1.00 (50 bb)
Hero (SB): $2.80 (140 bb)
BB: $2.00 (100 bb)
UTG: $2.00 (100 bb)
MP: $0.46 (23 bb)
CO: $10.51 (525.5 bb)

Hero posts SB $0.01, BB posts $0.02

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.03) Hero has Tc Jh

2 folds,
CO raises to $0.05,
fold,
Hero raises to $0.16,
fold,
CO calls $0.11

Flop: ($0.34, 2 players) 9d 9c 8s

Hero bets $0.11,
CO calls $0.11

Turn: ($0.56, 2 players) 6c

Hero bets $0.27,
CO calls $0.27

River: ($1.10, 2 players) 4h

Hero bets $1.06,



Final Board: 9d 9c 8s 6c 4h


No information on villain.

My thinking in this hand was that the board favours my range over villains, I have lots of trips, sets and over pairs and I'm looking to fold out villains smaller pairs, A high and the odd random KQ that has over called.

Is this a good or bad bluff spot?

I'll post hand results later.

As you are playing $2 NL, I would recommend worrying less about good bluff spots and more about ways to extract value from people who call too much.

On normal tables I do but on zoom I find that bluffs can work quite well. So far I'm getting folds on about two thirds of rivers if I bet pot so I've been mixing up my river bets to be more polarised and it seems to be working. Not sure about this spot though, mainly because it's a 3bet pot.

Originally Posted by BustedKing

My thinking in this hand was that the board favours my range over villains, I have lots of trips, sets and over pairs and I'm looking to fold out villains smaller pairs, A high and the odd random KQ that has over called.

You really have lots of trips here? What does your 3B range vs CO look like? I see here that JTo is in there but it sounds like (if you have lots of trips) then at least 98s and T9s are in there too. Seems really wide. I suspect you'd have to divide the range up into calls and 3Bs otherwise you'd be 3 betting 26%+ which doesn't seem profitable. While we are uncapped and V is not, I would imagine V has more trips and we should have a similar amount of 88. After that the smaller cards probably favor the CO. We should have more overpairs and we can possibly play them like this but that's the only clear range advantage that jumps out at first glance.

Second point. I think most hands that want to triple barrel here would size up turn when the flush draw comes in. Going small, medium, large may look a little bluffy to some.

Third point. From limited bluff combo materials I've seen this hand is not ideal because we block straight draws and club draws that we want our V to have. I get that we don't have showdown value and we want to bluff more rivers in these situations but again, I don't see how we can be profitable if we bluff them all unless our Vs are over folding.

Last point. Echoing what Sidetracked mentioned. Some of the most common mistakes at 2NL are overcalling mediocre hands so being balanced could actually cost us some EV if the population calls too often.

Even laster point after reading your second post. If your query is just fold % when Hero bets pot on the river it's probably not a fair estimate. I would look at fold % in 3B pots where Hero is OOP and the flop is paired and connected with no flush draw. Then look how often Vs are calling down triple barrels light. How often the turn is called but the river is folded, etc. The sample is probably too small to have much value, but that's kind of the point. Not all situations are the same, so I wouldn't put too much stock in that 60% figure.

Short version of what others have said already:

1) Just fold this hand preflop, its trash

2) Look for spots to get value rather than spots to make big advanced bluffs

That being said I would C-bet the flop and also the turn with this hand, since you do after all have a decent draw. But on the river just give up and move on with your life.

You started bluffing from preflop. Does villain has big fold to 3bet value? Does villain has big fold to cbet value?
I don`t see bluff here from you, just spewing money.

Just a few additional comments about your bet sizing, because I think, it could use some work:

Preflop
When you 3-bet out of position, you need to go larger to give people a reason to fold. 4x or 20c in this situation is standard, and at 2NL you can also go even larger. This is course require, that you dont go completely out of line and 3-bet junk like JTo.

Flop
The small flop bet is probably close to, what a solver would suggest, but its pointless to play GTO poker at 2NL Zoom, and especially so when you already made a big deviation by 3-betting junk. Play exploitative poker instead and tailor your bet size to, what you want to achieve. This is one of the few advantages of Zoom actually. Nobody knows, what your "normal" bet size is, so you can never give away bet sizing tells by using different sizes with different hands. In this spot you want him to fold hands like A high, K high or an underpair, and a larger size will achieve that better. Sure you also lose more, when you get called, but this is ok, because unless you are against exactly a boat, you are never that far behind on the flop with your OESD.

Turn
Half pot turn bet is fine.

River
When you almost pot it on a blank like this, it does in fact look bluffy, as others have already said. What story are you trying to tell here? That you took this line with 44, and now you have a full house? Thats not very easy to believe, so if you did this against me, I would be very tempted to get curious. Instead if you are going to bluff, you must make it look like, you are still betting for value with an overpair, which probably mean something like half pot again. Its also important to think about, which hands you are targeting here. He is probably not folding a overpair even to a full pot bet, and certainly not trips or better. So really you are trying to get him off some kind of missed draw like 77 or AcQc. And those hands are probably willing to fold for a smaller size like half pot, which coincidentally also gives you a better risk/reward.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts,

c0rnBr34d;
Your first point is why I'm questioned whether this was the right play. I do 3bet quite wide from the SB* but thinking about it I'm not sure whether many villains would expect that so maybe I wouldn't ever get credit for those kinds of hands.

* I know this is very loose but my thinking is that the player pool is very rarely defending the BB and folding in the CO around half the time. That's not enough to make it auto profitable I know but I'm also getting a fold to cbet around 45% of the time so so I figure I don't actually need that much equity from my hand to make it playable. Even when called by 50% of the cut off's range I still have about 36% equity. I might try tightening up and see if I get better results.

On your second point I'm not really sure why this looks bluffy? If I had a value hand I'd want to bet small on the dry flop because hero can't have many hands, on the turn he may have picked up equity so I can bet bigger and on the river I want to get max value. What would a none bluffy play look like?

Third, I didn't even think about blocking his draws so that's a good point and something I'll keep in mind for the future.

Also the stats I gave were for 3bet, triple barrelled pots. For full pot river bets I get a fold about a third of the time, for 2/3 it's about half the time and for 1/2 pot bets it's about 40%. But you're right these are small samples of around 100 hands each.

Fundiver;

With regards to sizing my default used to be 4x but having looked at my HM3 stats this isn't getting any more folds than going 3x so doesn't seem worth it for bluff hands.

On the river, as I mentioned above, I'm getting far more folds when I pot it than when I go for 2/3 or 1/2 so shouldn't I just be choosing the sizing that gets the most folds?

Lastly in terms of my 3bet range, is it still too wide given the stats I mentioned in my reply to c0rnBr34d?