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I suppose what I want to learn here is how to identify good spots to bluff...

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This is pretty bad. You're basically spraying and praying.

Quick basics:

1. Any bluff begins with putting villain on a range. Without doing this you're just shooting in the dark and hoping he doesn't call. If the likely hands he is holding are calling your bet then it's probably prudent not to attempt a bluff. The tighter the range you can put him on the easier your decision becomes.

2. You need to be aware of the hand your representing and make sure the story you're telling makes sense. In other words, your bluff needs to be believable.

3. To get an opponent to fold, you need fold equity. The better the odds are the more correct it becomes for someone to call you.

Now look at your bluff. You didn't put villain on a range. Sure you said he could have a PP or be on a draw, but the fact of the matter is that he could have a lot of different hands. What you need to be concerned about is what are the most logical hands he could have. Until you can do that with some confidence, I wouldn't even worry about bluffing. I'd instead focus on improving my hand reading ability.

Now think about what hands you could be respresenting. By the river, if I was villain, Qx or a draw seem the most likely hands you can have. Besides a gutshot no draws are completed on the turn and none are completed on the river. So villain doesn't have to be concerned with that. I wouldn't be worried about an over pair either since you limped PF. So if villain has a Q himself he's probably only going to be worried about either being out kicked that you might have rivered two pair. That also leads into the third point.

Even if villain has a weak queen he has well over 1/2 his stack committed and is getting ~4:1 on a call. Since it's hard to put you on much of a hand and the fact that so many people do crazy things at these limits, I very rarely see him folding a pair of Q's or better.


That's just a quick analysis but it should give you a general idea of how you should be thinking.

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Thanks, some interesting concepts to think about.

WRT to this specific example, I immediately didn't like how I played this. I suppose with his stack size, to even make it good semibluff with reasonable fold equity(although with his stats, I probably had none), it's reraising all in on the flop.

His turn bet seemed weak to me considering that there is a flush draw on the board, although, I guess a little frustration/lack of discipline creeped in.

Realistically I didn't have a defined idea of what he held, and there's not much for me to be representing, making this bad. I guess as is, I should have check/folded and waited for a better hand, although if he bets the river, I'm probably getting great odds, and my nines only have to be good about 1/4 of the time...