Assessing river bets... Bluffing tendencies or Range Distribution?

[Lefort]

Just wanted to see what people's general thoughts were on this subject.

For the sake of argument we'll say that you are playing against a villain whom you've cut his range down to 25 hands after his flop action. After his turn action you've now limited it to the 10 hands of his previous 25 hand range in which he would perform that action. So on the river, he makes a bet and you have the decision of calling or not with a mediocre hand. At this point, how important is his range distribution in your decision-making? What I mean is, do you base your decision mostly on your opponent's river bluffing frequency, or do you base it more on whether the bulk of his 10-hand range is in the bluff zone or the VB-zone?

Like a common example is that you get to a situation like this on the river where the opponent is almost certainly not VBing thin and thus only 1 of his 10 hands can clearly be bet for value, however the rest of his range could be turned into bluffs. How much more inclined are you to call in this situation, as opposed to a similar situation where 3 or 4 of his hands could be bet for value?

Another interesting thing with this concept is the aspect of levelling. If villain knows that you know that his VBing range is small and could "get" to the river with alot of bluffy hands, its probably not a good spot for him to bluff. So it almost makes it MORE likely that he's NOT bluffing in the situation where almost ALL of his range is in the bluff category.. that is, if he's a thinking player and believes you to be the same.

I'm tired and its late and I'm probably not making much sense but whatever, its gotta be worth atleast 30 seconds of attention.. maybe?

[jfish]

i dont understand why you want to differentiate between putting people on a range and assessing bluffing frequencies. why cant you do both without saying i value x more than y? you need to look at both in unison before you can really make a decision anyway.

that being said, i think people undervalue assessing bluffing frequencies.

[Lefort]

Yeah the title is misleading... I didn't mean which one, but rather, which do you rely on more heavily?

It's obv tough to put #'s on, but like in a situation where of the 100 hands an opponent can have on the river, you are certain that only 1 of them he bets for value.. how low does his "river bluff %" have to be for you to fold?

The reason I started the thread is that I think I quite often put too much emphasis on the range part and make calls with the logic of "but he can only be betting XX for value and I beat all the other [censored]" just to have him show XX and me think "maybe thats a spot where he never bluffs, and always has XX.."

[DLizzle]

people def put too much weight on putting someone on a range and not enough on assessing bluffing frequency. Bluffing frequency should outweigh hand range. In general people way overuse the idea of ranges.

[Mike MacIntosh]

Great topic. I am excited to hear other's responses...

[BearHustler]

Why wouldn't the bluffs be part of his hand range? People don't call preflop with J3o and a plan to bluff the river, as far as I know.

So let's say someone calls with a small PP, misses his set, but still continues on a dangerous flop because he thinks he can take it away from you. So you leave a few small pp's in his hand range on the turn. If you think he'd normally fold 22-55 in a certain spot, but might continue every once in a while with one of those to take the pot away on a later street, just leave a pair of red threes in his hand range, for example.

Edit: I'm just trying to say that his bluff frequency is a part of his hand range, not a seperate issue.

In your example, there are 10 hands in his range on the river. That means that he only takes that action with those 10 hands. If none of those hands are bluffs (or more specific, hands with 0% equity, it doesn't matter if they are intended as a bluff or not), his bluffing frequency is 0%.

[KRANTZ]

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people def put too much weight on putting someone on a range and not enough on assessing bluffing frequency. Bluffing frequency should outweigh hand range. In general people way overuse the idea of ranges.

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disagree. most of the time you're trying to reason out a river call you can't have an accurate idea of bluffing frequency. that frequency becomes sharper after you start calling.

[SlowHabit]

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people def put too much weight on putting someone on a range and not enough on assessing bluffing frequency. Bluffing frequency should outweigh hand range. In general people way overuse the idea of ranges.

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disagree. most of the time you're trying to reason out a river call you can't have an accurate idea of bluffing frequency. that frequency becomes sharper after you start calling.

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[DJ Sensei]

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people def put too much weight on putting someone on a range and not enough on assessing bluffing frequency. Bluffing frequency should outweigh hand range. In general people way overuse the idea of ranges.

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disagree. most of the time you're trying to reason out a river call you can't have an accurate idea of bluffing frequency. that frequency becomes sharper after you start calling.

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sweet, an excuse to call more on the river!

my assessment of these situations are primarily range-based (if I'm in a position where most of his range is behind, but can't call, then I'll let him bluff, and if most of his range is behind but CAN/might call i'll valuetown it), I think, though the more I play with somebody the more notes I take on whether or not they'll bite when I set them up to bluff.

[DLizzle]

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people def put too much weight on putting someone on a range and not enough on assessing bluffing frequency. Bluffing frequency should outweigh hand range. In general people way overuse the idea of ranges.

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disagree. most of the time you're trying to reason out a river call you can't have an accurate idea of bluffing frequency. that frequency becomes sharper after you start calling.

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true, but I was looking at it like your approximation of their range is close to that of their bluffing frequency. you are right though, you can always put an at least somewhat rational player on a range but you won't be able to do better than guess their bluff frequency at first. Against a player you have history with though i'll stick with my post.