I bluff with a made hand, just like in high stakes

[TheRenaissance]

I agree that preflop might be meh, but it is not terrible I think. Note that it is 5 handed. Do you people fold AQ there as well? Because AJ and AQ are pretty much the same in this spot. Also I have seen him open in the co w 64s if that changes things. He is tight, but flexible.

After he cr me I put him on a mediumish pocket pair (22-QQ) with a heart, wanting to end the hand right there. I think he thinks my 3b range is wide, and that he will be successful with a cr-semibluff-maybe-my-hand-is best-please-end-now-move a lot (he is probably right).

When he checks the turn I think betting is good. He will probably fold many better hands, as he is not the type to stack off 200bbs with a 8-hi flush.

[TheRenaissance]

[ QUOTE ]
The only question left is what do you do if he calls and then checks the river?

[/ QUOTE ]
If he calls I am completely done with the hand, ticking off the "fold to any bet" box.

[TheRenaissance]

[ QUOTE ]
I think it's a good spot to bluff. If it is a good idea to bluff on these limits in the first place is a different question. If you think he can lay down AK or a smaller PP here it's ok. I try not to make pure bluffs though with cards to come. And if you think he probably has AK, AQ, KK, QQ, JJ, TT and you wonder if he can lay it down, it is VERY questionable to 3bet him preflop with AJo. I'd rather do it with T9s...

[/ QUOTE ]

After the preflop call I put him on AK, 22-QQ.
After the flop cr I put him on QQ-22 with a heart.
Agree about T9s.

[Wolfram]

I hate preflop, and here's why:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

205,476,480 games 0.032 secs 6,421,140,000 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 45.676% 40.91% 04.77% 84058666 9795608.50 { AdJc }
Hand 1: 54.324% 49.56% 04.77% 101826597 9795608.50 { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, ATo+, KQo } <--- Top 12% of hands


---

You aren't beating his pfr-range, so you are basically turning your hand into a bluff, and you'll have to outplay him a big % of the time.

I'd much rather 3-bet this guy with a suited connector than a mediocre ace.

[TheRenaissance]

[ QUOTE ]
I hate preflop, and here's why:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

205,476,480 games 0.032 secs 6,421,140,000 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 45.676% 40.91% 04.77% 84058666 9795608.50 { AdJc }
Hand 1: 54.324% 49.56% 04.77% 101826597 9795608.50 { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, ATo+, KQo } <--- Top 12% of hands


---

You aren't beating his pfr-range, so you are basically turning your hand into a bluff, and you'll have to outplay him a big % of the time.

I'd much rather 3-bet this guy with a suited connector than a mediocre ace.

[/ QUOTE ]

That stove is pretty irrelevant - we are not all in.

Hold'em Simulation
1,034,231,616 trials (Exhaustive)
Hand Pot equity
12% 65.12%
78s 34.88%

45% equity is fine, and so is 35%. We will both miss much of the time, but I have the inititative and he will fold to cbets a lot. He is not a callstation. This is why preflop is not as bad as you guys make it out to be. I am not going to stack off 200bbs with top pair on a dry flop. I will bluff though, if I find a good spot.

I agree that AJ is not a stack buster like pocket pairs or sc, but that doesnt mean it is unplayable.

[avfletch]

OK. Time for some lunchtime ramblings. I'm going to whitter about some concepts I don't fully understand myself so take them with a pinch of salt and let me know where you disagree.

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First of all, OP, I think you are misunderstanding the idea of bluffing with a made hand 'like they do in high stakes'. High stakes players make moves where they bluff with a made hand because it changes their %s and causes their opponents to make mistakes.

The most common example of this is a river bluff where someone CRAI (sorry, haven't got time to find an example). In this spot it's pretty common knowledge that the guy has the near nuts or is bluffing with air. On the river people want to show down their medium strength hands so big moves like this don't make sense for holdings like top pair.

If your opponent knows this and knows that you are capable of CRAI the river with air then it comes down to how often you do it. Since you'll have air more than you'll have the goods it makes sense for him to start calling these big bets with weaker hands. It wins him money in the short term and keeps you inline in the long run.

But if you know that he knows about you being capable of CRAI river bluff and you know that he has the stones to call you with less than premium holdings then it makes sense for you to do it with hands that are ahead of his calling range on average. Phew, that was a mouthful, I hope it makes sense to someone.

---

In this spot you're not 'bluffing with a made hand' particularly, just bluffing since it's so unlikely that he'll call with a hand you beat. Having said that though, it's not to say that it's a bad spot to do it in, what we need to do is reason out villains likely holdings in this spot.

He could very well have a whole bunch of nothing, having missed with a low pp/sc or whatever. Co-ordinated A high flops are very good spots to go for the CR bluff, especially in reraised pots because so much of your range is scared of the A and even AK has got problems because of the co-ordination.

Could he have a moderate made hand here, eg AK (no [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img])? It's possible he wants to pick off your cbet with it but due to the 3 hearts and your high chance of holding a big [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] he doesn't want to see a turn.

Similar logic possibly applying to him holding a set. He wants to pick off your cbet (which let's face it you're always making here). This is an awful line to take in my opinion but you'll see a lot of sucky TAGs making it.

Quite importantly I doubt many people are putting this CR in with a moderate flush draw when they hold a pp with a [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and missed their set. There's just too much chance that you'll have the best hand and best draw that it's not really an option.

So on to the turn. His check looks pretty scared and weak but let's figure out where he goes with his possible holdings.

If he's got air here then he's gone 99% of the time. If he's got a better TP type hand such as AK (no [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]) then I think you've got a good chance of folding him out.

If he's got a set then I think you're looking at an optimistic call for full value a fair amount of the time, especially when you're playing deep like this. The big problem with this obviously being that you'll have to fire the river when it doesn't pair and he checks to you and as you've already noted above, that's not going to happen.

So I think you'll see him fold here a really high % of the time. But what I think is more interesting is just how far ahead of his range you are. We're behind sets, weird flushes and hands like better top pairs and ahead of the hands that make a move on you.

So if he can't make a move on this flop then you're left with pretty much all better hands however I think you'll fold out enough that this move is worth it.

If he is capable of it and I'd wager that a reasonable number of TAG regs are (obviously you know the guy better than I do so I'm guessing) then checking behind this turn could very well have merit to it. Since you're making a decent sized bet yourself on the turn (which you'll lose to the better hands a reasonable amount of the time) you can afford to auto-call any river for a similar sized bet and have it be neutral EV.

Obviously this line loses to an AK type holding that you could've folded out on the turn but picks up another big bet for any time he decides to make a play at the pot after you check behind looking weak (and let's face it that's a move we *know* a lot of players out there can do).

OK. That turned out way longer than I planned so I hope someone takes the time to read it and comment.

---

Edit to add: One other benefit of checking behind the turn is that he may not bet a set on a non-paired river (see above about river actions with good but non-nut hands).

[TheRenaissance]

Good stuff avfletch.
I got to have some lunch myself, so I'll reply later.

[Sweir]

I like it. Pf is marginal but fine. I think he folds here a LOT. The problem with checking here is that he will bet the river a decent % of the time and it will be pretty hard for us to call as our hand is only a bluff catcher. Avfletch made a good point about sets calling to fill up. If he calls and it doesn't pair then firing the river is a possibility but I would probably be a pussy and check it.

[TheRenaissance]

avfletch,

First I'd like to thank you for not making a big deal out of preflop.

[ QUOTE ]
First of all, OP, I think you are misunderstanding the idea of bluffing with a made hand 'like they do in high stakes'.

[/ QUOTE ]Yeah, no surprises there. It was just an attempt to make the title interesting.
TY for the explanation though.

[ QUOTE ]
He could very well have a whole bunch of nothing, having missed with a low pp/sc or whatever. Co-ordinated A high flops are very good spots to go for the CR bluff, especially in reraised pots because so much of your range is scared of the A and even AK has got problems because of the co-ordination.

[/ QUOTE ]I think you are saying that the call of the cr isnt all that bad. I agree [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
So on to the turn. His check looks pretty scared and weak but let's figure out where he goes with his possible holdings.

If he's got air here then he's gone 99% of the time. If he's got a better TP type hand such as AK (no [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]) then I think you've got a good chance of folding him out.

If he's got a set then I think you're looking at an optimistic call for full value a fair amount of the time, especially when you're playing deep like this. The big problem with this obviously being that you'll have to fire the river when it doesn't pair and he checks to you and as you've already noted above, that's not going to happen.

So I think you'll see him fold here a really high % of the time. But what I think is more interesting is just how far ahead of his range you are. We're behind sets, weird flushes and hands like better top pairs and ahead of the hands that make a move on you.

So if he can't make a move on this flop then you're left with pretty much all better hands however I think you'll fold out enough that this move is worth it.

If he is capable of it and I'd wager that a reasonable number of TAG regs are (obviously you know the guy better than I do so I'm guessing) then checking behind this turn could very well have merit to it. Since you're making a decent sized bet yourself on the turn (which you'll lose to the better hands a reasonable amount of the time) you can afford to auto-call any river for a similar sized bet and have it be neutral EV.

Obviously this line loses to an AK type holding that you could've folded out on the turn but picks up another big bet for any time he decides to make a play at the pot after you check behind looking weak (and let's face it that's a move we *know* a lot of players out there can do).

[/ QUOTE ]The turn is sort of what this hand is all about. I think you have made a very good analysis, and I dont really have much to add apart from what I have already said. However, I disagree about the checking turn part. We have a very good chance here of folding out small flushes and TPTK, and to me that seems more valuable than catching the odd river bluff. Against a more maniacal player sure, but I think this guy will be wary of bluffing after I called his cr. Just my 2 cents.

[jimpo]

[ QUOTE ]
Pot is 25.5

You need to call 8.

You get 1 to 3,2.

Does it look like someone who doesnt want to get drawn out? We are talking about a connected monotone board here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't get the flop either, and for that reason I don't see the point in bluffing. Either he wants you to call on the flop, or he made a pretty big mistake with his betsizing.