Turning your hand into a bluff and bluffing frequencies (theory)

[Dan Bitel]

OK, this thread is partly me teaching some of you newer guys something and then hopefully partly every1 else setting me straight on a frequency question or 3:

Part 1:

As I'm sure you'll realise, I and a quite a few other posters say quite often "stop turning your hand into a bluff" or you realise your hand is 72o".

Most the time this is when you are either leading into a PFR or when you are C/Ra PFR. It is almost always when you have a marginal hand and always when you are OOP.

As a quick example, imagine you call a PFR from the blinds with 77. Flop comes 963. The chances are, your are now ahead of the PFR range. HOWEVER, lets say you lead here, YOU ARE BLUFFING! The reason for this is that if you compare your hand here to 72o, you'll find you fare almost exacltly as well:

If he folds, 77 = 72o
If he raises, you fold and 77=72o
If he calls, you check/fold the turn and 77=72o (obv the only time this is not true is when you spike a 2 outer on the turn).

The exact same goes for when you C/R this flop. (I don't want to go into whats more +EV, leading or C/R, but they are both bluffs).

Now sure, you might say that you are "protecting" your hand which is likely best. Now this might be true, but it doesn't change the fact that you are turning your hand into 72o and therefore a bluff.

OK, so thats part1 over with. Part 2 kind of relates to that and leading into PFR in general.

My 1st question is that a lot of players like leading here, and it might well be b/c they have had good success with it. Now might this be b/c although you are bluffing, you SHOULD actually be bluffing some % of the time when you lead into the PFR in nearly all optimal stategies. After all, its no good just leading combo draws and sets into a PFR, otherwise, he should be just folding all the time when you lead. So my 1st question is, do you think players have had success with this line b/c it is actually a near optimal (or at least a very good) bluffing frequency?



My second question is a mathsy/theoretical question that for some reason I can't seem to get my head round. Lets take the same preflop action and the same flop, is the optimal bluffing frequency (in a complete 1 hand vacuum) either "100% or 0%" or is it "somewhere in between"? What I mean by this is, is it +EV or -EV to bluff with ATC here, and so we should do it either all the time or none of the time, OR, b/c of the fact that a certain % of the time villain has an overpair/hit the flop its better to just bluff here a certain % of the time? (I don't know if what I just wrote conveyed my question, feel free to ask for clarification if i wasn't clear).



My last question is how much do you think metagame and previous actions affect the optimal bluffing frequency in this spot?