Saturday, March 7, 2009

A river shove bluff

I want to share a hand I played just now on NoiQ (50EUR table). I had just been stacked with a straight vs quads, so wasn't too happy.



This was a very tight player - 5/5 over 50 hands, but weak postflop. No showdowns in 50 hands, and I had already taken a couple of pots from her by calling Cbets and bluffing the turn.

Here my PF call is standard on the button. The flop is a bit scary for a PF raiser. Her range is maybe just overpairs and AK. The Cbet is half pot. I would peel this bet 100% of the time with overcards. Turn Cbet is also half pot. I can probably raise this and win a reasonable percentage of the time, but the bettor can probably put me on a draw and call. Instead, I decided to call the turn bet and bluff any ace or six on the river. Six comes, villain checks to me, I take it down.

In hindsight, my choice of bluffing outs was poor. I think after the weak Cbets, AK is a very significant part of the villain's range. So bluffing on an ace is a no-no. Instead, I think bluffing any six, eight or club is probably better - or even any non-ace. I am also expecting any king or ten to give me a winning hand pretty often. The six of clubs which arrived was really the perfect bluffing card.

Any thoughts?

4 comments:

TiocfaidhArLa said...

I've been playing live for a few days and heard a whispered conversation where someone called a big AI river bet with K high.

His view was that river AIs are often bluffs. If that's true, a $20 river may achieve the same outcome and needs to come off less often to be +EV.

I don't know if it is true, but is something I've filed away for thinking players.

The blindman said...

I don't agree that river AIs are necessarily or even often bluffs (at least when I make them). With a big hand like a set, I will often try to carve up my stack in such a way that I can get all in by the river. If the other player is the aggressor that might mean playing it call, call, shove.

In this case, my river bet was a bit of an overbet so you might be right that a $20 bet would have had the same effect for a lower price.

TiocfaidhArLa said...

I don't disagree.

Would you have played a set like that on the Flop and the Turn?

I understand that you may not have been referring to this hand. Realistically though, what hands would play out just like this on all streets though?

The blindman said...

I might have played a set like that knowing that the preflop raiser's range is very tight, although the river value bet probably would be a bit smaller.

Against a different player (for whom flush and straight draws are a bigger part of the range), I probably would raise the flop or turn.