100NL some bluffs

It'd be great to get some more discussion going in this forum again, so here's some more hands, this time bluffs.

1. I had the T in mind as a good bluff card on the river, so I went for it. Does he lay down a queen?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

CO ($277.50)
Hero (Button) ($161.72)
SB ($293.86)
BB ($179.23)
UTG ($182.10)
MP ($327.40)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, 7
1 fold, MP bets $3, 1 fold, Hero raises to $8, 1 fold, BB calls $7, MP calls $5

Flop: ($25.70) 9, Q, 10 (3 players)
BB bets $2, MP calls $2, Hero calls $2

Turn: ($31.70) 6 (3 players)
BB bets $3, MP raises to $18, Hero calls $18, 1 fold

River: ($70.70) 10 (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $64


2. I decide to go all the way, river is a nice bluff card.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

Button ($289.39)
SB ($214.42)
Hero (BB) ($150)
UTG ($101.90)
MP ($283.29)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9, Q
3 folds, SB bets $3, Hero raises to $9, SB calls $6

Flop: ($19) 3, 6, 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $12, SB calls $12

Turn: ($43) J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $29, SB calls $29

River: ($101) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $99.80 (All-In)


3. I didn't think he has a club, so I turn my 2p into a bluff. My idea is that he has something he call a bet with, but not an allin.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

MP ($144.20)
Button ($145.23)
SB ($100)
Hero (BB) ($301.55)
UTG ($100)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 7, 9
3 folds, SB bets $2.50, Hero calls $1.50

Flop: ($5) A, 9, 2 (2 players)
SB bets $3, Hero raises to $7, SB raises to $17, Hero calls $10

Turn: ($39) 7 (2 players)
SB bets $21, Hero calls $21

River: ($81) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $261.05 (All-In)


4. Good spot to bluff?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

SB ($109.88)
BB ($28.66)
UTG ($99.84)
MP ($121.20)
Hero (Button) ($137.10)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, K
2 folds, Hero bets $3, SB raises to $9, 1 fold, Hero calls $6

Flop: ($19) Q, 10, 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($19) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $17.80, SB calls $17.80

River: ($54.60) 6 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $37

I hate all of them.

Can you elaborate? I can say 3/4 worked. I always thought of u as a guy capable of every type of bluff, why did you think they're so bad? (I know my bluffing needs some work)

Hand 1 I don't think he's folding anything he raises the turn with that isn't a bluff itself.
Hand 2 I don't think is awful.
Hand 3 is kinda ballsy but his range is probably pretty narrow and we'll get enough folds to make this profitable. Mebbe.
Hand 4 I'm not folding anything that beats a bluff.

Originally Posted by jackvance

Can you elaborate? I can say 3/4 worked. I always thought of u as a guy capable of every type of bluff, why did you think they're so bad? (I know my bluffing needs some work)

How can you say 3/4 of them worked? Just because someone folded doesn't means it's not -EV and you ran good.

3 definitely doesn't look good imo, needs to work like 70% of the time and I just don't think it does.

Seems that checking it to you on the river is a great way to get you to spaz out.

? they worked as in villains folded. If they're good or not is what this thread is about.

I've no idea how 100nl plays and this is difficult without reads, but here's my 2c worth:

1) Turn and river play seems bad - your line doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I should think only a nitty, bad hand reader is folding river.
2) Seems fine to me - I'd expect to get folds often enough.
3) Seems marginal. Villain looks weak on the turn and river and I think this will probably work just about often enough.
4) Seems bad. What part of your value range checks back flop and pots a brick turn in a 3bp? None of it would be my guess - your line looks so bluffy that you should get looked up too often for this to be profitable.

Number 2 is the only one I think is even ok. The others just don't make any sense.

1) This hand is full spew, every street is a fold. This is not the kind of board I would be messing around with.

2) I like this.

3) Fold pre? Meh call flop. Raise harder if you want to raise. The rest.. I don't even know, it's all very strange. Just fold or 3b pre.

4) Fold pre. Bet flop. As played, you are getting looked up often I think, though I suppose he will fold AK on the river.

Yes hand 4 is horrible, shoulda bet the flop. He called. I do shit like this sometimes :/. Working on it.

Hand 1 is bad indeed, looking at it now I probably only fold out his bluffs as supa said. Hand 2 looks ok. Hand 3, yeah marginal.

Originally Posted by griffey24

3) Fold pre? Meh call flop. Raise harder if you want to raise.

What is the reasoning for betting more OOP? My instinct is to keep the pot smaller in my worse positions.

Originally Posted by jackvance

Yes hand 4 is horrible, shoulda bet the flop. He called. I do shit like this sometimes :/. Working on it.

Hand 1 is bad indeed, looking at it now I probably only fold out his bluffs as supa said. Hand 2 looks ok. Hand 3, yeah marginal.


What is the reasoning for betting more OOP? My instinct is to keep the pot smaller in my worse positions.

Aren't you IP in hand 3?

Oh yeah whoops. I was thinking about the concept of raising bigger OOP at the time I posted.

why would you 3bet Q9s bb v sb?

He's very aggressive when he has the initiative that makes it hard to play against.

Originally Posted by jackvance

He's very aggressive when he has the initiative that makes it hard to play against.

Make your calling range more value heavy and defend less often. Would that be the correct adjustment to make?

Or what I did, take over the initiative. What you're saying is playing too scared for my taste.

Originally Posted by jackvance

Or what I did, take over the initiative. What you're saying is playing too scared for my taste.

3betting Q9 against someone aggro is only going to put you in more difficult spots because you're narrowing his range to better Qx and you'll get 4bet sometimes as well.

if you call you keep his range wider, Q9s plays well on lots of flops. If you choose to 3bet Qx combos youd be better off choosing ones like Q4 for your bluffs. Q9 isnt really strong enough for value but is too strong to bluff so your ev is almost certainly going to be higher calling in spots like that.

I disagree. Calling is definitely something I can do too, but it's fine to mix it up like this. I won't do this against an UTG open or if I have 73o but Q9s is nice enough.

What is your defending range looking like then in this spot? Its fine to mix it up yeah though I don't think its really necessary to mix in Q9s when calling is better for your ranges especially against someone you said is aggro.

are you 3betting middling hands and flatting premiums like AA-JJ, or 3betting all the above?

how are you playing your suited gappers and connectors?

The reason I ask is if you're 3betting Q9 your flatting range is probably not very balanced and you possibly aren't defending enough BVB

I'm not sure what my calling range is, or raising. It depends. I'm always raising premiums. Suited connectors, depends could go either way depending on opponent.

Also my HUD showed me I was playing too many hands in the big (defending too often) so I'm already trying to adjust.

Originally Posted by jackvance

I'm not sure what my calling range is, or raising. It depends. I'm always raising premiums. Suited connectors, depends could go either way depending on opponent.

Also my HUD showed me I was playing too many hands in the big (defending too often) so I'm already trying to adjust.

How do you know you are playing too many hands from your HUD? What is your fold BB v SB steal %? Did you filter for positions?

I don't know I just pressed the "find leaks" button in Poker Copilot and it told me lol.

What are your stats? 3b %? What's your raise cbet %?

My stats are something that will probably make get tagged as a fish, like 40/32. I'm working on tightening up but why change what works? 3b 15-20% depending on table. Raise cbet is gonna be squarely above average, I'm not afraid to raise cbets.

I don't know if that's fishy necessarily, but it's definitely LAGGY which is not at all surprising given your hands. DO you have a big sample of hands running that laggy? At some point ppl will adjust so watch out for that.

15-20% 3b shouldn't be sustainable if ppl are adjusting well! Are you 5b jamming light? Is nobody 4betting you?

I am always very attentive to how people are adjusting to my playstyle. That's part of the challenge of playing like this. I loaded in some more hands, still not a big sample size but my 3bet is definitely going to be bigger than 10. I don't 5bet jam light, I'm more likely to call the 4bet depending on how deep the stacks are. I'm currently noticing some lines of mine don't have a greatly balanced range. Some of them are too weighted towards value/bluffs. But it's hard to adjust when it looks like the best play at any given time. A nice example would be, when you hit the flop hard but you think villain is weak. Do you always slowplay it? You pretty much can't and have to often bet too, otherwise you're playing a pretty predictable slowplay strong bet weak game.

Btw for reference what do your primary stats normally look like Griffey? You probably play a tighter game.

Originally Posted by jackvance

My stats are something that will probably make get tagged as a fish, like 40/32. I'm working on tightening up but why change what works? 3b 15-20% depending on table. Raise cbet is gonna be squarely above average, I'm not afraid to raise cbets.

Is this filtered for 6 handed, 3 handed?

RFI by position is more relevant for breaking down your game than just averaging it all out with vpip/pfr. you could be opening way too tight or wide in a certain position on average and vpip/pfr won't tell you where.

I would just ignore what any poker software tells you about your game in terms of categorizing your play or preflop open range suggestions.

Actually it was strangely correct, I realized all the things it pointed out were true and have been adjusting with great results.

And you are right my filter was at 3-6 handed. I've adjusted for 6 only and it drops 3%. So not a big difference I think (majority of hands was 6, my VPIP ofcourse goes up as the amount of players goes down, nicely reflected when I filter for it).

I generally run around 26/20/2.7ish with a 3b of around 9%.

Play pretty tight EP (13-14% VPIP/PFR), maybe around 37-40% VPIP on button.

1 and 3 are ridiculous spew. 2 is ok. 4 isn't all-time horrible like 1 and 3 but why would you pot the turn

Originally Posted by jackvance

Can you elaborate? I can say 3/4 worked. I always thought of u as a guy capable of every type of bluff, why did you think they're so bad? (I know my bluffing needs some work)

Sure I can:

1. Turn call is terrible. You're not closing action and you could be drawing dead here (and by dead I mean you could have EXACTLY ZERO equity). If you think you have a double gutshot you are mistaken (you really want to hit an eight here?).

2. Check flop you have nothing. To those saying it's fine, well it's not.

3. Every choice you made here is bad. Fold pre, fold flop, fold fold just fold. This is like charging the battlefield in braveheart holding nothing but a wooden butterknife.

4. The range that checked behind flop doesn't need to fire huge on this turn and what's he folding on the river really? AK/AJ maybe so bet like $12. I'd just bet flop and go from there.

Originally Posted by pocketfours

Sure I can:

1. Turn call is terrible. You're not closing action and you could be drawing dead here (and by dead I mean you could have EXACTLY ZERO equity). If you think you have a double gutshot you are mistaken (you really want to hit an eight here?).

2. Check flop you have nothing. To those saying it's fine, well it's not.

3. Every choice you made here is bad. Fold pre, fold flop, fold fold just fold. This is like charging the battlefield in braveheart holding nothing but a wooden butterknife.

4. The range that checked behind flop doesn't need to fire huge on this turn and what's he folding on the river really? AK/AJ maybe so bet like $12. I'd just bet flop and go from there.

I think hand two is fine in moderation. Betting the flop is fine IF the plan is to fire at least two and IF we have good frequencies. Obviously if hero is running 40/32/20% 3b and he's doing this with any suited overs, then his frequencies are going to be waaaay off.

Possible value combos to triple on this board (assuming you aren't tripling off TT stuff once this turn/riv go off) = JJ/QQ/KK/AA (18 combos), ATs/AJ/AQ/AK (36 combos) = TOTAL 54 value combos.

This means you can only show up on the river with about 22 bluff combos for GTO (Total combos on river 76, 22 are bluffs, so bluffing 29% of the time) . Assuming you play Q9cc like this (4), you can only play QJs (4) and KQo like this (16) for about 24 combos - removing a few maybe. Otherwise you'll have too many bluffs.

Originally Posted by pocketfours

Sure I can:

1. Turn call is terrible. You're not closing action and you could be drawing dead here (and by dead I mean you could have EXACTLY ZERO equity). If you think you have a double gutshot you are mistaken (you really want to hit an eight here?).

2. Check flop you have nothing. To those saying it's fine, well it's not.

3. Every choice you made here is bad. Fold pre, fold flop, fold fold just fold. This is like charging the battlefield in braveheart holding nothing but a wooden butterknife.

4. The range that checked behind flop doesn't need to fire huge on this turn and what's he folding on the river really? AK/AJ maybe so bet like $12. I'd just bet flop and go from there.

I think hand two is fine in moderation. Betting the flop is fine IF the plan is to fire at least two and IF we have good frequencies. Obviously if hero is running 40/32/20% 3b and he's doing this with any suited overs, then his frequencies are going to be waaaay off.

Possible value combos to triple on this board (assuming you aren't tripling off TT stuff once this turn/riv go off) = JJ/QQ/KK/AA (18 combos), ATs/AJ/AQ/AK (36 combos) = TOTAL 54 value combos.

This means you can only show up on the river with about 22 bluff combos for GTO (Total combos on river 76, 22 are bluffs, so bluffing 29% of the time) . Assuming you play Q9cc like this (4), you can only play QJs (4) and KQo like this (16) for about 24 combos - removing a few maybe. Otherwise you'll have too many bluffs.

I probably don't have enough hands logged at 100NL/200NL on stars, which is why people still give me credit. I was doing well but I agree it's not sustainable like this as my ranges are exploitable.

I realize I'm bumping a 3-week old thread, but with how much you've done wrong in these hands, there's maybe one piece of helpful advice you can get from this: if you're going to play that insanely LAG, you have to be good at forming your ranges. You wanna keep your bluffing range as slim as possible (by flatting hands that you can play profitably without the initiative, by checking back hands with showdown value, etc.), and you want to make it as strong as possible (if you're 3b'ing 15-20%, you really can't afford [nor should you want to] play premiums passively, you have to vbet super thin, you want to make sure you're picking hands with good equity against continuing ranges, etc).

Hand 2 is a perfect example of how bad and unsustainable of a 40/32 game you're probably playing. Q9s is WAY too strong to turn into a bluff. If you want to get away with 3b'ing garbage from all positions, then 3b'ing Q9s bvb (or Q9o, for that matter) is just unnecessarily expanding your bluff range to make you all that much easier to exploit. And then flatting with hands like 97o just makes it that much worse because you're managing to make your flatting range weak and exploitable as fuck AND your 3b'ing range wide and as exploitable as fuck.

Then you go ahead and triple barrel with it. Sure, it's not a bad board to triple, but if you're tripling with Q9s, then you're probably tripling with such an insanely wide bluffing range that it's unsustainable. You can say you want to "mix it up" all you want, but I have a feeling when you have QJ/KQ/KTs (if you're 3b'ing this, which I feel like you might be)/etc. you won't hesitate to run the same exact play 100% of the time. Just pick the best hands with the best equity, and that'll make you plenty difficult enough to play against.

Flop in Hand 3 though is just something you CAN'T do if you want to play LAG. You have second pair in bvb (SO much SD value), and you have ABYSMAL equity against villain's continuing range. If you want to bluff here, then go ahead, whatever. But almost any hand (literally) is better to do this with. Do it when you have a club (ANY fucking club). Do it when you have air. Hell, do it when you have 3rd pair. All you're doing here is assuring that you bluff raise/call 100% of the time here, which is INSAAAAAAAANE!

So some of these are just outright bad in a vacuum, but another consistent problem is just terrible range formation. If you watch the LAGstars of the poker universe, you'll see that they could have bottom pair IP in a 4bet pot deep, and they'll still check because even if there's a slight chance that they'll win at showdown, that's much better than a lot of other hands in their range that they might prefer to turn into a bluff because it has 0 value when checked. I don't mean you should never bluff with any pair ever, but if you're gonna play that LAggy, then yeah, you really need to cool down needlessly turning hands into bluffs.

Also, post reads, especially if you want to justify such fancy plays. You seem to conveniently bring them up later in the thread when your plays get dissected, but wouldn't it that be much more helpful if all of your feedback had those reads in mind? All of poker basically starts with exploiting opponents tendencies, so giving you advice on how to exploit your opponents is pretty fuckin difficult to do without knowing their tendencies.

You don't know how much it makes me smile to read that. Almost everything you say is spot on, and is what I have realized myself and have adjusted my play to. My 3bet range has become more polarized - you can see a post I made on this forum last week where I'm considering this about 3betting. I'm over at my buddy a lot these days, we constantly talk about hands (which makes our playstyle very similar) and I've been downloading tons of poker articles, coaching videos and videos of high stakes and big tournament play, watching them, studying, talking about it. Maybe I should post some more hands to reflect my current style, which is a more normal LAG now, but I've been focussing mostly on tournaments.

nice post surviva. summed up what i was trying to get at with the q9 hand tho I wasnt very clear in my response.

also jack sounds like youre improving a lot, good stuff man. you probably do well in tournaments because you can get away with playing highly exploitable in them since it takes a long time to develop history w/ regs cuz the tourney player pool is massive. unless ur playing highstakes tourneys u pretty much dont just grind against the same few guys as far as I can tell... could be off there tho but just what ive gathered from limited tournament exposure

cash is diff and balance is more important if you plan on putting in srs volume

That's a very good assessment. Most of the time I do shorter sessions of cash games, because of my nasty habit of always doing poorly if it drags out against the same person/people. Now I'm actively working on not only adjusting to others better, but also reacting to the adjustments they're making to my play. These are always very similar when people face a LAG style. One simple example is that people will start to bluff when I check or show weakness in general. So I need to start to strength check more often when this happens. Also because of this, have to give people rope to hang themselves by not just hammering a strong hand if they have a lot of bluffs in their range. And ofcourse people can adjust to this again, making it a fine balance to play. A laggy playstyle is definitely the hardest to master, but imo the best way to make money in poker. Also, playing tight is too boring.