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 I was going to write about this, but aejones says it better.
I was recently thinking of a hand that I played against gabe that went something like this.
I was somehow in the pot pre with Q6s of spades, not sure if i raised or what.
Flop comes JJ5 to spades, it like a 6 way pot and gabe is on the BU. It's checked around, i decide to check also because there's a giant chance i get raised if i bet, so i check also. Gabe bets probably half pot and everyone folds to me. I decide to raise 3x, thinking that hey, maybe he thinks ill check trips sometimes. He called.
Turn was a 6, so now i had a pair of 6's and a FD. I figured at this point there were a few possibilities: Either I had the best hand because gabe had a low pair or a 5. He also could have some pp 55-99 (I think probably not because he was playing really loose i think there's a decent chance he threebets me in position). And he also could have a J. Realizing if i check there's no way I'm folding, I shove. It's odd because my shove is half value, half a bluff. Gabe insta calls with 77, and i suck out.
I had never been in the scenario before. It's weird because a good percentage of the time im bluffing, but its like a value bluff.
It didn't really make sense to me, I always thought of a good range as "this amount of time you have air and that amount of time you have the nuts."
But in reality it's actually "This amount of time i have this weak holding and this amount of time i have a strong holding and sometimes i have a medium one."
I was working on this in ms word because ive recently been obsessed with writing about my thoughts whether right or wrong just putting them out there. But then I just found this article by aejones he wrote in 2p2 and he explained it 20 times better than I could ever.
So discuss.
AEJones:
I write and talk about this all the time.
I obviously believe that a two-way bet exists.
This bet is basically merging your range. Your range exists as a spectrum from A-Z, for example, and so does his. In any given situation, he'll bet a certain % on the river- for people not on a high level, they'll bet A-E for value, check, F-0 becuase it has moderate showdown value, and bet P-Z as a bluff. These letters are completely randomly assigned and vary by opponent (note that some opponents will check behind a hand with no showdown value giving up obviously, but leave it as these ranges for the example).
So this guy betting strong hands and bluffs is pretty easy to figure out and play against, because you'll be able to call with an exact range (say, A-P, the strongest part of your range) when you think he is bluffing, and fold your medium strength hands and hands with no showdown value (say F-Z in this example).
However, ranges are continuous (obviously, there are points in hand ranges, but not chunks- that is, second pair top kicker, second pair second kicker, second pair third kicker, are ranked a notch above each other, but there are so many of them that they are nearly continuous). When people make bets, we assign what range of hands they would make that bet with, so that at the end of the hand we have an idea where they are and can act accordingly. That much is very obvious. However, when we get to the river, there are many times that we're not sure exactly where we are. Many people just say "we're lost, we don't know where we are." That HAS to happen at times in poker games; people at higher stakes play their hands in deceptive manners so that when you get to the end, you're just not sure if they're slowplaying or calling you down light.
One simple example is this (note this will be oversimplified, but I believe Jason Strasser played a hand like this): You have second pair heads up, let's assume there was a draw on the flop, and it missed on the river. Your opponent checks to you on all three streets, and you bet 2/3-3/4 of the pot on all of them.
When your opponent calls you down with fourth pair, you win.
When your opponent calls you down with top pair weak kicker, you lose.
Some people check here; and checking certainly can't be terrible. However, it makes you much too easy to play against (a lot of this is metagame related, and very hard to explain as a generalization). Therefore, this bet might be neutral in expected value because the frequency that you get called by a worse hand and the frequency that you get called by a better hand somewhat evens itself out.
So, if the middle of your range is of moderate showdown value on the river (F-O, let's say), and you have the right image, your opponent is on the right level, etc., then you should probably go ahead and bet F 90% of the time, G 80%, H 70%, etc. as the strength of your hand decreases. All of these things have many other factors to consider, and placing this in an actual theory post rather than the experience of merging your range is difficult to make someone comprehend. I mean, some people will read this post and never understand it, and some people do it naturally without understanding reasoning behind it.
So then, when you're merging your range, sometimes you will end up "value bluffing." I believe this to be true, whether or not people agree in terminology. Sometimes you are betting for value, and sometimes you are bluffing. You don't exactly know which you're doing- but if you feel like you beat the majority of his range, you bet (in this case, it is primarily for value). However, since we've already established we don't know his exact range, there are going to be times that we bet and he's got a better hand and folds, and there are times that we bet and he's got a better hand and calls, and there are times that we bet and he's got a worse hand and folds, and there are times that we bet that he's got a worse hand and calls.
It's really that simple.
I mean, here's a hand that is a pretty good example:
You have JJ and raise the button, you get 3-bet, and it's HU to the flop.
The flop is Q Q 7. He bets 2/3, you just call.
Turn is a 2. He bet's 2/3, you call.
River is a 7. He shoves.
Now, normally there will be general thoughts about this hand: pairs < 7 got counterfeited, he might think you're weak since you didn't put in a raise before the river, etc. However, if he is merging his range, then you can no longer just say "here I think he's bluffing, I call," or "here I think he's got it, I fold." The reason is that sometimes you will fold, and he'll be like "LOL I have TT I was shoving for value!" and sometimes you'll call and he'll be like "LOL KK ship it bitch."
The point is, if people are on a high level, they aren't always going to know where each other is. If you're playing against some donks at low stakes, you'll know "people always play KK/QQ this way when an A comes on the board" and "people always check behind when this river comes scary and never v-bet the hand I thought they had- therefore they must be bluffing."
But as you move up, that is not the case. The higher level of thought, the more people will merge their range and stumble upon value bluffs.
Now, where there is confusion is in the intent and the result. The confusion causes the term value bluff to be termed when good players are merging their range.
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Originally Posted by biondino
