AKQ's Tip of the Day

AKQ said:

Everyone knows I love bluffing
As Sam Farha likes to say "Poker is all about the bluff"

Scaring/betting an opponent out of a pot is also known as "The Cadillac of Poker"


But bluffing does have more mathematics behind it then people realize

When we play our opponents

We theorize against their range and strategize from that starting point

But we must start with their Range no matter what
Even more so when we are bluffing
So if we are dealt 9 (1:13 to receive or 4:52) 10 (1:13 chance to receive or 4:52)
we have removed the odds of our opponent having 9 or 10 down to (1:17.3 or 3/52)

This Concept is also called blockers is many discussion
but I will be discussing them in a different light
From the button
Preflop we open 2.5x
button calls
Q 87 Flop
villian checks
We Cbet
villian calls

Do we steer towards raising the turn or checking it?

The range that our villian has calling us is less likely to have 96 10 j10 109 due to the blockers
those hands would also continue against the flop cbet but now are less likely to be the case

and more likely to have A8 K8 Q8 J8 Aq KQ QJ 87

So we don't want to ever want to have the draws
because we block our opponents from having them
hence the reason most peoples semi-bluffs are completely unsuccessfull when it comes to getting the desired fold equity
and just end up getting stacked hoping for a river card as the Sheepodog

by having 43 or 63
we don't block any draws at all
But most importantly

When we view our Villians range
We see it correctly


and then we can play from there

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eetenor said:

Good stuff regarding blockers and bluff targeting----2.5X suggests deep stacks so you may have wanted to point out that it should be CO open only and suited only with 43 63---65 76 we open in earlier positions and can still be good bluffs on the turn vs a range of 7x 8x hands and draws with a solid blocker to the higher draws---- JT folding is a great result for us on the turn even if we have 76 when we are OOP
As a side note---in many micro games villains are not folding one pair as often as in mid-stakes- an estimate for the fold rate is 50% less likely to fold--- that fold rate limits how often we can bluff the player pool--- so data suggesting Villain can fold is necessary to start opening and bluffing with these hand types OOP

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gon4iypes said:

Very interesting and indeed thought provoking.....thank you for the post

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