I've been playing low-stakes MTTs for a while and I've noticed that my biggest problem isn't really preflop. It's what happens on the river. I can fold pretty well when I know I'm clearly behind, but I still struggle when I have a strong bluff-catcher and face a big river bet. I'm trying to get better at asking what bluffs my opponent can realistically have instead of just thinking about how strong my own hand looks. What river spots have been the biggest leaks for you?
Population in low stakes mostly underbluffs rivers, so when we're not sure we can default to fold.
When can we possibly call? When we know that Villain is splashy or over aggro. When we have a stack that can afford the call. When Villain is smart enough to realize that we've been folding to all these river bets and could now be bluffing.
When can we possibly call? When we know that Villain is splashy or over aggro. When we have a stack that can afford the call. When Villain is smart enough to realize that we've been folding to all these river bets and could now be bluffing.
For me, the biggest leak was precisely the overvaluation of my hand strength on the river, based on the fact that I had a pair, which can give me good chances against a draw, but not when calculating the opponent's value and bluff ranges.mcdiky said:
It was much more straightforward for me to consider what holdings the opponent could have in their range and what potential bluffs they might make rather than think about how strong my hand was in the face of their action. For my game, the river becomes much more straightforward when considering the ranges rather than hand strengths.
This right here 100% in my experience as well. The population highly under bluffs rivers at micro-low stakes. I add micro cause the player pool overlaps a lot between micro and low stakes.Semprini said:
The players that are this smart at those stakes is the few....the rest are just clicking buttons, thinking only about their hand, not paying attention too what leaks and habits the other players have. So they haven't noticed when one has folded the last 5-6 river bets and if they haven't noticed they won't think to exploit that spot by bluffing.
A lot of players at micro-low stakes are also just calling stations. Never bluff a calling station.
Cheers!!!
I have the same problem on the river, especially when I face an all-in. The hardest part for me is trying to understand the whole construction of the hand and decide whether the opponent is bluffing or actually has a very strong hand. I try to go back through the previous streets and ask myself if the betting makes sense with the hand they are representing. Sometimes the river bet looks like a bluff, but when I look at how they played the flop and turn, the story actually makes sense for a strong hand. The opposite can happen too. A player can make a big river bet that looks very strong, but when I think about which hands they could realistically have, there may not be many value hands left. That's when I start considering the possibility of a bluff. I think that's one of the hardest decisions in poker because you have to forget how strong your own hand looks and focus on the range your opponent can realistically have. Sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I talk myself into a call and lose a big part of my stack.