1/3 NL bluff

hand 1 fold or raise pre, bluffing multiway is a torch

hand 2 raise or call pre, terrible board to bluff on, especially once flop checks through people are calling off with KX TT etc

Hand 1 in my mind is actually heads up once first two checks through as they would bet if anything hits. Also for pre I called mostly for UTG and UTG+1, but I dont always call with this here.

Hand2 was mostly using image trying to represent something. True about Kx TT though.

Hand 1 Kx is not betting less than half pot on the turn. In reality it's probably not just betting 5 on the flop either. You're 4 ways. On the flop you can have hands like QJo, QTo, JTo that have gutshots and overcards to the 9 that would make better bluffs. 75 can't even turn an 8 out straight draw. So I would not start betting the flop. As played maybe go 2/3 pot on the turn and overbet river. Honestly though, you won't get unbiased answers when you revealed the hand at the end.

Hand 2 I would go 2/3 pot turn and 2/3 pot river.

In position on turns and rivers you should be doing a lot more larger sizings like 2/3 pot, not half pot and smaller. You are bluffing, you want them to fold, so bet bigger. And if you had value, you would also want to bet big as well. If your hand was not good enough to bet big then it probably wasn't good enough to bet in the first place when you can get raised very easily. Rep the good hand, bet big.

If you got bored and wanted to play BINGO, just say so. You won't become a better player if you make excuses to yourself when you make a bad decision.

Just in general, bluffing is more difficult when you are "missing a lot." Of course if you are playing a lot of suited small connectors and one gappers, I'm not surprised you are "missing a lot."

You want to bluff first of all when your image is strong. That's when you are showing down winners and or the table perceives that you are playing strong starting hands that could connect with the board. In hand one, the villain's comment shows your image is crap. That's the sign to stop bluffing for a while. In hand two, my guess is that the villain is weak tight. I hope you didn't tell that villain anything other than maybe, "That was a good fold."

Small connectors/suited do not count into missings, I would mostly referring to two highs. I was leaving so I told the villain in H2 (we were talking earlier too). He did not say anything.

Neither board is great to bluff at, paired boards make Vs kinda sticky. That being said.

Hand 1 is OK, but you gotta bomb the turn and river. He called with a 9 cause it was so cheap. 150% pot on turn and shove the river.

Hand 2: When we call because we have a "not overlapping range", what is V's range here? This a pretty horrible board to bluff at, especially given our preflop thoughts. Great board to cooler someone when we DO have an overlapping range, though. Got lucky to find a V that could fold for a half pot bet OTR (first guy would have snapped you off).

If these are the sizings you use for value/bluffs in your game, I think you should think about what you are trying to accomplish when betting. By opening up your value betting, you can really put pressure on opponents when bluffing.

Yes I agree these are two tricky places to bluff at. H1 is difficult because there really is not much read on the V. I agree with the size though, which is why I think I played terribly.
H2 was because I thought they both showed weakness on flop/turn, given how straight forward their value bet was even with medium strength hands. Like you mentioned, another reason for this sizing was because that was pretty much how my general sizing was. I tried to match sizing with my range/V's range, but apparently I did not do it well on these two hands.

H1:

I'm fine with the overlimp preflop. ETA: There are two very different camps on this forum regarding preflop; I'm clearly in the camp that is perfectly fine playing "BINGO" when we have a positional and skill advantage on the field.

Responses might be a little tainted due to knowing results, but I would mostly check back the flop this multiway cuz no one ever bets a K on this drawless board. *If* we're going to get out-of-line, I'd wait til it checks to me again on the turn. As played, we're obviously up against a calling station, so bail on our bluff attempts ASAP, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

H2:

Preflop is fairly meh due to being OOP against the raiser and RIO, but for this price I won't hate.

I think I can get behind both turn and river once flop checks thru / we pick up equity / it will be very difficult for any mere pear to call the river.

GcluelessNLnoobG

if you're going to bluff in obvious spots (e.g., betting when everyone checks to you OTB in a limped pot) you dont have a skill advantage on the field

limping pre and then autobetting when everyone checks to you when you're last to act is fish poker. dont be a fish

I am not quite sure what is the correct play, but I sometimes bet IP on paired board if checked through. I feel he is a calling station too after H1 but later he folded some medium hands too so probably not so sticky. Bluffing someone who just sat down is probably a bad idea.

I am a bit confused, could you please elaborate on this? Are you saying that we should rarely bluff IP and only value bet?

The flop bet was fine. It was the preflop limp that was not so fine.

I see. Yes V would probably float with any two cards that has the slightest potential, so we would need to bluff on the turn as well. To summarize, I guess we can say this is betting IP with a very capped range?

However, against weaker 1/3 player, is it ok to limp preflop and bet when checked through? Once my friend and I was sitting with a clearly tight/weak player and we call with any two cards whenever he is in. Then if he checks we just bet and watch him fold. Works 90% of the time. This is an extreme example, but is it profitable to do this with a certain probability when we have a good read on the V?

Hand 1:

I'd only VPIP this hand as a large polarized ISO.

Flop bet too big to do it with air.

Turn and river bets are both significantly too small, though your BTN overlimp range might be too weak to fully polarize here anyway.

Conclusion: Should probably just 100% xb flop with air until you learn how to bluff better in MW pots.

Hand 2 looks good on all streets.

on paired boards like this (with two high cards and a middling card) where its highly likely at least one person as a piece and its also highly likely nobody will bet the flop with whatever piece they have, bluffing is a bad idea. esp b/c you 1) dont block anyone else's calling range 2) cant turn anything that will give you much more equity.

if you want to bluff this board do it with something that can turn showdown value like JTo. dont just be like "omg everyone checked i bluff lol"

also re: villain's comment that they "knew you were bluffing." they dont know anything except that they have a pair and you made it cheap to show down.

Good point, choosing which hands to use as bluff hands is equally important and I missed that in the analysis. I was saying bluff with probablity x% but it should be bluff with x% of the hands.

The problem with this idea is that we're almost never going to be in a HU limped pot with this one specific player. The pot going multiway prevents us from getting too out-of-line just cuz one face up tight/weak player checked the flop.

GcluelessNLnoobG