If you have no show down value, must you bluff?
A while back I was watching Marc from Hungry Horse YouTube talk through a hand, and on the river he said something to the effect of, "When we have no showdown value, we bluff."
Believe it or not, this was a new concept for me. I had previously thought of bluffing on the river in the context of triple barrelling, or just picking spots to do so. And I very rarely bluffed on thr river. Unknowingly, I had this huge leak in my game, though somehow still was a winning player. But just chickening out and very rarely bluffing rivers with air.
But this idea, that having no showdown value at the river is just a standard bluff situation was totally new and helpful to me. Now, everytime I get to the river with no SD value, I say to myself "With no showdown value, you must bluff". And so I consider doing it every single time. And when I am heads-up, I now do it at a very high frequency. Pot-sized bluffs only need to work a smidge more than 50% of the time to be profitable right?
I think this has been an important change/addition to my game, and over the last few months it's definitely added more profitability for me. Thinking of it as just "This is what you are supposed to do in this situation" has given me more courage to do so compared to before when my thought was more "Should I bluff here or not?"
Is this just common knowledge? If so, it's crazy I never had this concept before in all my playing experience.
8 Replies
We should be more apt to bluff when we have no showdown value but we should not consider bluffing mandatory when we have no showdown value.
We still need to think about bluff targets in V’s range, what value we can rep, and blocker effects.
One example where we may not want to bluff a river despite having no SDV is a missed flush draw. We would be blocking the hands we may get to fold and unblocking paired hands that are more likely to call.
And by definition, having showdown value implies that we may win the pot without bluffing, so it is common sense to some extent that hands with no SDV are better bluffing candidates.
I think that is dangerous statement without context. In low stakes, you'll get a lot of comments, "I know I'm beat, but I have to call" and watch your bluff go away.
Be careful about over-bluffing with missed draws, or when there are obvious missed draws on board. I'm more enthusiastic about it in situations where I just have a pair and know it's no good, but my hand unblocks V's folding range, it's unlikely V has the nuts based on the action, and we could have the nuts based on the action.
Also, in low-stakes, we have to know V can fold made hands. Below 2/5, my default read is that Vs cannot until proven otherwise.
Without seeing the quote itself, I have a hard time believing he'd take such a hard line with a comment like that. My guess is the thought is more "when we have no showdown value we need to *consider* a bluff". And against calling stations / opponents showing massive strength / all the obvious draws busting / not enough stacks behind to get it thru / we're not really telling a credible story / etc., we probably shouldn't consider it for too long.
GcluelessNLnoobG
If it helps give some context to OP - Marc's usual line IP as the PFR is range-betting the flop, either over-betting or under-betting turn depending on whether or not V is capped, and then sizing up or down on the river based on the strength of V's range and whether we want V to call or fold.
A typical scenario might be - we raised pre with a SC and got called by the BB, range-bet a wet flop with a decent draw, over-bet the turn on a brick, and whiffed on the river. V's capped at 1P, and we have 8-high. We have no showdown value, so we need to bluff, to not only fold out all V's 1P, but also all his high-card hands that win if we just check back.
Marc's position is that low-stakes opponents are over-folding vs this line. Generally, he may be right, but it's poker, so there's nuance.
To give credit where it's due - Marc appears to be very good at reading and ranging opponents, and he over-folds facing aggression. Watching his session vlogs, you notice how often his opponents will prevent him from bluffing by fast-playing their nutted value, and how infrequently he gets trapped.
I also watched this video and played this hand right after:
I straddle UTG and see A4o, one guy whose a very straightforward ABC opens 20, I defend. We go heads up to Tc-6c-3h x x Kd x x 9s x he bets 20 I x/r to 125 and he calls with T9s.
Afterwards I think it's bad, I block Ace-high, I block 45s, but on the other hand I thought he has so much random 1-pair that can be stabbing here. But I just needed to select a better hand to do this with. I didn't have a ♣ so I unblock missed clubs.
Lesson learned: I think river bluffs work well when 1. V is capped and 2. you have a good candidate hand to do it with - Something like QJ no ♣ or 22 in the previous hand. Edit - actually 88 and 77 would be the best I suppose, blocking 78.
