Excuse me, sir, but you've been rivered
I am finding one of the tougher things about LHE to be dealing with the very low bluffing frequency dictated by the pot odds - it's not really human nature to do something that's supposed to fail 80 or 90% of the time and accurately, intuitively measure whether you're hitting the mark or not.
As an example hand where I can feel like a chump:
No strong reads, although main Villain has somewhat fishy vibes and does things like cold calling 3 bets in the SB in this hand. BN doesn't feature too much but has trying rec or weaker reg vibes.
Hero picks up Ts Tc and opens UTG. BN 3-bets, and V in SB takes 3 cold. Hero just calls closing the action.
Flop (10 SB): 9h 8d 4h
V x, H x, BN bets, V calls, H raises, both call.
Turn (8 BB): 9h 8d 4h 3d
V x, H bets, BN folds, V calls
River (10 BB): 9h 8h 4h 3d As
Villain donks...
In equilibrium V will find "just enough" combos to force H to call a ton, like QJ/QT missed draws (and we block those, ironically). But at the actual table...? Feel like it's all too easy to turn into a station and justify it with "well in LHE we never fold...".
7 Replies
You actually have to be right less than 10% of the time and I think there are enough missed draws to make this worth calling. He really can’t have any slowplays so he’s repping an ace or better.
Yeah I think you just have to call here. This guy has a billion draws that missed, the pot is large, and people do spaz out in LHE.
As an FYI, I would not conclude that this guy is a fish just because he calls 2.5 cold from the SB. In a slightly different configuration (UTG raise and an early or middle position 3bet) I would probably not 4bet anything from the SB.
The 8d turned into the 8h on the river.
I’d call the river. People will bluff missed draws and turn made hands into bluffs.
(Always the 8d - no flush happened).
Interesting - as I wrote this up I began to give more credence to the number of missed draws. The reveal here isn't particularly interesting: I called and V had the advertised Ace (AJo).
At the table (after calling) I was finding it really hard to imagine Villain deciding that he could get away with donking me off a decent hand after Hero has x/r flop and bet turn - versus being afraid that I am checking back a lot. In the flow of the game it didn't really occur to me, although of course a solver is finding those combos to balance. (Ironically in a HU scenario I tried to study for this, the solver is actually folding river pure due to V mostly trying this with black QJ/QT targeting Hero's higher number of red draws, and so Hero folds black TT pure, mixes the others, and prefers calling with unblocking King high hands like K6hh.) Solvers are really fearless and it's tough to credit humans for not underbluffing into a line containing a raise followed by only aggression.
And yes, people definitely act oddly sometimes and it's really hard to gauge how that frequency impacts calldown decisions like the mere 8.3% needed here.
Like I don't know what V was doing in this other hand. Again feels like a chump call from me on the river, again a kinda marginal 0.15BB call in solver land.
Spoiler
Fishy vibes V (different game, different V) opens BN. Hero raises J8cc in the SB (eh, maybe too aggressive). BB folds, V calls.
Flop AJ4r with Ac. Hero bets, V raises, H calls.
Turn 2c bdfd: H x, V b, H c.
River offsuit 4 pairing the board: H x, V b, H c. Villain hovers a muck and says disgusted "if you have anything you're good, I missed everything...". Doesn't show.
Like what draws? Solver is getting here by promoting double-backdoors OTF like all the sc between the J and 4 with a board suit and continuing some. Do non-studied players do that.. ever? He had KQcc maybe?
As an FYI, I would not conclude that this guy is a fish just because he calls 2.5 cold from the SB. In a slightly different configuration (UTG raise and an early or middle position 3bet) I would probably not 4bet anything from the SB.
Fair enough - I'm somewhat biased by my NL brain where cold-calling 3-bets is a much bigger leak. In this case though he had shown bad-passive tendencies in some other preflop spots, limping in and cold-calling open raises sometimes. And feels like in higher stakes I have to set the bar for fish at "fairly certain a losing player" even if only by a tiny bit.
You felt dumb calling and losing. How would you have felt folding and not knowing? Would this have affected the rest of your session mentally?
Regarding solvers….They are great for understanding baseline plays against perfectly balanced opponents. I’d be very careful applying what the solver says to do in limit games given the greater pot odds given. Also, I have seen people make strange plays way too often in spots like this to let it go.
I think my primary wonder here is whether it's feasible for most people to bluff enough (to meet equilibrium) without overdoing it and coming across as maniacal or spewy. It's really, really hard to accurately do something a small fraction of the time, and a lot easier to simplify to "never" or end up at a much higher frequency. Like maybe the "strange play" frequency against a "no bluffs" background actually balances nicely, but it's interesting to consider.
The nice thing about LHE is no one hand is going to affect my mental game much... definitely has that going for it over NLH 😀 The flip side though is that it's easier for errors to slip by unnoticed.
(Always the 8d - no flush happened).Interesting - as I wrote this up I began to give more credence to the number of missed draws. The reveal here isn't particularly interesting: I called and V had the advertised Ace (AJo).At the table (after calling) I was finding it really hard to imagine Villain deciding that he could get away with donking me off a decent hand after Hero has
Totally fair. Limping is the #1 thing I use to profile LHE players as bad, and coldcalling first in after an opener is #2. But I see plenty of good players coldcall second/third in, cold call after it goes limp/raise, coldcall the SB, or call 2+ bets from the blinds, and I don’t think these are reliable indicia that someone is a fish.
