Poker Giraffe quiz question - bluffing checked line on river
The video:
Question 1 : board is 8s6s3d jc 2c - gets checked to river (doesn't say if IP or oop but I think its oop). Would you prefer to bluff with a hand with spades (I assume this means 1 or 2 spades) or without spades. The answer is apparently 2 spades and GTO confirms this. I have trouble understanding this, hopefully someone can explain it.
Is it because. If you have a spade in your hand it means villain will be less likely to have a spade and that reduces the chances he would have: 3s, js,2s and be able to call down? is it anything to do with missed flush draw?
Also how marginal is this? as someone pointed our, a hand xx to river is very likely to have air anyway so how much does having spades effect the ev of this bluff in reality? Please let me know if I'm wrong or anything I've missed, thanks.
13 Replies
You can Xdown/bluff missed FDs as you unblock folds
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You can Xdown/bluff missed FDs as you unblock folds
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So what I wrote in second line is accurate then yes?
wouldn't just having one spade have a similar but lesser effect?
what about hands with clubs? obviously you haven't missed a draw but still would have same effect or no? please explain in simple terms if can/want
In Xdown line, opponent has shed alot of spades, so 2 > 1 spade has better unblocker properties for bluffing
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my explanation is that flush draws should (in general) be bluffed on earlier streets, because they out-perform pure airballs. flush draws can improve to the best hand and therefore need less folds to be profitable.
this makes it less likely that some player will have a bused flushdraw in a passive checking line, especially the flop xx turn xx line. therefore, busted flushdraws become good bluffing candidates on the river, because they unblock villains auto-folds.
you can now ask why hero has a bused flushdraw in the first place with my simple explanation. as with everything in the gto play it'a about being balanced (board coverage) and trade-offs between different effects. hero wants some flushs in his xx line in order to be protected (for example against huge overbets) and the mentioned positive effect of unblocking auto-folds could also make a difference. however i guess that my first argument/reasoning has a higher weighting.
something similar holds for hands with one suit shared by the board cards, more formal: XsXx on XXXss. you will often see that a solver likes to play these hands aggressively, because they block villains flush-draw continues or completed flushs on Xs turns/rivers, resulting in a higher folding probability.
The video:
Question 1 : board is 8s6s3d jc 2c - gets checked to river (doesn't say if IP or oop but I think its oop). Would you prefer to bluff with a hand with spades (I assume this means 1 or 2 spades) or without spades. The answer is apparently 2 spades and GTO confirms this. I have trouble understanding this, hopefully someone can explain it.
Is it because. If you have a spade in your hand it means villain will be less likely to have a spade and tha
It's not so much to do with blocking made hands - spades aren't helpful for that because the amount of made hands with or without spades is usually quite similar.
It's more about how spades interact with villain's air combos. On the river, villain's air is really weighted towards non-spades, because most of the air combos with a spade (or two) would have either bet the flop or the turn.
So when bluffing the river in the checked down line, it's much better to have spades, because we allow villain to have more hearts/diamonds/clubs that will fold.
On the other hand, if we bluff with hearts/diamonds/clubs, we are blocking the exact hands we are trying to fold out. This weights villain's range towards made hands that will call, and decreases the EV of our bluff.
It's not so much to do with blocking made hands - spades aren't helpful for that because the amount of made hands with or without spades is usually quite similar.
It's more about how spades interact with villain's air combos. On the river, villain's air is really weighted towards non-spades, because most of the air combos with a spade (or two) would have either bet the flop or the turn.
So when bluffing the river in the checked down line, it's much better to have spades, because we allow villain
I'm not sure why I can't grasp this, maybe I need to study GTO/theory more. The way I see it, the few spade hands that villain has in this line that xx to river are going to be the weakest spade hands anyway? So if we have spades, we make it less likely he will have those give-up hands by the river. Is it possible to explain this using specific hand examples for villain/hero? Thanks for explaining anyway+Kenji.
I'm not sure why I can't grasp this, maybe I need to study GTO/theory more. The way I see it, the few spade hands that villain has in this line that xx to river are going to be the weakest spade hands anyway? So if we have spades, we make it less likely he will have those give-up hands by the river. Is it possible to explain this using specific hand examples for villain/hero? Thanks for explaining anyway+Kenji.
What spade combos can villain have tho? QTss? K9ss? All these combos are very likely to have bet the flop or turn. So they don't exist in villain's range once it checks to the river.
Maybe you can say that QTss might check back flop and turn at some frequency. And that makes it bad to bluff with spades. But for every combo of QTss that villain checks down, he will have way more combos of QThh, QTdd and QTcc in the same line. So even then it would still be better to bluff with spades.
From what I understand, you're saying that spades should be bad to bluff because we block some part of villain's folding range. But every hand will block some part of their folding range. The best bluffs aren't hands that unblock folds completely - the best bluffs are hands that block the least amount of folds. And spades block way less folds compared to the other suits.
This has very little to do with GTO btw, it's more about logic and visualising ranges.
What spade combos can villain have tho? QTss? K9ss? All these combos are very likely to have bet the flop or turn. So they don't exist in villain's range once it checks to the river.
Maybe you can say that QTss might check back flop and turn at some frequency. And that makes it bad to bluff with spades. But for every combo of QTss that villain checks down, he will have way more combos of QThh, QTdd and QTcc in the same line. So even then it would still be better to bluff with spades.
From what I u
If we don't have any spades, what hands are we unblocking that are now bad for us to bluff against? And when you say bluff you mean you are trying to get better hands to fold, or is this more of a range vs range thing I'm also not grasping.
Can I work this out in equilab and choosing suits and then just counting range combos? But my understanding is this whole line is based on GTO ranges that have made it to the river so not a range I can just estimate?
If we don't have any spades, what hands are we unblocking that are now bad for us to bluff against? And when you say bluff you mean you are trying to get better hands to fold, or is this more of a range vs range thing I'm also not grasping.
Can I work this out in equilab and choosing suits and then just counting range combos? But my understanding is this whole line is based on GTO ranges that have made it to the river so not a range I can just estimate?
Equilab is a bit of an overkill, you can probably just visualise it in your head.
On the river, villain's range is comprised of
1. Made hands that will mostly call
2. Air (hearts)
3. Air (diamonds)
4. Air (clubs)
If you have spades, you allow villain to have more of 2/3/4, decreasing the probability that he will call.
If you have any other suit, you block 2/3/4, weighting his range towards (1). This increases the probability that he will call.
On the river, villain's range is comprised of
1. Made hands that will mostly call
2. Air (hearts)
3. Air (diamonds)
4. Air (clubs)
Do you mean mostly comprised of? So all the spade hands he has are made hands?
I think I'm just thinking about this incorrectly, and it isn't about reducing the chance of him having spades, but rather about increasing the chances he has h/d/c hands and spade reduction is just an irrelevant by-product?
Do you mean mostly comprised of? So all the spade hands he has are made hands?
I think I'm just thinking about this incorrectly, and it isn't about reducing the chance of him having spades, but rather about increasing the chances he has h/d/c hands and spade reduction is just an irrelevant by-product?
Yes, see my first post
I think I kind of see how it works based on combos, but if we are betting against a range that we think is more weighted to air, then how could that be considered a bluff? Or do you mean air that would still beat us on sd? Are there ss hands we wouldn't want to bet because it beats a lot of villains air anyway?
I think I kind of see how it works based on combos, but if we are betting against a range that we think is more weighted to air, then how could that be considered a bluff? Or do you mean air that would still beat us on sd? Are there ss hands we wouldn't want to bet because it beats a lot of villains air anyway?
With a hand like Q-high, it doesn't matter because most of the hands you beat will bluff you if you check. So unless you intend to check call with QTss, you should probably just bluff given that you unblock most of villain's air.
