Fake a bluff

Im going to ignore strategy in this post, because I think the most important takeaway here is you dont need to be trying all these wonky timing shenanigans at 1/2, (or really anywhere, but id forgove it at higher stakes), and wasting a minute of everyone’s time on your check call is just not necessary. You said it yourself, they arent thinking that hard.

If youre a winning player, time is money, and these types of tanks are bad for the game, because it makes the fish bored and start playing less fun strategies. Its bad even when you have a legitimate decision. Im not saying you cant think when you need to, just saying that it isnt something you want to be doing more often just for shits and giggles.

If you can't wait 1 minute, you shouldn't play, despite the strategy or whatever. Instant call, raise or fold tell something, so I'm not waisting anybody time.

You are wasting time, which is bad for you and bad for the game. Also if the player is thinking at all, it’s obvious you have a monster here. Also I don’t get what this line accomplished - either jam turn or check river and hope he bluffs.

Same as before, if you can't wait 1 minute, not 1 hour, I don't see the point of playing. I didn't say I made him wait 1 hour, and instant call is gonna be a tell.

Checking the river was the other option I had in mind.

I'm not a fan of your play on the river. I think Villain is pretty polar when he takes this line (raise dry flop, pot turn). He has a very strong hand (set or two pair) or air (QT, T9, etc). This is even more likely because you block almost all of Villain's marginal value hands (aka top pair).

If you donk jam river, Villain will call with his strong hands and fold his air.

If you check river, Villain will jam with his strong hands and might jam with his air.

The only reason to donk jam river is if you think Villain has marginal value hands that will check back if you don't bet yourself. Do you really think that's what he has?

Honestly. I hate you.

OMG rotflmfao!!!

Just spit a drink all over myself.

Dude, seriously, stop wasting everyone's time with extended fake tanks when it's your turn to act. Fake tanking has its reasonable limits, and longer than 10 or 20 seconds when you hold the nuts is long enough to earn you a stern rebuke from other players at the table. If you did this with me at the table, I would start relentlessly calling clock on you, if took longer than a few seconds to act.

how long did you tank for on the river before you went all in? i think like 45 seconds is good but if you get to more than a minute it's going to be too transparent

Clock is 1 minute so it works with me. Probably make the supervisor come and take the time would really waste people time, but at this point I shouldn't explain myself anymore on this, happy to see how 20 second can change your perception.

You don't even know me, and you insult users in this way. Not sure this is allow here.
Sure this kind of behavior made you win a lot on poker tables.

Honestly, I don't hate you bacause I just don't care, hope you have better things to do with your life as well.

You don't even know me, and you insult users in this way. Not sure this is allowed here.
Sure this kind of behavior made you win a lot on poker tables.

Honestly, I don't hate you bacause I just don't care, hope you have better things to do with your life as well.

In the interest of trying to help OP understand and improve...

1. You're playing 1/2, $140-$150 effective stacks. This isn't deep enough to worry about having a complex approach to post-flop play.

At these stakes, the games are generally going to be full of recreational players who are not all that great. And at this stack depth, they're going to stack off with a wide range of hands that aren't all that strong.

The typical 1/2 player is not good enough to deduce very much about the strength of your hand from how long you take to act. If you want to avoid giving off timing tells, just mentally count to 10 before acting, every time the action is on you.

2. When we're the pre-flop raiser and going to the flop heads-up, we don't necessarily need to c-bet with our entire range, nor do we want to only bet when we have value, or only bet as a bluff. Nor do we want to have different sizes for value or bluffs.

I personally will mostly check my entire range when HU and OOP as the PFR. I do this because at low stakes, opponents will over-stab when the PFR checks, they have bet sizing tells, and they don't protect their check-back range by checking back strong hands.

If we're going to c-bet most of the time, we can bet small, but at these stakes, and HU, in a single raised pot, that can be 1/2 pot. It doesn't need to be less than 1/3. If we bet 1/3, or 1/2, it's still a small amount of money in absolute terms, and our opponents will generally raise with their strongest hands, and call with a lot of weak hands.

Especially when we have value, we just want to get as much money as possible in on every street. So I would probably size up here, and bet at least 1/2 pot. I might even bet 2/3 pot with JJ when we flop top set, because our opponents will typically call with all their JX, and all their over-cards that didn't 3B pre, like AQ and KQ, but also combos like AT, KT, and QT.

3. When V raises - what do you think he has after he just flat called our pre-flop raise from the BTN?

He almost never has AA, KK, or AK. And he's probably not raising the flop with his worst hands. On J83rb, he probably has JX, J8, 88, 33, or an open end straight draw with T9. Occasionally, he might have slow-played some PP pre-flop that he's now decided to fast-play. That could be 99 or QQ, maybe, but much less likely here.

Obviously we don't need to be too worried on this board, and we don't want to turn our hand face up, but I could actually see 3B'ing the flop. Very few low stakes players will take an aggressive line post-flop with a hand they're planning to fold without at least seeing the turn. We could have AA, KK, and QQ here.

If V has J8, 88, or 33, he's NEVER folding to a 3B, and will probably just jam the flop. He might even jam with T9.

Additionally, we don't want to let our opponent dictate the pot size by giving up the betting lead on the flop. It doesn't look weak when we call the flop, no matter how long we tank. It looks like we actually have a strong enough hand to call, and one that might have been considering a raise. If we check turn, and he checks back, we lose a street of value.

Put yourself in your opponent's position. We raised pre from UTG, and bet-call the flop. We could have 88-AA. If he was raising as a bluff, or with some weaker value hand, he has to wonder what we have, and he's probably not putting us on exactly 99 or TT very often.

That said, flatting his raise isn't terrible. But fake-tanking here just isn't necessary, and not really all that deceptive. It's just annoying to the dealer and the other players in the game.

4. The turn is a brick. Checking in flow makes sense. When V snap bets, here again, there's no need to fake-tank. Taking 10 seconds to act is fine. A minute is egregious.

At this point, I think your best play is to jam the turn. You only have $70 left, and the pot is $140. You'll be laying him 3 to 1 on a call, and he'll almost never fold anything in his range, unless he's bluffing with complete air, which isn't going to call your jam on the river. He's not folding 2P or a set, and he's probably not folding his open end straight draws.

5. When you jam the river, V would have to be terrible to think you're bluffing. Or he'd have to think you're terrible. This is just such an under-bluffed spot, when you raise pre, bet-call flop, check-call turn, and then jam 1/2 pot on the river.

The problem is that jamming takes away his option to bluff or bet worse for value. He might actually find a fold here with JX. I think a better play would have been to bet small, like $15, to induce him to spaz-raise.

So, overall, no, personally, I don't think you played the hand all that well. You over-thought it on every street post-flop. You could bet-call or bet-3B the flop, but I think 3B'ing is better. Check-jamming the turn is better than check-calling. Betting small on the river probably gets you more value than jamming.

Fake-tanking has its place in the game, but not in situations like this hand, at this stack depth. The last time I fake-tanked, I was sitting over $600 deep at 1/3, with AA, facing a $165 4B pre-flop, delaying my 5B jam to make it look less obvious that I had AA. Even then, I only tanked for about 20 seconds, not a full minute.

Your fake-tanking here probably didn't accomplish anything. If you were trying to make your hand look like something worse than JX, you wouldn't call a flop raise AND a pot-sized bet on the turn, AND donk-jam the river. Your line just looks like thick value that was trying to look weak.

Sorry to pile on, but hollywooding with top set when you're 70BB deep is just ludicrous. If you were 400BB deep there might be some merit to it. It's not like this opponent is raising flop and continuing turn with 99 and is going to get curious.

Also at 1/2 on J83 rainbow, a flop raise is going to be so heavily biased towards 88 and 33 (and AJ which you double block) it's not even funny. The only draw most of the time will be T9 and only you know whether that's 4 combinations or 16. (If it's 16, then you don't want to jam the river unless you think this guy is so passive he checks back a set).

When someone hollywood tanks for a long time then raises, or tanks when facing a turn bet then snap open jams a blank river, it's a sign of extreme strength.

1. Don’t balance your tanking range at 1/2

2. Don’t tank

3. See #2

If you pulled this while I was at the table, I’d call the clock after 10 seconds every hand you are in for the rest of the night

I'm almost certain I've played a number of hands at live low stakes where if I snap bet I would have gotten more folds with value and would have gotten more calls while bluffing. A minute is overkill though. Same with anything pre-flop longer than 5 - 10 seconds (except when 3-betting).

Docvail is right, this hand is played pretty badly throughout. GII OTT, don't tank.

FWIW, if you want to look bluffy, the play is to snap call flop and turn. Snap calls indicate a drawing hand, then when you donk river, it looks more like you are bluffing the most obvious missed draw. Tanking looks like you are thinking about a raise on earlier streets, NOT whether or not you are thinking about drawing odds....

Huh?

Do you play with your cards face up?

Just check the river in flow. He is going to bet all of his strong hands and he can still bluff. He folds his bluffs when you jam river. There's a reason they are called donk bets. Except in some rare circumstances, they are a bad move. Meaning checking to the aggressor from the previous street is generally going to win you more money than outright betting, whether you are bluffing or have a value hand. The rare exceptions would be as the preflop caller when the board is low and connected in a single raised pot or middling and connected as the caller in a 3bet pot. And in certain instances when the board pairs on the turn and it reflects a card more in your range, and we usually bet small like 1/3 if we choose to bet there. Or sometimes when the board double pairs now giving you a polar range thst includes boats and maybe stuff like counterfeit two pair, both or which really want to bet. There are a other esoteric spots where donking works. But in general, it's bad. Don't do it.

Also, tanking a minute on the turn is excessive. You are risking killing making some fun players leave.

I disagree with all the anti tankers. You need to balance your tanks with monsters and difficult calls. I say this as a 1/2 player with a good winning record. Won 14/16 of last 1/2 sessions and up ~$5600.

In the average several hour session, you'll flop a set once or twice, and about 1 in 10 of those will be losers ( my swag). You have to get value where you can, especially from top set on a safe board.

If your bluff tank tilts folks, all the better.

I do agree to gii on turn. AP, If V has a draw, he's going to call. OTR, you look way to strong and V has little incentive to call.

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Stop fake or real tanking for anywhere near a minute on any hand. Maybe more than one minute on one street every once in a big while, but even then apologize to the table.