Blockers...should they really be factored in?

Here are my thoughts:

1) When you are first to put money into the pot post-flop, it's called a "bet," not a "raise."

2) Your pot-size bet on the flop in Hand1 is way too much, especially when you don't have a nut or range advantage on this board.

3) All you "learned" is to remember that a phrase like "I have blockers" doesn't mean your opponent can't have one of these cards. This lesson should not be a surprise to anyone who ever lost a hand because of a worse kicker.

The 1/3 game I play in plays waaaaay bigger than your typical 1/3. I probably should have left that part out.

And yes, I did say "raise" as opposed to "bet."

If anyone else could give me some useful thoughts, that would be great!

Thanks :-)

Thinking you should bet the pot because "the game plays bigger" is certainly one way to go. Clearly you don't need our help.

Blockers only matter if your opponent is balanced.

So effectively no.

To be fair V called KJo on T96r OOP.

To OP:

Yes, blockers aren't magic but both hands seem whatever anyway...

Certainly very few spots where I'm folding NFD and two overs on the flop as the PFR, although we don't know stacks etc.
Hand 1 if you can be sure you have at best 10 outs then I guess you can fold 400 to win 1100. V seems like the kind of player that isn't ever slow playing TT/99/66 on the flop, but if he has all 8 combos. of KJo and isn't bluffing...

betting the turn with JJ on a 9T6Q board is awful, especially for the size you bet.

if you arent sure you're bluffing or value betting, betting is not a good idea.

My thinking was that he does not have an overpair unless he hit the queen, and again, my jacks would block his potential straight at that point, so the reason for that bet size is that I wanted him to fold versus me checking and which would give him a free card and potentially having him connect with anything on the river.

Either way it appears that it's best in general to take blockers (and the other concept of "unblockers" for that matter) out of the equation of trying to decide on what action to take.

Thanks!

I would say blockers are pretty situational. If an OMC check raises you 5x pot on the river, they don't matter much at all.

Here is a hand I just replied too where I think they matter a lot

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/170/l...

We lose to JT, TT and JJ. We have a J in our hand, then the turn is a T. That's a pretty big difference compared to We have KK and the turn is a 2.

Let's say there's a pot where flop is 789 and V has every jt combo lots of 56 and maybe even some t6 sooted. Having a J in our hand is nbd.

Most of the time, I would just think of it as a tie breaker.

case closed, sample size of 3

evidence is overwhelming

ES2, the way you summed it was great. I like when you can titrate the nuggets of information down to just a short statement such as thinking of blockers as a tiebreaker. That's perfect! Basically, blockers or unblockers are not very relevant, however when there is a decision you may be on the fence about, then that could potentially be used as the deciding factor.

That's what I needed....thanks!

I think you are over valuing blockers in hand 1. He is check / overbet jamming on the turn. This is almost never a bluff from a recreational player. It is rarely a bluff even from a reg. It doesn't really matter what combos you can eliminate from his range if he never does this with bluffs and only does it with value that beats us.

I am also not crazy about potting the flop and turn. We are losing to two pair, sets, flopped straights. And there are more straights on the turn, plus hands like KQ, QJ, so I don't love potting turn either. I like 2/3 as the bet size on flop. On the turn, I think 2/3 is a good size for betting, but our hand is probably not strong enough to bet. I definitely don't like potting it.

In the second hand it is hard to tell, missing all the action, bet sizes, etc.

Sometimes blockers are relevant and sometimes they aren't. They matter much more when ranges are narrowly defined and when you go to count actual combos, it tilts things in favor of making a call profitable. But I would focus much more on asking yourself if villain capable of bluffing (most people generally aren't, especially when it comes to big turn/river bets/raises), and hand reading what villain has.

Blockers potentially matter more when we are considering bluffing. Say when we 3b on the button vs LJ and the flop is KT4 we bet 33%, they call, turn 3, we bet 67% pot, they call, river 8, and we are considering firing the third barrel for a 67% pot jam. We think villain is capable of having QQ and JJ on the river. QQ and JJ are the hands we think are most likely to fold on the river. So we might want to give up with QJ despite having no showdown value, while missed gutshots like, A5s, A2s, or just airballs like A9s may want to fire that last barrel. Because if we think they can have QQ and JJ, then QJ reduces those combos that fold river from 12 to 6, so he is going to have a lot less folds. That is the type of thing that might make jamming with QJ a losing play while jamming A5 and A2 might be winning.

Could you explain how your 1/3 game "plays bigger"? In hand two, assuming the bet was 15 and 3 players called, the pot was 60. The villain shoves and you are getting 2:1 to call. That implies his starting stack was 135.

If so, the game is not "playing big" at least for this hand. If the effective stack was much bigger, then you weren't getting 2:1.

This game was a $1/2 game. It plays "bigger" in the sense that the bet sizings are closer to a 2/5.

When I first started studying this game I was doing the standard relativistic bet sizings of an open-bet of 3X the BB with $1 more for every limper. I love formulas and this seemed great. I should add that these home games and casino games have TONS of limping. The problem was that opening to $6-$12 when everyone else is opening to the tune of $10-$25 did absolutely nothing to thin the field. Every open bet from me was a pot builder and I didn't realize how critical getting other players out was until I listened to a pro address this exact issue. He said, "A lot of you out there keep telling me that you bet 'this' sizing or 'that' amount and no one is folding. FIND THE NUMBER YOU NEED TO NARROW THE FIELD DOWN TO JUST 1 OR 2 PLAYERS NO MATTER WHAT THAT AMOUNT IS AND THAT SHOULD BE YOUR OPENING BET." That was manna from heaven for two reasons:

• 1. When I followed that advice, I was no longer battling 5 or 6 callers in every hand and I was becoming a profitable player for the first time.
  
• 2. No one can range my hand based on hand strength since I'm not betting on that factor.
  

So in the game I play in when I'm in early position, I will literally open-bet to $50-$75 and I will get 1-2 callers about 80% of the time. 10% of the time they fold and the other 10% I get more callers. This is what I mean by "playing bigger."

In this particular hand I opened in the cutoff for $60 and I ended up having three callers [pot = $240]. When the flop came, everyone checked around and I decided to take a chance that no one flopped a flush and bet $100. Everyone folded and then villain shoved for $400 [pot = $740]. So the call was for $300 more into a pot of $740 which is around 2.5:1.

Before everyone tells me how crazy this all is, I started playing in the casino for the first time this past February at a $1/$3 game and it has been just as successful. The game likewise plays "plays bigger" than a regular 1/3 and it has likewise been profitable for me.

Where things became interesting was going to a larger casino last month and playing $5/$10 for the first time. There were people at the table who play for a living so I was curious to see how my play would measure up. Interestingly my method for an open bet was consistent with traditional theory because the players rarely limp and because a min raise typically achieves the goal of folds. In fact, I was able to bet less and get a better result of players folding.

Anyway, that's the background and thanks so much for the responses!

sounds like a typical 1/2 game imo

nothing about those sizings "play bigger" than the average table i've played at

Then I would say you're playing at a great 1/2 table! When I play 1/2 at the casino, it generally plays more conventionally depending on who is there. At a table with typical rec players, $15 is probably the max open I'll make and players fold like pieces of paper. At other 1/2s like the home game I play in or at a 1/2 with players waiting for a 1/3 table, then I'm opening for at least double that.

now i'm convinced you're a troll account

You are worried about some fancy newish solver-based concepts like blockers and capped ranges which are not that important in 1/2 game. You also have some basic leaks which are much more important.

If the Octogenarian who has not played a hand in 3 hours, 4 bet jams pre on you, it doesn't matter that your AK means you have blockers to him having AA/KK, because his range is precisely AA/KK.

I think one of the reasons we see so much about blockers on this forum is because so many of the decisions here almost by definition are going to be very marginal, and that's when blockers are most likely to sway you one way or another

The AsKc hand on a 3 spade flop, you are getting odds to call, and he doesn't always have a flush. However, your blocker actually makes it less likely he is bluffing, because he can't be semi bluffing with the nut flush draw.

When he shoves, it looks like a non nut flush or maybe a set trying to protect his hand from another spade or maybe from the board pairing. As mentioned, could be the nut flush draw, but you block that.

Thanks, Hitchens...I definitely get the concept now and have relegated blockers to the level of "tiebreaker" when I'm on the fence.

deuceblocker, this is definitely not a "troll" account. This is someone who is experiencing success at the tables but in a way that may be different than others. Poker like many activities is an evolving game. Hold 'em 15 years ago is not the hold 'em of today and it will be different 15 years from now.

Watch Michael Adamo who is crushing it these days because of his unique deviations. If anyone described how that guy finishes off hands before he turned pro, they would have thought he had a good grasp of advanced play in some ways and not at all in others . Instead he's the guy who the best players hate to be in a hand with because of his unpredictable and huge moves that seem to go against conventional poker wisdom.

What's your logic here (betting pot on turn w/ your jacks because "the game plays bigger")? It just can't be right. When stacks are deep we do tend to use larger sizings, but that turn isn't one of these times.

Thinking of blockers as "tiebreakers" isn't a terrible approach, and in weak games it's probably often the right approach. More generally, and assuming you're in a game where balance is important, thining of blockers can help you pick which specific hands in your range to use for taking a certain action. A common example is, when bluff catching with a top pair type hand, a solver will often prefer to call more frequently with top pairs with weak kickers (say K2 - K5), while mostly folding those with better kickers that block villains bluffing range (like KQ, KJ, etc.) Obviously this depends on the actual hand.

In a sense blockers could be seen as "tiebreakers" in this latter case as well, although with respect to something more subtle than a "should I call this shove" kind of decision.

OP may be beating 1/2, while still making a lot of mistakes.

Whatever solvers do with calling with K2 rather than KJ is interesting, but not terribly useful to live low and mid stakes play.

However, there are situations where blockers are important, where they significantly reduce the chances an opponent can have certain hands. They can be a deciding factor to bluff. There are situations where you can shove preflop with AK, knowing there are half as many combinations of AA/KK, etc.

As indicated, in this case it is and easy call with AK, but the blocker actually is important and makes it less of a call. Villain probably isn't pushing with the nut flush, but could do that with the nut flush draw, which you completely block.

Generally I only think about blockers when it comes to making or calling a bet in close situations. Otherwise, I don't think about them much.