Good spot for a river bluff?
1/3 @ MGM National Harbor
My opponent this hand is a middle aged asian man that has been playing more than 50% of his hands. Most of the other players at the table are also trying to get hands heads up with him. He's sitting immediately to my right, so I had a great seat for the night.
He limps from UTG+1, with a stack of $300 (he's the effective stack)
I raise next to act with A♥Q♥
Everyone else folds, and limper calls. So heads up to the flop
Flop ($40) T♣8♣3♥
He checks to me, and I c-bet for $20
His range is so wide that I think he will be inclined to call a bet with too many hands, plus I still have my overs and backdoors
He calls $20
Turn ($75) T♣8♣3♥5♣
He checks to me, and I had a hard time deciding on what to do here. I think my hand may still be the best and if I bet again, he may only call me with better at this point.
The other idea I had here was, if he had any flushes or good pairs he would bet the river if I check the turn. So a river bluff may be a better option for me if he checks.
So I check back
River ($75) T♣8♣3♥5♣K♣
He checks to me again
At this point I think he has either a very weak pair, like third or below, or occasionally a very weak flush. I think it's very rare that I run into a strong hand here. At the same time, I don't think I win at showdown a lot of the time either. So I'm trying to bluff a size that he will fold basically everything but a decent flush to.
I bet $50
So what do you think, can I ever be good by checking back the river? Should I just keep barreling turn?
I won't spoil but I will say that my opponent did go into the tank for a solid 3 minutes.
13 Replies
Problems with bluffing this river :
- you unblock clubs
- V would expect you to barrel turn with a big club draw
I don’t think V is folding the 2 of clubs here
He may fold a pair with no club but 🤷🏻♂️
Check back on turn is good.
Since he's playing 50% of his hands, it would be helpful to have any reads about his post-flop play. You ranged him, but you don't say much about how he plays or what his later street tendencies are.
Otherwise, how are we supposed to know whether he can be bluffed out on this river?
Explain that he considered for 3 minutes, which means that he probably won K.Or there is a 2♣️
I like it, but I might have gone ahead and bet the turn -- it makes a river bluff more believable, too.
Would be nice to know how sticky he is.
I dont usually cbet against fish
Since he's playing 50% of his hands, it would be helpful to know his post flop play.
This is key. What percent of the time does V continue with his hand on the flop? Does he have a fold button? Does he check call too many hands? Did he ever check call strong hands?
I’m with javanewt, the river is a great spot to bluff. Just never bluff a calling station.
id just give up. $50 is meaningless to most people at $1/3, youll get snapped by probably any pair, club or not.
Grunch:
PRE - seems fine.
FLOP - with two overs, a BDFD and BDSD, I think c-betting is fine.
TURN - think I'd prefer a small turn barrel of 1/3-1/2 pot, with a plan to fold to a raise, and bet big on the river if he just flat calls.
RIVER - doubtful he's folding flushes to a 2/3 bet size in a smallish pot. I'd think we'd need to bet $100-$125 or even $150 to get that done.
A small bet of $50 might be enough to fold out his weak 1P holdings. With four to a flush on board, I wouldn't want to bet huge after checking back the turn.
With so little invested in the pot, I wouldn't hate just checking back and letting him have it, rather than trying to bluff a fish off a value hand with a bet-check-bet line. We could conceivably win with ace high sometimes.
There's some value in seeing what he has when he doesn't bet the river, if we think he'd lead out with value. Let's see if he really does call flop with 2nd pair or worse. Since he has to show first, we give up no info to the rest of the table if we muck after he shows.
If we bluff river it has to be 100$ maybe even more prolly. You can get them to fold 2p here easily with that size and against some nits even med flush
I overlimp in but that's my style. At most tables we'll have a much better chance of isolating this Villain with a limp/reraise. But we somehow got this HU in position on this guy so nice result if expected.
What's this guy like postflop? Fit/fold? Or more like preflop in that he's a calling station? I don't try to get calling stations to fold, so I'd mostly check back this flop.
I'm cool with checking back the turn against anyone remotely calling stationish.
I don't mind the river bluff as it will be very difficult for one pair hands like Tx to call with a four flush and an overcard (note that I'd probably do a "club check" and look at my cards before betting). But it really comes down to how calling stationish this guy is. There are some people I play with that I make a note to literally *never* bluff because they are so stationish, where I see opponent after opponent just give them money with failed bluffs against Tx.
GcluelessreadsnoobG
