WSOP Paradise Super Main Event Ryuta Nakai vs Jesse Lonis Bluff Appreciation Thread

If Lonis folds KK, then this bluff is absolutely printing. It's definitely a "don't try this at home" bluff that I think would be suicidal against population in almost any live MTT, but it's brilliant IMO when you know your opponent is good enough to fold sets here like Lonis did.

I think it's great against a good player with the removal to JT. Reminds me of that Euro event where a straight flush took a similar line and the nut flush ended up finding the fold. Not sure if they remove links but it should be the first result for "nut flush vs straight flush" on YouTube.

Nice post, provolone. Interesting to see how river bluff raises are barely a thing even in a 25k, which makes me think in a ~500, we have to nearly always find the fold against this kind of raise.

???
Even when bluffing to a polar range if you get enough of his value to fold then there is no reason why it can't be printing.
If he fold KK in this spot it works way more than 8%.

I mean in theory oop is supposed to be jamming a3 and a8 there (i think?) so kk is a pretty ridiculous fold.

Having run this sim a couple of different times, I'm not sure where Greenwood (or anyone for that matter) is getting the idea A3 or A8 jam over a triple barrel including pot on the river. But whatever - this is not a spot where I would ever expect Nakai to be jamming worse for value. Maybe 88 gets there at some super-low frequency and would probably be good enough to jam, but even that feels unlikely. (88 most likely x/r flop)

So this hand becomes a simple math problem - do we expect Nakai to bluff at a high enough frequency to justify calling? If Lonis didn't feel like that was the case, then yeah, fold is fine. I do agree with Greenwood that the Lonis' sizings are wonky. This should be 3e the majority of the time.

I will defer to Jesse's read, but I played with Nakai on day 4 of the main this past year and IMO he's more than capable of running a sick bluff like this, even in a high-pressure situation.

the risk premium isn't that steep with 140 left. Maybe 5% more equity needed than chipev. a3 and a8 should be a jam in theory because the size hes used is supposed to be his strong ax that can't jam like aj and a10, not his two pairs and sets. Its a bit odd he didn't jam kk here and has bet folded it instead. Haven't looked at any sims or anything so could be wrong but i think its' terrible from a theory perspective. There's a bit too many assumptions being made in the hand to first use this river sizing and second to fold to a jam.

edit: i didn't realise it was 50 blinds I thought it was much lower. Still wouldn't alter much with what I said with the river size used you're basically saying you have aj or a10.

edit 2: I ending up looking a sim and my analysis was almost correct but not quite. aj and a10 are too thin to bet river with in theory and the weak two pairs like kq and k8 are used instead for this size. a8 is good enough to shove the river with in theory from oop but the sim did use a 3.7% risk premiun which is slightly under what this situation would be. Also you probably can value bet slightly thinner because people won't trap a8 and j10 as much as they should. Another thing if you think
people are not shoving their a8 here the non all in sizing with kk becomes even worse than theory.

I would never bet like this on the flop, turn and river but I can see why he folded. I have rarely seen a c/r bluff on the river. I also have rarely c/r bluffed on the river (I've done it like 2 or 3 times and it has worked every time because it looks incredibly strong).

It is a strange spot to me though for several reasons. The first is that the river bet sizing is polarized. It can be AA/KK/AK/AQ/JT but it can also be hands like KXs/QXs/AXs that are afraid they are behind and misses like JJ/TT/99/QJ/QT/T9s/etc. So the c/r isn't necessarily a monster., it could be a bluff sometimes. The second reason is that there is basically only 1 hand that is ahead of us and that hand could have c/r'd the turn. The turn bet was a strongish bet at like 75% pot so it is doubtful that a c/r there would be folded. So a lot of the time JT would c/r there. Especially because there are some hands that might check back the river but call the turn c/r and even if they don't check back the river they wouldn't call the river c/r.

My flop sizing would have been about 900,000. My turn sizing would then be about 2,700,000. My river sizing would be either 8,100,000 or all in. So folding to a c/r all in would not be an option.

He needs the bluff to work at a very high % given the bluff really started with the flop call. My point is he doesn't know he folds KK here and no one knows how often he'll fold KK here - I doubt he folds KK in this spot 100% of the time. Maybe he had some insane soul read that Lonis would fold everything but the nuts here and he's a God, but if you ran this bluff a million times through a sim it would light so much money on fire. Nakai should know Lonis with this line either has 2pr+ or air and he has a Queen so no need to bluff the air - if you go around trying to bluff polar ranges when you in fact can beat the air side of it you're going to torch money.

why do you make this connection? i'm not agreeing or disagreeing, i'm just trying to dig a little deeper.

i would think players are not disciplined enough to fold sets to delayed xraises and losing only to gutshots. and opponents do try crazy river **** often in low stakes. bc of this:

i would be more prone to call in a ~500
i would be less prone to make the bluff myself

what do you think?

Could be just different venues. Where I play, the craziness generally is before the start of registration, but even then, it is generally ridiculous jams pre or dumb stuff like 10x overbet jamming top pair OTF "for protection". Once registration closes, players generally become very tight as the fish/recs only care about cashing and don't aim high. I've seen people open fold sets, second nuts, etc. to river raises. Not saying I would try it against every opponent but in spots where people are afraid for their tournament life, it seems like a very +EV move.

i am very curious as to why you take this sizing otf. are you trying to setup a rvr jam? do you always use 2/3?

I do this sizing on the flop when there are 2 Broadway cards (which smashes our raising range). When there is only one, I go to 33% to 40% pot depending on how many players in the hand.

I do this consistently so my opponents will never know when I smashed the flop and when I missed.

There are times I don't cbet when there is one Broadway card like if the flop is J44 and I have JJ...

another good reason to size up with this specific hand on this specific board is that we unblock Ax, which is mostly what we're hoping to get called down by.

AAA is more often a check back on the flop.

And my point is he has the read to do an exploitative river bluff.

In GTO of cause you don't need to bluff the queen but if you can make most of the value that turned into bluff catcher to fold, including KK, then it is exploitatively printing.