Joined: Feb '08
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That's cos their mostly retarded. Bluffing a hand with some equity is much preferable. Its all about understanding both your own and the villains hand range and knowing how much equity you have vs his calling range. If you don't understand what I said you shouldn't be playing anything over .50/1 anyway.
Posted by tommygunne: That's cos their mostly retarded. Bluffing a hand with some equity is much preferable. Its all about understanding both your own and the villains hand range and knowing how much equity you have vs his calling range. If you don't understand what I said you shouldn't be playing anything over .50/1 anyway.
Joined: Dec '07
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@hezuess2
tommygunne is 100% right on this. I will try to explaine:
It's impossible to give you a specific guide to bluf's because it depends on your image at the table (people will respect your bets less if you have been playing loose). Your opponents style is probably the most important cause like tommygunne said you gotta know his calling range for you to make a profitable bluff. The range of cards your opponent will call your bluff bet with has to be alot smaller than the range of cards he will fold or else you will lose money on the bluff. So to make a profitable bluff you gotta have a pretty good idea of which cards he is holding and which cards he would call your bluff bet with. In poker you can win by having the best hand or by getting your opponent to fold. This is where the term fold equity appears(the value of the chance that your opponent folds). I normally dont bluff alot but I semibluff pretty much, a semibluff is where you know opponent got a stronger hand than you but you have a draw (fx. openend str8 or flush draw) so lets say you got 40% chance of winning the hand by getting the draw an finally showing the best hand. You can make your chances of winning better by playing your draw hard, using the fold equity on your opponent. Cause in that case you can add the chances of your opponent folding to your chance of getting your draw......let's say there is 30% chance your opponent will fold + 40% chance you will get your draw then you suddenly have 70% chance of winning instead of the 40% math chance. Besides that the pot will be big when you hit your draw and you get a big pot but you will ofcourse also lose a bigger pot if you dont get opponent to fold and draw doesn't come. So all in all you need to have a good idea of what opponent is holding, what will he call you with and how does he see you. I hope it made some sense cause it sure got a bit long
Bluffing is also all about telling a story, dont big bet bluff because you missed the river with your flush draw, and had been check calling the whole way, it will look like what it is, you had a busted draw and are bluffing.
So to bluff effectively you have to tell a story, think about the action so far, and also think about what your action will look like to the opponent,
also dont bluff with hands which have some chance of winning by themselves, if you have middle pair and bet the river when they fold you might feel like *phew* they folded to my bluff, but really what happened is they most likely had nothing and you would have won the show down anyway, by bluffing with middling hands you can lose the value that they had in the first place. because all the hands beating you will call and all the hands you beat will fold, its an unnecessary risk
So this means you should bluff with garbage, say you have 10 high and its gotten to the river, that is a better situation to bluff, because your chances of winning a show down are zip.
Bluff when it is cheap enough to get called, say you are playing a solid tight aggressive game and you only show down monsters and because of this people are folding to your turn and river bets whenever they are 75 % pot or more, this is a good time to start bluffing, firstly because you may pick up a lot of pots, and secondly if you get caught once or twice you just shift back to your solid play and will get payed off the next time you have a big hand.
Lastly and also importantly consider stack sizes, in games where the average stack is 50 BB a hand like top pair top kicker is almost always showdown worthy, but once you get to an average stack of 100-150 and above people start not wanting to put there whole stack in with just top pair, this is a better situation to create a bluff,
Joined: Feb '08
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Posted by M3turbo: @hezuess2
tommygunne is 100% right on this. I will try to explaine:
It's impossible to give you a specific guide to bluf's because it depends on your image at the table (people will respect your bets less if you have been playing loose). Your opponents style is probably the most important cause like tommygunne said you gotta know his calling range for you to make a profitable bluff. The range of cards your opponent will call your bluff bet with has to be alot smaller than the range of cards he will fold or else you will lose money on the bluff. So to make a profitable bluff you gotta have a pretty good idea of which cards he is holding and which cards he would call your bluff bet with. In poker you can win by having the best hand or by getting your opponent to fold. This is where the term fold equity appears(the value of the chance that your opponent folds). I normally dont bluff alot but I semibluff pretty much, a semibluff is where you know opponent got a stronger hand than you but you have a draw (fx. openend str8 or flush draw) so lets say you got 40% chance of winning the hand by getting the draw an finally showing the best hand. You can make your chances of winning better by playing your draw hard, using the fold equity on your opponent. Cause in that case you can add the chances of your opponent folding to your chance of getting your draw......let's say there is 30% chance your opponent will fold + 40% chance you will get your draw then you suddenly have 70% chance of winning instead of the 40% math chance. Besides that the pot will be big when you hit your draw and you get a big pot but you will ofcourse also lose a bigger pot if you dont get opponent to fold and draw doesn't come. So all in all you need to have a good idea of what opponent is holding, what will he call you with and how does he see you. I hope it made some sense cause it sure got a bit long
If there is a 30% chance he folds, it means u win 3 out of 10 right there. Of the last 7 u win 40% = 2,8 hands. 3 + 2.8 = 5.8. so making that play u can exspect to win 58 in a 100 hands, which is still a winning play; but remember all ur advantage lyes in the fold%, if it drops to 20%, u can only exspect to win 52 in a 100. then again consider the pot-odds: if u win more than 2.5 times ur bet its a winning play even without the folding equity.
Joined: Dec '07
Location: Denmark
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Grindehvalen dont get all mathmatical on my example obviously I just threw some numbers out there to make an easy example to a beginner who needed some advice. Maybe you could make an example your self.....I think post maker would get more out of that
BTW bad idea to get mathmatical when math obviously is not your strong side I like the way 70% turns into 58% lol (read irony the guy is blanc)
Joined: Feb '08
Location: Ireland
Age: 36 (M)
Posts: 136
Posted by M3turbo: @hezuess2
tommygunne is 100% right on this. I will try to explaine:
It's impossible to give you a specific guide to bluf's because it depends on your image at the table (people will respect your bets less if you have been playing loose). Your opponents style is probably the most important cause like tommygunne said you gotta know his calling range for you to make a profitable bluff. The range of cards your opponent will call your bluff bet with has to be alot smaller than the range of cards he will fold or else you will lose money on the bluff. So to make a profitable bluff you gotta have a pretty good idea of which cards he is holding and which cards he would call your bluff bet with. In poker you can win by having the best hand or by getting your opponent to fold. This is where the term fold equity appears(the value of the chance that your opponent folds). I normally dont bluff alot but I semibluff pretty much, a semibluff is where you know opponent got a stronger hand than you but you have a draw (fx. openend str8 or flush draw) so lets say you got 40% chance of winning the hand by getting the draw an finally showing the best hand. You can make your chances of winning better by playing your draw hard, using the fold equity on your opponent. Cause in that case you can add the chances of your opponent folding to your chance of getting your draw......let's say there is 30% chance your opponent will fold + 40% chance you will get your draw then you suddenly have 70% chance of winning instead of the 40% math chance. Besides that the pot will be big when you hit your draw and you get a big pot but you will ofcourse also lose a bigger pot if you dont get opponent to fold and draw doesn't come. So all in all you need to have a good idea of what opponent is holding, what will he call you with and how does he see you. I hope it made some sense cause it sure got a bit long
This is one of the few decent posts I've seen on this forum. Glad to see that someone has at least a vague idea of what a range is.
Just to point out that your maths is wrong too lol! As is grindevald's. I'd correct it but I'm too busy. However you gotta take into account 1) that the 30% FE is on a smaller pot than your 40% chance of hitting a draw. Also the 40% is 40% of the remaining 70% of the time (1-the amount of times he folds = pot when he calls)
You also got to take into account metagame. Metagame is how the villains image of you changes when he sees you shove it in with a draw. This will usually get you looked up lighter which is of value. Shoving/raising draws results in you balancing your range away from big hands so that you can be called easier, yet leaves your range with a decent amount of equity.
Read some stickies on 2p2. You seem like a guy who is starting to think about the game and needs some stimulus for thought.
Joined: Dec '07
Location: Denmark
Age: 40 (M)
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@tommygunne
Im glad you thought well about my post. Cause I've read several of your post's and spotted you as 1 of the other "serious" mobsters(we are not many as you allmost said with the low ammount of quality post's). 2 things though:
Im sad that you think I was doing serious math in my upper post, I just threw some numbers out that would be easy to see and understand for a beginner which im sure post maker is since he's asking for "bluf guide".
2nd im a bit older than you and probably played and read a bit more than you so please dont talk like you know better. I know about meta and I am reading 2+2. You are right I would like some stimulus for my thoughts and I guess you would too. Like I said I spotted you as 1 of the other real players by your post's and think we could learn/have good community if we could keep the conversations on a equal level.
If there is a 30% chance he folds, it means u win 3 out of 10 right there. Of the last 7 u win 40% = 2,8 hands. 3 + 2.8 = 5.8. so making that play u can exspect to win 58 in a 100 hands, which is still a winning play; but remember all ur advantage lyes in the fold%, if it drops to 20%, u can only exspect to win 52 in a 100. then again consider the pot-odds: if u win more than 2.5 times ur bet its a winning play even without the folding equity. 
