When they show a bluff

I'm pretty good at handling this situation because it goes along with the "no indication of anything" thing. A special handling came up yesterday.


I had QJ of diamonds, two off the button. A lose-aggressive player open limped, I raised, and the hand came down to heads up between he and I.


The flop was 10-8-7 with two diamonds. The turn was a blank. He check-called the flop and the turn. An offsuit ace came on the river and he bet out.


Well phooey. This is why I very rarely get out of line out of position before the flop without a pocket pair or an ace, because I really like starting out with some showdown value. With KQ I might have called his river bet. But with queen-high, all I could do was fold or raise. That might not make sense, since if king-high is good, then queen-high might be good as well. But the thought of calling, and then him turning over K-high, and then me saying, "that's good," well, I've got enough pride to fear those situations. Anyway, having started my first session in a week by folding every hand for two laps, my engine was most definitely not revved up, so I folded.


While the dealer was gathering the pot, the opponent held on to his cards in that way that suggests he was thinking about turning them over, even though he wasn't required to.


I BOLTED up from my seat and headed toward the coffee pot, just as he was beginning to turn over his hand. I could not and did not see his hand, and it was obvious that I couldn't and didn't.


When I returned, the opponent kept looking at me. I read mystification in his glances. Finally, he couldn't bear it, and he told me that he had turned over K-J (a bluff).


I ignored him the way a cow ignores a pebble. I used to get all bothered when someone showed me a bluff. I mean, who wouldn't? It can be mighty unnerving, as planned. Then I started acting like I didn't care. Then eventually I truly didn't care. It's much better this way.


Tommy

It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback but raising on the

river is your best play. Your analyses is right on the money,

either raise or fold. When I am in this situation intuitively

I know my best play is to raise, but for whatever reason I

have a hard time pulling the trigger on a pure bluff raise

when I know the better is bluffing. I don't know why, but

I get sticky fingers, and I just can't act on my convictions

and invariabley wind up folding. I am working on this aspect

of my game and I am consciously try to pull this off at least

once a session.


Bruce

Sup T! Not sure I follow everything here. A loose agressive opponent isn't going to fold the pot to one more bet is he? Well not likely IMO and your fold saved you 2 BB on your missed draw(s). sorry the river wasn't a 9! for you.


But the main point of your post loses me as well for if you truly don't care about the bluff thing, why BOLT from the table? Why not sit there (zenlike) and take solace in the free information your opponent is giving you.


Help me get inside this type of opponents head. What do you think his motives really are here? (you know, the incessent need to show you his "bluff", which had you beat anyways) and how best to exploit what ever it is he is trying to accomplish?

He's probably not going to try to "bluff" again at least for awhile. This kind of thing happens to me more often in the blinds when it's head up and I fold a piece of cheese in an early round and the guy shows me another piece of cheese that is better than mine. It tells me quite a bit about the player actually. In this particular case it tells you something about this player and how well he read your hand.

Sup H!


"But the main point of your post loses me as well for if you truly don't care about the bluff thing, why BOLT from the table? Why not sit there (zenlike)... What do you think his motives really are here?"


Players can act zenny when they are boiling inside. The bluff-shower wins the war, in his mind, whether the bluffee reacts or not, because the bluffer can presume, in his mind, that the bluffee is rattled, even if the bluffee is not rattled at all. The best way to combat this, in my little theory, is if the bluffee is physically unable to view the bluffers cards. The more common way is to sit there and not be rattled. This hand was a rare case where the best way was available. Yes, I potentially sacrificed a speck of info by leaving the table, but I think it made quite an impression on him, that I cared so little, especially after all the trouble he went through to rattle me. Hard to say how that payed off the rest of the day. I think it did, but there's no way to know for sure.


"and take solace in the free information your opponent is giving you."


And to the rest of the table. I've never seen a bluff-shower who was a winning player.


"how best to exploit what ever it is he is trying to accomplish?"


If we think of him as a snake with a rattler, my method rattles back.


Tommy

Gotta say I feel your pain on this one - been there and done that.

I used to like raising 1 limper from 6th,7th or button with QJs,JTs and QTs - it made poker fun - mix it up a little - pound your position - felt good to win a nice pot with queen high on the turn - when the limper check called the flop then check folded to my (semi)bluff.

Ooohh yeah did it ever feel great and there were times when I wanted sooooo badly to bluff raise a guy who I thought had nothing but rarely if ever did I ever have the courage of my convictions (they were not always right anyway and they have to be bang on to make this play a winner - do they?)

It's a hard thing to do and I would and have done the same thing on the river - fold and wonder what might have been - the glory that could have been mine.

Instead of all this though I now choose to look at the situation differently - how did I arrive in this position? - did I - do I like being in this spot? and what can be done differently - better?

Well, the guy giving you a free look is great for one and sitting there - icing him down while you cooly analyze his play given your free look at his cards and a faint a distant smile would be for me the ideal of dealing with spot as far as my limited range of emotion will allow.

More importantly and away from the table I will and do look at other ways to play these hands in similar spots - one of them that I now like to employ is calling and laying back with the hand -trying to make something nice and getting paid by some guy bluffing the river.

It sure ain't as much fun - that's for sure but I think it may be more profitable and profit is fun for me - in the long run.

This player did not have to have a read on the hand. He was hoping for a fold. There are 6.25 big bets on the river to fight for. He has to force a fold only one in six times to make this marginally profitable. With the only possible play to win being a bluff, he is probably a loser not to make this bet a majority of the time.


Having seen Tommy show raising hands like QJ in the past, he knows there is potential for a weaker pre-flop raise hand. He may also know that Tommy is capable of folding underpairs. This would leave him calling with any ace or 10, KK,QQ,JJ. He would raise with a stronger hand and fold everything else. I don't think he read the hand, I think it was an automatic bet for a decent player.

'This player did not have to have a read on the hand.’


Perhaps I’m mistaken but failing to attempt to read hands is a hallmark of live one.


‘He was hoping for a fold.’


From the worse hand? If you read your opponent to have a worse hand your nuts if you want your opponent to fold on the river.


‘There are 6.25 big bets on the river to fight for.’


Right.


‘He has to force a fold only one in six times to make this marginally profitable.’


The bet isn’t profitable at all if he will fold worse hands and call with better hands. Unless I’m mistaken in order to play for maximum EV on the river you must have know what your opponents calling requirements will be. It’s not always possible to know this but with experience you can get an idea very quickly. In order to determine the correct play based on his calling requirements etc. you must have at least some idea of what your opponent is likely to have.


‘With the only possible play to win being a bluff, he is probably a loser not to make this bet a majority of the time.’


I had to re-read the post with the final board isn’t KJ the best hand?


‘Having seen Tommy show raising hands like QJ in the past, he knows there is potential for a weaker pre-flop raise hand. He may also know that Tommy is capable of folding underpairs.’


So now he is actually going through the process of reading hands. I thought you stated that it had nothing to do with betting on the river.


‘This would leave him calling with any ace or 10, KK,QQ,JJ. He would raise with a stronger hand and fold everything else. I don't think he read the hand, I think it was an automatic bet for a decent player.’


If he put him on one of those hands (he is going through the process of reading hands after all!) he put him on the wrong hand. See what I mean? My experience has been that when people show bluffs they are trying to get inside your head and in order to be showing what you consider to be a bluff you must have read your opponent for a stronger hand that beat yours.

We may be discussing issues that are orthogonal to each other. As far as an automatic bluff being correct I'm not disputing that necessarily although I don't think it hurts your chances in attempting to read your opponent. I'm discussing the act of showing the "bluff." I can think of a few other reasons to show it but the vast majority of times from my experience it means the opponent thought you threw away the best hand. Then again I could have mis read the original post entirely /images/smile.gif.

my favorite thing about this "play" of tommy's is that he

didnt say "that was the best hand!" or "you were betting the best hand!" when the bluffer declared he had KJ. this will either sound like a know-it-all telling the truth and trying to save face, or a know-it-all lying and trying to save face. either way your opponent benefits emotionally and you look weak.


some otherwise good players cant resist the chance to say something like this; ive seen/heard it repeatedly. why give this info out? why give the opponent any potential satisfaction from having taken a shot at you? a person who shows their bluff is usually looking for a nod of recognition from players he perceives as better. why boost another player's confidence (unless, perhaps, he is a complete fish, not the case here)?

just keep your mouth shut and ignore him.


save being nice for when you get home.

Ok someone bluffed. You were in an extremely vulnerable situation. You folded. You lost a medium sized pot. Next hand. That's one thing I like about online poker. The game moves so fast you don't have time to agonize over what-if pots because next thing you know, you are involved in another one.

Tommy,


Last year while playing at Crystal Park Casino I ran a river bluff against a local pro with a Q,T. He called me down with a Q,J and won the pot.


I believe that you cannot call. You can only raise or fold. You did that, so let's move on as you seem to have done.


Vince

If he did think about it, he certainly thought I threw away a better hand than his. After all, there simply aren't many hands I could have that aren't better than K-J with a board of A-10-8-7-x, after I raised a limper preflop. Let's see, there's QJ, and there's, uh, that's it.


I think he just whipped a bet out there to see what would happen. And he's the kinda guy I would call down with any pair in a situation like this one, precisely because he's the kinda guy that would just whip a bet out there to see what happens.


Tommy

You say "agonize" and Vince says "move on." All I can say to that is, huh? I didn't sense any pain, remorse, or regret and didn't mean to imply that I had. I just thought it was an interesting situation and topic.


Tommy

"this will either sound like a know-it-all telling the truth and trying to save face, or a know-it-all lying and trying to save face. either way your opponent benefits emotionally and you look weak."


I agree. So happens that on this hand, as often happens, it doesn't really matter that I actually folded the best hand because if the hands are reversed, the pot still goes to whoever bets the river first (barring any raise-bluffs on the river).


Tommy

We are discussing different topics. I was not even thinking about the 'showing' aspect of the post, just the opponent's strategy.