merits and faults of the blocking bet

[xorbie]

Personally, I think a lot of people misuse the term blocking bet. The blocking bet should be a value bet, just a value bet when you're facing a wide range of hands, some of which have you beat but many of which don't. It's not a bet you put out there just because you don't want to call. There are obviously a ton of circumstances in which check/calling against an agressive player is by far the best line. In these situations.

Against a very LAG player, I don't see the problem with 2/3 or 1/2 potting a river on a very scary board with the nuts. If they have a very strong hand, they will raise anyway, if they don't then oh well, you lose out on like 1/3 of the pot maybe (but you do gain those few times he's willing to call less). If they have nothing, they might be tempted to raise.

Against a looser, more passive player, the blocking bet is an excellent tool. Think about it this way. You have top two on a flush board. You beat a good amount of his holdings (TP, lesser two pairs), but lose to a flush/set. However, he's too passive to raise you with a worse hand, too passive to bluff a lesser hand but will definitely call you down with a ton of hands you beat. If you check/call this type of player, you end up putting money in only when you're losing. Sure you end up not seeing a showdown if he does raise you, but he may as well turn over his cards, cuz he's got you beat. Bet 2/3 pot, and you'll end up winning this when ahead and losing it when behind, so all that really matters is that you're ahead of his range.

It's really all about judging what hands a villain is going to check behind with (that you beat, maybe some that beat you as well), and what hands villain will bet (only the ones that beat you? maybe bluff? value bet some lesser hands?). If you're ahead of betting range but not his calling range, check. If you're ahead of his calling range but not his betting range, bet.

Obviously that's absurdly simplistic, and the tough part is using your image, your read, board texture and so forth to actually figure out these ranges. And that's what I suck at [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Rococo]

[ QUOTE ]
Personally, I think a lot of people misuse the term blocking bet. The blocking bet should be a value bet, just a value bet when you're facing a wide range of hands, some of which have you beat but many of which don't. It's not a bet you put out there just because you don't want to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not entirely accurate. If I believe my hand is good 30% of the time, and if I believe that my opponent will push with an overbet very frequently if I check the river to him, then a blocking bet of 20% of the pot is +EV if you know that the Villain will call rather than raise.

This is an extreme example that doesn't come up very often, but it certainly is not a value bet.

[AZK]

What do you think is the idle stack size where having to use blocking bets on the river becomes very important?

[n1bd]

You hit the needle on the head. The defining characteristic of a blocking bet is that your opponent, if checked to, will bet a larger amount than you like (esp. when you are behind), so you throw out a blocking bet to control the size of the river action and stop his bluffs. You would be tempted to call if you checked and he bet, but the bet size might be too much. Plus your blocking bet extracts value from hands that might check behind, just like with a normal value bet would.

Several posts in this thread have talked about situations where a passive opponent will bet when he is ahead and check behind when he is losing and will only raise with the nutz, so we throw out a bet that will get called by worse hands. This is not a blocking bet. This is a value bet. Notice that against most passive opponents, if we check and he makes a big bet, we aren't very tempted to call.

But this is all just terminology wankery anyway.

[xorbie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Personally, I think a lot of people misuse the term blocking bet. The blocking bet should be a value bet, just a value bet when you're facing a wide range of hands, some of which have you beat but many of which don't. It's not a bet you put out there just because you don't want to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not entirely accurate. If I believe my hand is good 30% of the time, and if I believe that my opponent will push with an overbet very frequently if I check the river to him, then a blocking bet of 20% of the pot is +EV if you know that the Villain will call rather than raise.

This is an extreme example that doesn't come up very often, but it certainly is not a value bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just totally absurd. If I was planning on pushing for an overbet on the river, a 20% potsize bet certainly isn't going to stop me, especially when I only see you make these bets on ugly boards. You just end up losing that bet, and not seeing a showdown anyway.