How to respond to a probable bluff raise on flop

[gomberg]

PP 5-10 NL. Table is playing aggro. I have $700.

Villain has me covered and has been calling raises w/ position and using it nicely.

I open raise to $35 from MP w/ JJ, villain calls in late, one of the blinds call.

Flop: TT4. checked to me, I bet out $100, villain raises to $250, blind folds, actions to me...

My read is that he's bluffing. He'll call the raise preflop w/ any two there. He's been bluff raising flops (unless he was rushing or something) for the past 1/2 hour or so. I thought about calling or pushing.... Thoughts? Is this an obvious push?

[gomberg]

Also, if you think you should push, how does your answer change if you have AA,KK, or QQ?

[Yeti]

Think of all the hands he will call your push with. Then think, of those hands, which you are ahead of.

Hint : it's pretty much 0.

[gomberg]

That's a good point, but aren't you missing some stuff here? You're out of position, in a decent size pot. You have no idea what he has, and you don't want to get the pot taken from you on a future street. What's your plan for the rest of the hand if you call? Remember, the read here is that you have the best hand most of the time... He doesn't have to bet again on the turn either.

In other words - you havn't convinced me of anything yet.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Push if you believe you are ahead. If you just call you are setting yourself up for a very difficult decision on the turn.

If you can read minds and know this person is behind and will fire again on the turn without improvement you can disregard the previous.

[jrforman]

I agree with Yeti...If you think your ahead then there is no reason to push. Let him draw to his 4-6 outs and when he misses,lead the turn and get yourself committed to the hand. If you push here, the only hand thats calling you is the winning hand and your drawing to slim pickings.

Jason

[gomberg]

I think he'll fold on the turn too if I have him beat and do a stop and go but call / raise with a hand that beats mine. The question is what is the chance he'll bluff again if I check on the turn. If it isn't great, then I can't see how a call / check line can be correct on the flop as I'd be giving him two cards to beat me most of the time in a decent size pot.

[radioheadfan]

This is a very interesting situation, and really these types of situations seperate the men from the boys in NLHE.

You mention in your post that villian has been playing pretty aggressively and that he's been using his position to his advantage.

In the given hand, you are the preflop raiser and bet out on a TT4 flop. In his mind, it is very unlikely that you have a T here so his thinks that a raise is a +EV play givenyour range of hands. So far, this is all very obvious.

However, you also mention that he's been making these types of plays several times in the past 1/2 hour. If he believes that you're onto his strategy, then he's chosen the perfect time to make this play on you if he does indeed have the T. But let's assume that we're still thinking on the first level and that he doesn't have you beat.

So the question becomes, how do you play your hand so as to maximize your profit when you are ahead? To answer this we need to put him on a range of hands so that we can come up with an expected value for his number of outs. You say he could have any two cards, but we need to quantify this a little bit more. I think a safe assumption is that he has at least one overcard to your jacks. In some cases, he will have less, and in some cases he'll have KQ, AQ, or AK. For simplicity, let's assume he has an average of 4.5 outs twice against you (we assume he has 2 overs 50% and 1 over 50% of the time - all of this can be adjusted but let's work a simple case first).

Another thing we need to consider is that we have no idea what overcards he holds so when a Q falls on the turn we don't know if we're holding the best hand anymore.

We also need to consider what percentage of the time this player will bet out again on the turn when he doesn't improve his hand.

Another reasonable assumption we'll make is that when you push the turn he'll fold every single time. So pushing wins the 70 + 100 + 250 = $420 pot every time.

Is there a different play that gets us an EV better than $420 after his flop raise? Assuming he does push the turn every time, calling the turn and then calling his turn push is clearly the superior play. He'll beat your hand approximately 10% of the time, but the extra $400 or so you could win from him compensates you for the time he'll end up sucking out.

In the case that you don't bet the turn and he doesn't either (because he didn't improve), he has another 10% shot to beat your hand. In this case betting the river serves no point because he will simply fold worse hands. So you check again, and now he is very likely to bet unimproved since he will figure he can't win unless he bets.

All of this gets confounded by his perception of your hand after you smooth call his turn raise. It is very likely that most reasonable players will shut down and not bet unless they think they can beat your hand, since you have shown no willingness to lay your hand down. Only the ballsiest of players will fire again on the turn with nothing in attempt to pick up the pot. So I think we have to assume that the most likely scenario is that you will only extract more money from him when his hand improves to one that can beat yours. There is some chance that you will get zero more action from him since he may believe you have the T (after you call his flop raise). There is also a chance that he WILL bluff off more money but this seems the least likely.

All of this is suggesting that pushing the flop is the best play since you will only get more action from him if his hand improves - so I don't agree with given him free cards here. Pushing has the added benefit of getting hands like 77-99 to go along for the ride since they may think you are re-bluffing overcards.

All of this analysis has been very casual, but I think unless you are playing a very aggressive opponent (who will bluff on MULTIPLE streets), pushing is the right play. Of course it sucks when you get shown a ten, but I think the priority is to take down the pot when you are ahead. Being out of position with 10.5 (remember we assume he holds 1.5 overs) possible overcards falling on either the turn or river is a very bad place to be against competent opposition (since they will hit the turn or river over 35% of the time).

Given these stacks, I think the best play is to push but I'd love to hear a solid argument as to why pushing ISN'T the best play. Obviously, increasing hero's stack by about $500 definitely changes this conclusion, but someone give me a good argument as to why pushing isn't the best play with these stacks.

[fsuplayer]

pretty sure this is what doyle had it mind when he talked about putting a man to a decision for all his chips, without betting all of your own.

he risked 250, but you are risking your stack, bc if you push, you only get called when you are beat and he can fold everything else.

if you think you are ahead and he will bet again, than call, but most likely its either raise or fold.

these spots are tough against these type of opponents, bc you really dont have any idea what he has.

if you are split on the decision, if one of your jacks is a spade or heart, then push, if not fold.

[gomberg]

thanks for the analysis - that is something I was looking for when posting this. I was really not confident that he would bet again with a worse hand if I called the flop, so I pushed and he folded. His play was really good, as he risked $250 and I had to risk my stack, as fsu alluded to.

Fortunately, I had the perfect amount of money on the table to make this decision not too tough for me... but it made me think about QQ, KK, and AA in the same spot, as well if I had 1k instead of 700, which I usually will in this spot.

What are some good lines here for deeper money? I think I resort to a stop and go most of the time, or a reraise that won't pot commit me - but this is a tough situation against a LAGgy player out of position.