To Catch a Bluff

My latest poker strategy article, Bluff Catching, is now appearing in the June issue of the 2+2 Internet Magazine. Here’s the hypothetical that kicks off the discussion:

I had a nightmare last night that I was playing high-stakes heads up no-limit hold ’em with Phil Ivey himself. I knew he had picked up a tell on me that revealed the approximate strength of my hand as strong, marginal, or weak, but I didn’t know what it was or how to stop doing it.

The river had just completed a possible flush, and the final board read 5 spade 8 diamond T spade Q heart 2 spade. I was holding A spade T heart and checked. Phil gave me that look, like he’d just spotted my tell, and then announced, “All in.” The dealer counted the bet down: $14,000 even, into a pot of just $6,000. Somehow, I managed to have the Great One covered. But could I call this bet?

Hope you like it- please let me know what you think!

8 thoughts on “To Catch a Bluff”

  1. Andrew –
    I really enjoyed this article. One small point at the end – you say that if you mix it up to have some nut flushes in your range, this will make value betting and bluffing less profitable for Ivey. If Ivey is bluffing using equilibrium strategy in both cases, I don’t think this is true…in both cases, he would be making an expected profit of zero from bluffing (this must be the case, since you set your calling frequency such that he is indifferent between bluffing and checking down, and checking down has an expected profit of zero). He makes less when value betting though, since sometimes he value-owns himself, and this in turn may mean that he can value bet a smaller range, which improves your profit every time he checks down a hand that you might have bluff caught against and been wrong.

    • Wow, I was terrified you were going to tear my math to shreds. Such mild criticism is a profound relief!

      You’re quite correct, of course. What I meant to say is that slowplaying makes his bluffs less profitable unless one or the other of you is already playing an equilibrium bluffing/bluff-catching strategy.

      Thanks!

    • Not for three months, I’m afraid. 2+2 gets exclusive rights to it during that time, and then I’m allowed to put it up on my site.

  4. Actually I should add a caveat – it’s possible that you slowplaying moves him from a point where his range is so much stronger than yours that he can bluff 100% of his air hands and still you can never call, which means that he never checks and makes strictly positive profits on bluffs, to a point where he has to check down air sometimes, and moves him to making 0 in expectation on bluffs. The first case can be important though and you didn’t mention it in the article – if Ivey has, say 90% value hands and only 10% air by the river there, then you can’t call any pot-sized bet no matter what – he’s always betting value hands, so even if he’s bluffing all of his air hands, you still shouldn’t be calling with any frequency to defend against bluffs – your calls still have -EV, and you’d be better off folding.

    • Fair point, and you’re right- probably something I should have addressed in the article. Thanks!

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