Overbet Bluff

12 thoughts on “Overbet Bluff”

1. Is the point of shoving instead of betting pot or even like 45$ so he doesn’t have room to re-bluff you or do you shove because he calls a pot bet often enough to make it far more profitable to shove?(since he will probably only call a shove with a slow played monster which is like never but still let’s say 2% of the time)

   • I ponder about the same Eric.I do not worry about monster like you.
     I worry about TPNK.River allin with shallow effective stacks and missed draws is very polarized move.
     My immediate emotional response is “how he dares to bluff me?”.Is he so stupid?-lol.Or he tries to trap me to call(make me stupid)?.
     Would his likely emotions sway him to bluff(short stack,lost pots,flow,etc)?
     What was his objective behind allin – emotion or logic or maybe both?

     • You’re right that he’s going to perceive my range as polarized. He may or may not realize that I perceive his range as never containing nutted hands and rarely containing air (I expect him to bet the turn if he has no showdown value). Let’s first suppose that I have no idea how he will play a hand like TPNK if I bet the river. The optimal play is for me to shove all of my value hands and enough bluffs to make him indifferent between calling and folding with a bluff-catcher. Note that this is more +EV than adopting the same strategy with a smaller bet size (ie potting all of my value hands and a smaller number of bluffs in keeping with the pot odds I’m laying).

       If anything, I think he will err on the side of folding. This is in part because people don’t like to make Hero calls, especially with what could be case money (he started with less than a full stack) and in part because most people’s overbetting ranges are heavily skewed towards value hands.

       • Hm Andrew,Eric.
         I assume I understand your reasons.
         I personally will stay away from optimal play and mathematical equations.
         This is good technique when you play mid and higher stakes.
         I will go with exploitative play.
         This is big spot and low stake.
         In big spots and low stakes people are honest and their range is polarized to their action.
         A inspection of my own image and my opponent profile will give me more satisfying answers.
         Example:
         If you are playing against calling sta or nonbeliever you do not make shove -null!!!!.
         The shove only likely induce their call.It is much better idea to make smaller bet or give up.

         Most people’s overbetting ranges are heavily skewed towards value hands.I agree.I will not try to be hero.
         I believe at lower stakes I can identify people with somewhat opposite tendency.
         People who believe that their shove will max reduce chances that their bluff will be caught.
         Their river shove is desperation act and the loudest and honest scream:”Do not call me”

         • I agree that you are generally better off pursuing exploitive play when dealing with weaker opponents. In this case, I think that if anything most people will default to folding exploitively often, which means I should always bluff air here and make smaller value bets. That’s a weak read, but I think that shoving a large % of air is also GTO. Basically I’d need a solid read that a guy is as you say a calling station or disbeliever before I’d do anything other than shove air here.

   • The latter. Against better players, rebluffing could be a factor, but I don’t expect a play like that from a random.

2. So if I understand right.
   100 to win (130more)230….
   About 5 to win 7(12 Total)
   So like 60% of the time you have to have air (bluffing) for him to make money by calling.
   So realistically he needs to think you are bluffing like 75% of the time(because I think in this spot people tend to be a little cautious) for him to make the call assuming he has top pair/ no kicker which he obviously only has some of the time. So basically this play is good like 90% or 95% of the time( just a rough guess).
   I get a little confused when thinking about hands like 88,99,77, j10, kj but I guess even if you include those hands it doesn’t change the numbers a whole lot.

   I guess basically the idea is villain knows you can be bluffing here a bunch(which is why I tend to not make this play-an error I see now) but he has to think you are bluffing REALLY often (maybe ¾ of the time or more, plus he needs a hand with some show down value, like at least ace high, probably at least top pair) to make the call. Plus the over-bet shove means he can’t re-bluff you which is just an added bonus.

   • Yeah, it seems counter-intuitive, but what your math demonstrates is that you should actually have more bluffs in your range the bigger you bet. This is because the pot odds you are offering your opponent are less attractive, and he therefore cannot call as often.

     • “Yeah, it seems counter-intuitive, but what your math demonstrates is that you should actually have more bluffs in your range the bigger you bet. This is because the pot odds you are offering your opponent are less attractive, and he therefore cannot call as often.”

       Another of your gems; a book condensed into two sentences even a goober like me can understand.

       By the way, how’s the real book coming?

3. The thing that confuses me here is that, as you say, he’s got an “ok” hand here a huge amount of the time and you know that. So unless he is a complete CS you know he is very unlikely to call, so you don’t want to (and thus. mostly won’t) play your good hands this way … so he needs to call _way_ more often.

   Of course at the real small stakes, if I think that and call I probably see Q2 like 90% of the time 🙂

   • Are you saying that you think he is or is not very likely to call a shove with TPNK?

     • Basically like me I think he thinks that live ½ players and micro players will call here with top pair/weak kicker like 100% of the time because to them your play looks like a bluff(or maybe they just can’t fold top pair). To me people just don’t seem to overbet shove for value in live ½ unless it is a “big pot” and they have the “nuts”.

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