As you know, I was the Villain from What’s Your Play? Busted Draw. As many of you deduced, I held KK with a spade. My opponent was kind enough to give up on the river and let me win the pot with a hand that, barring some really blatant physical tell on his part, I would have folded to even a modest river bet.
Steve Phillips left a comment that sums up the reasons for bluffing with KJ quite nicely and also sets up a few of the other things I wanted to talk about, so I’m going to post it here even though it’s somewhat long:
I think it’s a good spot to bluff-shove for several reasons:
a) Hero’s line is consistent with trips+
b) Hero’s stack size is perfect for it
c) Villain’s range is limited somewhat due to the turn action
d) If Villain holds a strong hand AA/KK and even AQ, it’s a difficult call
e) Hero holds one of the worst hands in his range
f) Given the read (older dude, probably solid/straightforward?), Villain doesn’t expect Hero to be turning JsJc/AdTd type hands into bluffs. Therefore Hero’s perceived range on a river shove is trips+ or wiffed draws, and there aren’t many wiffed draws
g) Villain might get to the river with hands that have no value (AdKs, AhKs, AsKd, AsKc, AcKs, AsJd, AsJh, AsJc) that all beat Hero if he checks but will fold if Hero bets
You might argue with my first point because Hero might have raised the flop with his strongest made hands (QQ/QT/TT/66) and his strongest draws (AsJs/8s7s/KsJs, etc.), but in general when Hero bets or shoves river he will have a strong hand a lot of the time.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on betting half-pot (or some other amount) instead of moving all-in.
The essence of a good bluffing situation is one where your opponent’s range is cappedor nearly capped, you can credibly represent many hands that beat all or most of your opponent’s range, and there aren’t a lot of hands in your perceived range that would need to bluff the river. All these factors are present in this hand, though I do think that betting less than all-in on the river will help with the bit about representing many value hands. Particularly given Hero’s identity as a recreational player, shoving would have the undesirable effect of removing hands like AQ and maybe even low flushes from his perceived value range, i.e. the hands I’d expect him to shove for value. I would fold disproportionately more to a smaller bet relative to the odds it was laying me, making it overall a more profitable option for Hero than shoving. As cbeak says, with a smaller bet “we rep a wider value range (Qx and flushes) a bit more credibly compared to a bigger bet”.
Ian makes an interesting point that, “the turn bet should be a bit bigger to set up an easier river ship”. This isn’t always desirable with a draw, since setting up a river shove also means setting up your opponent to check-raise all-in on the turn and blow you off of your draw, but in this case I agree. The key factor is that Hero’s draw isn’t actually all that great, particularly not relative to Villain’s check-shoving range, which probably contains both made flushes and nut flush draws, both of which crush Kx Js. So bet-folding isn’t a disaster, and building a bigger pot for what will be a profitable river spot is otherwise desirable.
A few commenters were very confident in their ability to exploit me. JeanNoel says that, “Villain is Andrew, so I am sure he can call here with AA, so I will give up and check the river” and JD is sure that, “Villain would have folded the turn if he was going to fold”.
I hope I’m not that easy to play against. For one thing, the river isn’t quite a blank. It’s significant that my KK now loses to AQ. Even if the river card changed nothing in terms of hands I could beat, though, the fact that Hero bets again is significant information that should alter my calling range from what it was on the turn. In other words, my range for putting 12K into the pot (just the turn bet) ought to be different than my range for putting something like 40K (turn and river bets) into the pot. If it’s not, I’m easily exploited, as these comments suggest, by never following up a turn bluff with a river barrel.
Dsho does a nice job of discussing balance and how to construct a river betting range. The only addition/correction I’d make is that when choosing hands with which to bluff the river, the key consideration is not “relative equity” that you had on the turn but rather how much showdown value your hand has and whether you have blockers to your opponent’s calling range. In this case, KJ is at the very bottom of what is generally a strong range, so it’s a natural choice for bluffing. Turning JJ into a bluff to get me off KK/AA wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, but it probably has slightly more showdown value than KJ (though not a lot, really), meaning that Villain should put all his KJ combos into his bluffing range first.
According to Giorgios, “AA, KK, and maybe JJ … are perfect bluff catchers”. I would actually argue that, because KJ is the hand Hero is most likely to bluff, KK and JJ are very poor bluff catchers. If I hold two Ks or two Js in my hand, that significantly reduces the number of bluffing combos in Hero’s range.
So in conclusion, I think that Hero in this hand definitely should have bet the river, and that something like 28K, or slightly over half-pot/half of my stack, would be a better size than all-in. For what it’s worth, I also agree with JeanNoel that “pre flop it is a fold, because utg raises and a good player flat calls, so it will be very difficult to play this hand (even when in position) with a lot of reverse implied odds”.
Thanks to everyone who participated. WYP will be back next week with another hand between the same two players, only this time you’ll be in my shoes, so be sure to check back on Monday!
Very enlightening analysis. One question – if the stack sizes were different and villain had hero significantly covered (say such that calling and losing villain is still table leader in chips), would that change your likelihood to call a pot size river shove in this spot? What about with AsA?
I don’t think so. It’s not like I think a call would be marginally +EV here but I’m afraid to make it because of survival considerations. I just don’t think Hero shows up with a bluff all that often, and that’s all AsA beats.
Not to get too focused on the preflop action, but I’m actually a bit surprised that Villain called with KJ here. I would have at least discounted that from his range (where I guess “his” refers to ~50% of people who fit Andrew’s description of Hero). Also, I haven’t read the previous comment thread closely, but people might be underestimating Hero’s propensity to raise the flop with 66 and TT. So I think Hero is repping somewhat fewer bluffs and somewhat fewer value hands than others have concluded. But I’d say this is still a very poor no-bluff / very good bluffing spot.
Question : Let’s say villain had AQ here. Isn’t AQ still a bluff catcher? Should villain still check? Does he still fold to a bluff ?
I’d argue not quite, because I (Villain) would expect Hero to value bet hands like KQ or QJ. As to whether I would check AQ, I think I probably would, because I don’t expect Hero to have JJ/KK/AA, and those are about the only hands that would call a bet but not value bet themselves. Thus, there’s more value in inducing bluffs even if KJ is his only bluffing hand. Good question!
Wow wow, I am not very confident in my ability to exploit you, I am confident in YOUR ability to exploit a recreational player, and I think that a world class player like you can find an hero call if I shove with a bluff.
Question : How do you play trips in this situation ?
OK I was being a little facetious in my wording 😉 But really by checking back KJ on the river you are trying to exploit me. You are saying that you believe you can identify a leak in my game (calling too often with a bluff-catcher on the river) and that you will exploit that by never bluffing.
The best way to avoid being exploited is to play in a balanced way. If you bluff roughly in proportion to your value bets, then I can’t exploit you. If I call with AA, I lose money to your value bets, and if I fold, I lose money to your bluffs. If you never bluff, that’s very exploitable, as it enables me to fold all of my bluff-catchers on the river and reduces the amount you win with your value bets. Note that that’s exactly what I was planning to do here, so your strategy of never bluffing would be playing right into my hands!
thanks for the deep analysis, I do have some questions surrounding your play on the turn, what is your plan by checking? isn’t KsKx one of the strongest hands in your range to barrel this spot to balance betting your made flushes/sets and stuff? u can correctly bet-fold KsKx on the turn and betting will never fold better but could value and the hand would not be hard to play on the river if called. if you play KsKx this way, then what would be your plan if you have TT here? what about AsQx?
sorry if my questions are fishy, i am not a good player.
Plan was to do exactly what I did: check-call turn, check-fold river unimproved (well what I would have done, had my opponent given me the chance).
You’re right that if I bet the turn, I’d have to fold to a raise – that’s why I don’t want to bet! If I had Kd Kh, ie no draw, I’d be much more likely to bet, because then I could expect near-0 equity when raised, and folding wouldn’t cost me anything. Folding away the second nut flush draw is expensive, though, so I’d rather avoid putting myself in that spot.
I also think checking is the better way to get value from worse. I can’t value bet my hand on both the turn and river, even a blank river, so when my opponent has worse I’m only getting one more street from him. I think if he checks turn there’s a very good chance he calls a blank river with anything good enough to call flop, whereas he’d fold many of those hands to a turn bet.