Good questions from Andrew. I like bluffing after the flop checks through, but here you’ll probably run into a lot of pot controlled Aces as well as some Kings. Not saying that you shouldn’t be bluffing, but I’ll give you a hint toward question number 2: do we have cards that block villain’s stronger hands?

I don’t think you should rush to answer those questions with one-liners. They are actually much deeper than that, and I worry that you’re missing the point.

1) It’s easy to figure out that your 1/2 pot bet is profitable if it wins the pot 33% of the time. It may work often enough, and it’s a great price to give yourself if villain’s calling range is relatively inelastic. On a board this static, an argument could be made for betting smaller. People either have a part of this board (and aren’t folding) or they don’t (and are folding). One card gutshots may call a small enough bet and flush draws may fold to a large enough one, but most other hands will play the same regardless of bet size.

You generally don’t need to worry about being balanced in most tournaments, but it’s worth thinking about whether you ever want to bet 1/2 pot with a Jack or a straight. If the answer seems like no, it might seem like no to an astute villain as well. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t bet this size with your strong hands, but it’s worth thinking about.

One of the many things you want to consider when choosing bet sizes is what hands will call X bet size but not Y size. If you can roughly estimate where that threshold lies, you can go a bit below it when hunting value and a bit above it when bluffing. Before betting, you may want to ask yourself:

– what hands are never folding/never calling?

– what hands are calling small bets but may fold to larger bets? (ie. how much of villain’s range is elastic).

– what is the smallest bet that makes it hard to call with X hand? 

– what is the largest bet I can make to get paid by Y hand?

You don’t want to only consider those things, because different bet sizes will influence the villain’s perception of our range, and larger bets will sometimes get called by someone who was folding to a smaller bet. Your bet size can also influence how often you get raised. There’s a lot of other factors too, but those questions have helped me a lot over the years.

It’s also worth noting that, in theory, you can bluff more often as your bet size gets larger. The goal of a balanced betting strategy is to make the villain indifferent to calling. As their odds for calling get worse, villains can fold more often without being exploited. Again, not that relevant against the player pools in almost any online tournament.

2) I’m not going to go into much detail on this one, but this kind of spot comes up frequently. Late position player raises, both blinds call. Pretend you are in this exact situation (board texture, flop action, stack depths) 1000 times, but only your hand changes. If you were going to pick half of those hands to bet with and half of them to check, which half would 66belong in? What hands would always want to bet? What hands would you never bet? It’s really important to consider blockers for the hands you are choosing to bluff with.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking advantage of an opportunity regardless of your hand. If you know these opponents are playing fit or fold poker, you want to bluff very frequently after they show weakness. I don’t think Andrew was necessarily saying that you did anything wrong, he was offering questions you can ask yourself to develop a deeper understanding of the situation, and poker in general.

For my first ten years playing poker, my middle name may as well have been ‘impulsive.’ Even when I turned pro, I still had a lot of “maybe I can get away with this here” and “I won’t let these fools run me over” type thoughts. Not that there isn’t a place for getting creative, and we do need to adjust if villains are overly aggressive, but I’ve finally mastered myself well enough (most days) to stick with my baseline strategy until I have a good reason to deviate. I’ll always be a little impulsive though, it’s part of what makes me love my job.