I like your flop and turn line/reasoning. What makes you think this is the best possible bluff-catcher on the river?

jedimindpicks said:

Foucault said:

I like your flop and turn line/reasoning. What makes you think this is the best possible bluff-catcher on the river?

Hmmm, maybe its not. It does complete a fair amount of draws and an obvious scare card. I think to a random likely rek player when checked to is an obvious spot to bluff. Almost to obvious iom.Maybe combined with the way villain played his hand in sort of a passive way I think I'm getting bluffed here alot. I think vs some regs and better players If I lead river I'm getting raised a fair amount also but maybe not when I'm this shallow unless I'm betting really on the smaller size.

Lol I don't think I answered the question, always with the good questions Andrew.

Agreed that you didn't answer the question 🙂

The problem is that you aren't saying anything about your actual hand. You are saying “maybe this is a good spot for V to bluff, maybe it isn't”, which implies that you should call with some but not all of your bluffcatchers. This maximizes your EV against an unknown strategy. So the question is whether this hand belongs in the calling bucket or the folding bucket.

Assuming there are a bunch of hands like this one that beat all bluffs but lose to all value hands, what would make some of them better for calling than others? If you aren't sure, the answer is in my Range Construction series.

Kalculater said:

Foucault said:

So the question is whether this hand belongs in the calling bucket or the folding bucket.

 

I would think that this is one of the best hands in heros range that takes this check/bet/check line. I assume he is not checking A8, 67, 56, 47 and other pair/straight combo hands. Andrew, do you think there would be merit to checking hands such as 67, 56 here? or with the flush draw on board would you be pertinent to cbet and shove these over a villains raise on the flop? 

 

Foucault said:

Assuming there are a bunch of hands like this one that beat all bluffs but lose to all value hands, what would make some of them better for calling than others? If you aren't sure, the answer is in my Range Construction series.

I am gonna have a stab at this. Is the answer hands with blockers to villains value range? paired Axd, 2pairs with cards that villain might usually has a 5 with (i.e. 56 – so a 6 in our hand)?

 

I have been following your series, albeit mainly for entertainment for winding down from Masters study and have been really enjoying it so far. I will be returning with in-depth thinking and analysis after my current assessments are finished.

Yep! Although you're right that AT might one of the stronger hands in absolute terms, that's not really relevant if Villain never value bets worse. It's far more important to block some of his value hands and not block his bluffs. I'd expect V to be very polarized with that river shove, so holding a diamond is probably a prerequisite for bluff-catching.