6 Responses to “TPE Theory: Evaluating Bluffs with Andrew Brokos (Part 5)”

  1. Carlos

    12:30 ATo BvB with 30ish bbs. He opens from the SB and you 3bet call with ATo in the BB.

    I understand your point about how shoving strengthens his continuing range. My question is if it’s not better to shove and make him fold hands in his range that may 4bet all in with a good bit of equity or flat the 3bet with better drawing prospects.

    I’m thinking hands like 22 or KQo maybe. I’m not sure how often he’s 4bet shoving dominated Ax hands relative to higher equity hands like these.

    Also, if he flats with hands that flop better than ours, then I think we will have to call his flop check raises lighter. . For example, say he has 98s, I can see him calling our 3bet then check shoving on flops where he flops a pair or a draw. I think we would be priced in to call with something like an over and a gutshot. With such a low SPR, our positional advantage is not as valuable.

    If a big preflop shove gets him to fold hands like KQo, 22, and 98s that he may otherwise be willing to get it in with as either a preflop 4bet or postflop check shove, then could it be better to go ahead and take down the pot preflop? I think I would be more willing to play this slower if it was suited or better connected.

  2. Foucault

    You can construct some ranges and try it out. My guess is that he really isn’t folding many hands you want him to. Literally the only candidates are like KQ, KJ, QJ, and mayyyyybe the smallest pairs. You mention 98s but ATo is a pretty hefty preflop favorite against that hand. Villain needs 47% equity to put another 8000 into the pot, and 98s would have 38s. JTs and T9s, of course, are in far worse shape, as are KT, QT, A5s, etc.

    There’s no law saying you have to bet the flop if you think a ch/raise will put you in a bad spot. In general you just can’t afford to be so flop-allergic. When the worst case scenario is playing postflop in position with the best hand, life isn’t so bad. Plus a lot of people just won’t flat here because THEY are flop-allergic.

    Finally, doing this with a wider value range makes your light 3bets more credible. And if you never light 3-bet, then he’s getting a hell of a good deal to min-raise you from the SB.

  4. Carlos

    Flop allergic is a great term. It sounds like something I learned from Nate where he says “when the pot is larger, just win the pot.” To me, this says if you’re getting short and you feel like you’re ahead, just take the pot down now instead of milking your hand.

    Going from 30bbs to 35bb with a marginal hand without seeing a flop feels great to me. Even against hands that have only 38% equity, especially when those hands will win on more than there share of flops due to the draws they will make. Sure I beat them 62% of the times when we get to the river, but that won’t happen often unless I make some light A high plus gutshot hero calls.

    “No law that says you have to bet the flop”. See this is what’s confusing me. I felt this way after playing with Snowie which doesn’t bet the flop as much as most players, but then I read Ed’s book which says you should bet it 70% of the time. Then the voices in my own head say don’t bloat the pot from a 30bb stack if most times you’re not gonna fight for it later. In that case, just make the profitable preflop shove.

    Maybe, I am undervaluing the 30bb stack. I certainly play 40bb the same as you did here and I think that you would shove 20bb preflop like I am advocating. Maybe 30 is much closer to 40 than it is to 20, strategically speaking.

  5. Foucault

    Fuck Nate. The difference in EV between getting it in preflop against 98s vs making him fold 98s is about 2BB. Adding that to your stack, on average, is pretty nice.

    J/K about Nate. When he says that just winning the pot is nice, he means that there’s a lot of EV there and it’s hard to do better by seeing a flop against hands you aren’t crushing. He’s not talking about passing up spots where you are a big favorite on a big preflop bet.

    “those hands will win on more than there share of flops due to the draws they will make. Sure I beat them 62% of the times when we get to the river, but that won’t happen often unless I make some light A high plus gutshot hero calls.”

    There’s no reason this has to be true. You are in position, so you really should be able to realize your equity postflop. It might take some practice, but I don’t think you should just assume that if you see a flop you are instantly going to get outplayed.

    If you think checking the flop is going to cause your opponent to bluff future streets, then check strong hands. If you don’t expect this, then don’t be so worried about checking back when you have Ace-high. But it can’t be both, it can’t be that you both have no implied odds when you connect with the flop and also get bluffed out every time you miss.

    If you 3-bet AT and he calls in this spot, you will still have the best hand on the majority of flops. If you make some intelligent decisions about which are the best flops to give up on without even betting, that’s a good start. Then you just have to make some guesses about what your opponent will do with all those hands worse than yours. Is he going to check-raise them? Then bet-call. Is he going to check and be passive with them? Then just try to check it down. Is he going to barrel if you check back the flop? Then check back and call down on most runouts.

    You’re not going to guess right every time, and you’re not going to be great at it initially. But giving yourself a chance is the only way you’re going to get better, and I think you’ll also see that it’s not as difficult as it seems. Most of your opponents aren’t going to play well post-flop either, so it’s not like you’ll be at some huge disadvantage.

    All of this assumes he calls pre-flop in the first place, which I don’t expect to happen too often.

  6. Mir_Ivy

    Hi Andrew,

    thanks you for the video, just on the Q8 hand on 107JK board. if the river is a whiff and a total air, you decide to bluff, how would you go about bet sizing?? would you make it look like a value bet or its situational?? 35%-45% of the pot or pot size. i would be interested as I believe in 6 max winning pots that you have no rights to win is crucial and a massive edge at later stages as long as you got the bet sizing right. your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

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