Bluffing with 88

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Posted by posted in Low Stakes

Bluffing with 88

Blinds: $0.02/$0.05 (6 Players) BN: $6.38
SB: $5.31 (Hero)
BB: $5.44
UTG: $4.80
MP: $5.21
CO: $15.59
Preflop ($0.07) Hero is SB with 8 8
UTG folds, MP raises to $0.15, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.45, BB folds, MP calls $0.30
Flop ($0.95) J 5 9
Hero checks, MP bets $0.45, Hero calls $0.45
Turn ($1.85) J 5 9 K
Hero bets $1.15, MP calls $1.15
River ($4.15) J 5 9 K K
Hero bets $3.26 and is all in, MP calls $3.16 and is all in

Can you please analyze and rate my bluff ?

10 Comments

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Kalupso 7 years, 9 months ago

3bet larger preflop because you're OOP. I'd go to 60c minimum.

If you bet a flop like this 100% of the time you ahould use a smaller size like 33% pot.

On the turn you have a lot of weak draws like any hand with a T or a Q that plays better as a bluff, so there is no need to use a hand like 88 that only has 2 outs to improve as a bluff. You'll rarely be able to win the pot with 88, but it's in the bottom 25% of your range and it's completely fine to XF the bottom part of your range.

Kalupso 7 years, 9 months ago

Misread the hand. Didn't even see the turn donk as a possible play TBH. Flop should be somewhat close between too connected to cbet 100% or not, but I think the EV difference between 100% cet and a stronger strategy in practice is smaller than solvers will indicate.

KaptajnKold 7 years, 9 months ago

Preflop: Call. Don't turn a decent hand into a bluff by raising.

Flop: Bet. You are representing an overpair to the flop, and with a hand like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, or AJ you should bet to deny your opponent equity in case she has flush draw or a straight draw, and to get value if she has top pair or second pair. As played, fold. You are out of position, there are 2 overcards to your pair, and you have basically no equity.

Turn: Hard to say, because of how you played the hand so far. I'm guessing the idea is to represent the K, but what kings can you really have here? AK and KQ should have bet the flop.

River: The river is very bad for you. The flush completes, and the second K makes it less likely that you have a K. Fold!

Dddogkillah 7 years, 9 months ago

I dont think you have much fold equity, id expect allot of TP+, OSED, GS, and some BDFD's being bet on the flop. OTT most his one pair hands have a GS to boot. Doutful you get folds from FD's with the C/C donk line. I dont like it honestly, c/cing flop is close.

I also like sizing up preflop, and betting small on the flop to make life easy.

johnny118 7 years, 9 months ago

small and medium pocket pairs play so bad oop that 3 betting them as bluff preflop cant be that bad vs CO and BTN because their ranges are wide, if they like to fold to 3bet that is. if not, it gets even worse playing these hands oop in a bloated pot so dont 3 bet.

Once called though, i almost never turn these hands into a bluff because they almost never have draws and blockers and they will have SDV quite often. And that is exactly what i think about your hand: bad spot to bluff all around.

on a side note, when villain is opening from UTG or MP, i prefer to flat and try to flop a set because the initial raiser has a tighter range, thus we have less chance to be squeezed light by the BB and have proper implied odds.

Kalupso 7 years, 9 months ago

If you think about 88's properties preflop in isolation it's easy to think it's significantly better as call than a 3bet. However when you start to think about how to play your range overall in SB facing a 3bb open in a game with 4%+ effective rake things starts to look very different. My guess is that SB should have a winrate around -38bb/100 against a MP open and incorporating a calling range against an MP 3bb open will maybe increase it to -37.5bb/100 at best if you execute exceptionally well, so the upside of having a calling range is really low and there are possible downsides in addition to having to work on another spot and play a more complex preflop strategy.

This was an unnecessarily long way of saying that the EV differences between having a SB calling range and not is negligle in games with rake when the execution is flawless. You can't really call 22-55 and QTs against a MP 3bb open in SB either, so your're not folding many +EV calls by not having a calling range (maybe only a few hands like AQo and 77 that should be around 0EV calls). I think most people that have a flatting range at micros either put too many hands that are better as 3bets into the calling range or call too many hands that are too weak to call.

Greed 7 years, 9 months ago

I'd agree with suggestion to mostly (if not always) just call the 88 and set mine or play a small pot. Like 88 is pretty unplayable post-flop and I think, if enemy has started betting he's often ahead and in general, you should not try getting him out of the pot via bluffing.

If you want to 3bet and have information that the player in question might fold, OOP use something bigger, IP nobody folds anything, in general to 3x only. I would not use full 60, but something like full 55 I think has considerably more fold equity than 45, at least in FR (I mostly play FR so take what I write with a grain of salt) and you can also bet yourself on the flop to make it easy for you (enemy wold stick around with AK, hopefully). Basically, 88 on the flop as it was, you can cbet, if he calls you're likely behind, if he folds, at least you didn't lose and lose more on the crazy bluff.

By the way the hand is played I think enemy likely has Kx for trips, boat or just random Jack or TT+ that was already too committed to fold, if he was a reg, but this could vary a lot on the specific player and player to player (opponent-dependant)

Disharmonist 7 years, 9 months ago

. Preflop: clear call. You dont push enough edge pref, when 4bet, you are forced to fold, when called you usually flop 2nd or 3rd pair.

Flop: You made a mistake pre now let it go. Basically drawing dead against any 9 or better.

Turn: Trying to rep AK might work out, but you wanna have some blokcers here like AQ that has a gutter to go with and some non nut outs against Jx, also blocking QT or Ak.

River you just force agression here.

BackFromDagobah 7 years, 9 months ago

The problem with the line is once you check that flop, which favour him, after being the pre flop aggressor, you don't have many value hands really from you're 3B pre flop range on Turn. So what you are trying to represent is really thin in terms of ranges. You won't capture any equity Turn. Sizing are up to discussion also, but already mentioned.

BackFromDagobah 7 years, 9 months ago

I will add also that pulling successful bluffs will revolves around you're strategy, playing style, perceived image and dynamics/game flow. Before pulling those moves think about this. You seems to have a LAG style, relentless style. At the micros, bluffs won't serve you well, or they won't be as profitable as they could be if you were to play a bit more tighter. Always ask yourself what is the dynamics right now between you and the table. If you force actions/aggressions at some point some will shut down and some will fight back and when that happen, you'll need hands that can outdraw/(drawing to nuts) your opponents more then a hand like this one in you're example.

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