Sizing post flop bets to get all-in on the river
Posted by ontheupandup
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ontheupandup
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High Stakes
Sizing post flop bets to get all-in on the river
Wasn't sure which forum was best to post this in, but I thought I might get the most informed responses from the high stakes section.
I've been thinking about how best to size bets postflop, and how it affects the ratio of value:bluff hands we can have on each street, assuming a perfectly polarised range that bets three streets to get all-in on the river. I understand that in order to maximise the number of hands that can be bluffed by a perfectly polarised player, they should bet equal fractions on each street. It wasn't until I worked through a few different alternative options, however, that I realised that you can have very different betting lines without affecting the total number of hands you can bluff too much.
For example, take a standard game of 6max NLHE, 100bb deep. BTN min raises to 2bb preflop, SB folds, BB 3bets to 8bb, and BTN calls. BB wants to bet three streets to get all-in on the river, starting from the 16.5bb pot on the flop. Here are three possible lines he could take:
Bet ~65% pot on all three streets. Assuming a perfectly polarised range, the percentage of bluffs on each street would need to be 57.8% on the flop, 46.2% on the turn, and 30.0% on the river.
Alternatively, you could bet ~50% pot on the flop and turn, and 100% pot bet on the river. Percentage bluffs would be 57.5% on the flop, 46.7% on the turn, and 33.4% on the river.
Lastly, you could bet ~28% on the flop and turn, and 200% pot bet the river. Percentage bluffs would be 56.8% on the flop, 49.1% on the turn, and 40.0% on the river.
As you can see, there's only a 1% difference in the number of flop bluffs you can have comparing the drastically different first and last betting lines.
So my question is, under what circumstances might you want to deviate from the bet equal fractions on each street approach? It seems like the cost of doing so in terms of how often you can bluff is fairly minimal.
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I realised that I made some mistakes in my calculations - here's how I worked them out, along with the correct values, using the bet equal fractions each street example:
(See http://i.imgur.com/vEzoM0L.jpg)
On the river, BTN gets pot odds of 2.54 on his call, so BB needs to be bluffing 28.25% of the time to make BTN indifferent to calling --> 71.75:28.25 value:bluff ratio for BB on the river.
On the turn, BTN again has pot odds of 2.54 on his call, so BB needs his turn range to be comprised of the balanced range that he bets on the river, along with an appropriate number of 'turn bluffs'. This works out as being a 71.75:67.62 value:bluff ratio for BB on the turn (48.5% bluffs).
On the flop, BTN again has pot odds of 2.54 on his call, so BB needs his flop range to be comprised of the balanced range that he bets on the turn, along with an appropriate number of 'flop bluffs'. This work out as being a 71.75:122.49 value:bluff ratio for BB on the flop (63.1% bluffs).
So the correct bluff percentages for the different lines, presented as betsize(bluffpercent) for flop|turn|river:
65%(63.1%)|65%(48.5%)|65%(28.3%)
51%(62.7%)|51%(50.1%)|100%(33.4%)
28%(59.6%)|28%(50.8%)|200%(40.0%)
I think these numbers are correct now.
I would only bet less than 50% if the following conidions are present: I have flopped a monster that is very unlikely to get outdrawn/ there are few cards that my opponent views as scary (e.g. i flop a set od aces on a a92 rainbow board). This way i hope to get light calldowns or spew vlaue raises or bluffs. I would prefer the 60-65% version any given time over the others- just given that you lose value when ppl are playing static ranges and your river bluff get so expensive.
I agree. We wouldn't be afraid of betting smaller in cases where our range is very strong and not vulnerable to being outdrawn. So in cases where the flop and turn are dry, and favour our range, it might be best to bet flop and turn a smaller fraction of the pot than our river all-in.
On the contrary, if the flop is wet, and our strong hands are vulnerable to being outdrawn, it might make more sense to bet flop and turn larger relative to the river. For instance, these are possible lines:
80%(62.7%)|80%(46.2%)|40%(22.2%)
75%(63.0%)|65%(47.1%)|56%(26.3%)
A problem with larger sizings, however, could be that if villain shoves over our turn bet, we're basically priced in to call with even weak hands. A lot of our bluffs on a wet board would be getting the correct pot odds to call, I imagine.
Some ppl pot bet the flop and (over-)shove turns. But i dont necesseraly like it because i tend to use all 3 postflop streets instead of reducing the game to 2 street poker.
When you say some people, do you mean some good players? I ask as it's not something that I see people do very often, but I think it's a plausible strategy.
I imagine its viable on wet flops when the draws miss on the turn. I experimented a bit in CREV and I think it could work if you aggressively bet your strong hands, and overshove the turn with them along with an appropriate amount of high equity bluffs. Not sure how this compares EV-wise with more conventional betting lines - I need to explore this further.
It's an interesting idea though, as when playing out of position with the initiative in a 3bet pot on a wet flop, I generally play quite defensively. This pot flop shove turn approach would mean betting a lot more aggressively than I typically do in these situations.
I personally tried it out a while ago and it happened to be quite profitable against many opponents. They tend to often missinterpret your overshoves as attempt to push them out and make ridiculous calls when you have it where i suspect them to normally fold if using a more common betsize. You also avoid these awkward spots where a scare card hits the river and you have rougly 1/2 pot left and dont really want to fold but dont think you can v-bet either.
GTO wise you could and should have more bluffs in your range if using this strategy, giving your opponents pot odds of less than 2 to 1.
I played around with it a bit in CREV and found that the exact bluffing frequencies can vary quite a bit depending on the equities of your value and bluff hands on the turn. I also made the assumption that villain raises all their nutted hands on a wet flop. I think it could be a viable strategy, but I need to further explore how to construct balanced checking ranges to use in conjunction with it.
Consider also if villains call static or elastic ranges.
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