Turning top pair into a bluff

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Turning top pair into a bluff

Blinds: $0.10/$0.25 (6 Players) BN: $19.48
SB: $25.00
BB: $25.00 (Hero)
UTG: $25.00
MP: $25.10
CO: $42.54
Preflop ($0.35) Hero is BB with J T
4 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Hero calls $0.50
Flop ($1.50) 9 3 7
SB bets $0.90, Hero calls $0.90
Turn ($3.30) 9 3 7 J
SB bets $2.10, Hero calls $2.10
River ($7.50) 9 3 7 J 4
SB bets $4.50, Hero raises to $21.25 and is all in, SB calls $16.75 and is all in
Final Pot SB wins and shows a pair of Jacks.
BB lost and shows a pair of Jacks.
SB wins $48.00
Rake is $2.00

Against his triple barrell I don´t see any hands that I can beat with my top pair so I decided to bluff with my blockers... but I have all the nuts in my range and decent blockers, plus the sizings looks like a medium hand OP TPTK or two weak pairs, I don´t have to many bluffs here, TJ, T9 and maybe 88 (I think Im folding 88 on the turn)

15 Comments

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Samu Patronen 9 years, 10 months ago

Very easy call on the river. Your hand is way too strong to turn into a bluff...

I would consider turning a hand like 87 into a bluff.

vayne 9 years, 10 months ago

I don´t see a call here with TJ, what worsts hands make a triple barrell here? 68 maybe?? I don´t see him beting the river with J8 when almost all the draws hit on the turn or the river

Samu Patronen 9 years, 10 months ago

A8, K8, KQ, QT, 86, AT, KT, T6, 54, Q8, A6 and so on and so on...

JT is one of the best bluffcatching hands, and in theory you should be bluffcatching sometimes. JT seems like a perfect bluffcatcher to me. You also block villains worst valuehands that he probably folds to our shove (AJ/KJ), which is not a good thing when we're bluffing. When we bluff, we don't want to block villains folding range, and we do want to block villains calling range. 87 works a lot better since it doesn't block villains thin valuebets and it's relative handstrenght is weaker, which means that calling is not very appealing option, unlike with JT.

It's a BvB situation, so ranges are very wide. Calling with a turned top pair is very often a good play.

Disharmonist 9 years, 10 months ago

Yes, you pretty much try to fold out a very narrow value range OTR, basically any better J andd QQ-AA. Maybe 97 bet folds river but i doubt it.

vayne 9 years, 10 months ago

I don´t se him 3 barreling almost any of those hands in that particular board, to barrels sure... but that 4 is horrible to make a the third barrel, I know the ranges are very wide but on this particular river I don´t see him barreling that much, and I don´t see him bluffing with that size that much... don´t see sets or top two using that size

ILoseFlips 9 years, 10 months ago

Yeah pretty agree with others, in general the best time to bluff raise river is when your opponent is thin valuebetting, here you block some of his thin value bets and he is never valuebetting worst than a J imo, and probably a good J.

As he raised in SB, his range is pretty wide so i think he has some bluff in it so you can bluffcatch (and you block some of his valuebets too).

I don't think your play is aweful here, you rep pretty strong (even if you don't rep a lot of value hands except T8 and some slowplayed set) and don't have a lot of bluff as you said and he should definitively fold some better hands. I just think that you would have better hand to bluff raise here and if you start raising your Jx you will endup raising to much imo (bluffraising with 9x and bluffcatching wit Jx is better imo than the opposite)

I would add, even if it's result oriented, that if the guy called with AJ here, it's maybe not the good opponent to bluffraise as he is not folding the worst part of his value range)

maxpower 9 years, 10 months ago

guessing bb would have to call some of his 9s at least.

Samu Patronen 9 years, 10 months ago

Depends what kind of raising range your opponent have, and also how often he slowplays hands. Versus many people valuebetting is ok. Versus some people I'd avoid that, since he can have a raising range and we're screwed.

Sunilson 9 years, 10 months ago

Call > Bluff shove as you have decent showdown value.

The other thing I would add is for low stakes, NL 50 and below, I think just playing exploitatively is good enough.

I could be wrong but upon exploring the low stakes forums today, it seems quite a few posters are keen to use bluff raising river lines almost for balancing purposes. There's no need for these high level plays if your opponents are not thinking on the same level as you are.

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