Hey everyone,

After playing not up to par all last week I realized today that I needed a break so I took the morning off, slept in, worked out, got a massage, and even got a pedicure. Player hate all you want, but I don't see why its not manly to have women massaging my feet and cutting my cuticles and such. Anyway, I realized that because of fatigue and ego I had been playing with alot of emotion when I think its best to play with a detached zenlike state of mental clarity - an EVbot more like it. People would 3 bet me and I'd actually get mad - like they should ask permission to 3 bet me cause I'm apestyles or something. I'm not sure where that came from because its not how I generally roll, I'm glad I got out of it though - ego can be a very ugly thing. Today I played in my usual slow, methodical, style and am happy with the decisions I made regardless of results.

Anyway, I said in my last blog I would collect all of my bluffs on sunday successful or unsuccessful and I did just that. Of the bluffs that I remembered to put into pokerhand 3 or 5 worked - around my usual success rate. I remember getting caught one other time but I conveniently forgot to save it. I'm going to analyze 2 of the bluffs and link the other 3.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5697016

This first bluff was deep in the 200r

Pre-flop (Kc7h) was a fold or re-raise. K7o certainly doesn't flop well and I think that calling in this spot might have played a roll in my decision to go after the pot so hard. The best play pre-flop was to fold - sometimes I overestimate my post-flop abilities. I don't often like to fold my big blind getting odds in position from the small blind versus a weak range though.

On the flop (Ah Jh Tc) after he checks and calls a c-bet I put him on mostly Jx and Tx hands with gutshots and some weak aces - he almost never has 2 pair or better on such a draw heavy coordinated board. I think a c-bet is okay since sometimes people do check-give up these sorts of boards.

On the turn (6h) I believe the success rate of a 2nd barrel is relatively low. However, I expected that I could get him to fold most of his range by the river since, as I mentioned before, he has almost all 1 pair hands and weak ones at that. However, I think that safest/most standard play is to simply check back and give up/hope to draw out. I do like my turn bet sizing since it set up a pot sized bet jam for the river. $6600 or so might have been more credible but $7000 is fine.

On the river (8d) I continued with the plan and jammed... he looked me up with middle pair after deliberating for some time. I'm unsure if I like my bluff or not. I also don't know if him showing up with middle pair makes my bluff bad or good since I was correct about his range being weak but incorrect about whether he would fold it. I think my mistake in the hand is that people get verrrrrry sticky blind vs blind and tend to love to be heros - especially late on a sunday. Usually I bluff less blind versus blind but get very thin value for this very reason.

I don't hate my thought process behind the bluff and my hand reading was all right. Its hard to account for villain making a hero call but I might have been able to predict more hero calls blind vs blind in the 200r late on a sunday. Also, its hard for me to rep many strong aces since I didn't reraise preflop with effective stacks around 40 bbs and would have 3 bet AT- AK. However, I do have plenty of broadway combos and ace rags. I don't think that villain's call is often correct versus me since I am capable of value betting any ace or better in this spot and certainly don't pure bluff very often here. However, I always laugh when regs are like "omg that call is so bad versus my range I'm bluffing 1 in 10 there" and I just happen to have hit my 10 percenter by calling them and don't want to be that guy. So... hats off and nice call.


The 2nd bluff:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5698876

This bluff occurred deep in the wcoop 1k vs. a strong, loose-aggressive villain. We had played a few hands where I re-raised him light and got somewhat thin value on a river versus him. I had 3 bet him a few times and he had folded twice, called once and 4 bet another time. I believed him to be aggressive and capable of making moves but also a solid hand-reader.

Pre-flop -(JsJc) My opening raise is obviously okay. Villains range for flatting in the big blind versus my utg open 35 bbs I thought to be mainly broadway combos and small-middle pairs. Since I nearly minraised perhaps he was calling with Axs as well. I expected a typical range to look like AT-AQ, KJ+, 9Ts+, 22-99, and perhaps some suited connectors like 87s. There is also some possibility of him trapping with KK+.

Flop - (As 5c Qh) Terrible flop for me that has hit his range alot of the time. However, I feel like checking concedes the pot since I would never feel comfortable calling a bet on this sort of board. So, I opt for a smallish < 1/2 pot bet. My standard bet on dry A high boards is usually around this size with my entire range.

Turn (Tc)- The Tc brings a flush draw and gives me a gutshot... Most of the time I'd choose to give up but I figured it would look very strong for me to bet turn with the intention of jamming any rivers if he checks to me. I also assumed that if he were to call this turn, rather than raise, the top of his range is AJ and he almost never has better than 1 pair.

River (9d) - My turn bet left him with a little less than a pot sized bet on the river and I continued with the plan of jamming river even though I was unhappy with the 9 since I considered A9s to be a part of his range. I thought his most likely hand to be KQ since I had the J blockers versus AJ. I also thought he would fold all of his non two-paired Ax hands since my pre-flop hand range is relatively strong, has hit this board, there are tons of hand combinations that beat him, and he really can't expect me to turn a hand like JJ into a bluff or be pure bluffing here (I'd also shown down no bluffs post-flop at the table). I put him all in on the river and he folded. I wouldn't recommend this bluff versus a bad player - bad players don't like to fold top pair. I thought this villain a strong enough player to give credit for a big hand in a spot that I normally would have a big hand. My strong utg range combined with this board run out makes this bluff very credible.

In retrospect, I think villains hand range might have been a little too strong for this bluff to be great even though it worked.


My other bluffs:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5696083

Heh, don't usually bluff the maxxmeister but expected lots of floats in his range and turned more outs. I generally need at least some equity in a hand to continue barreling and rarely pure bluff.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5696770

Fired a board that was unlikely to have hit anyone three ways and hit a gin turn. Was planning on bet calling turn...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5696086

Kind of a terrible hand although I imagine I do make better hands fold occasionally - since every hand is a better hand.