POTD #278 Almost FT Friday A Loose Float with Q3 and an Ugly River

Can I bluff the river as we near the money?

I often write about the recursive laps I can go through in my head. I write “recursive laps” because it sounds better than “fish logic”. What I by “recursive laps” is an internal version of the classic poker leveling game of “I know, that you know, that I know, that you know…”. A sort of “I know, that I know, that I know, that I know …”. It might be heartening to know that even top players can fall victim to the same silly thoughts as Daily Deepstack regulars. One thing I’m not proud of is that at the beginning of a big Triton series, I really like getting my first cash. I try to not let this wish affect my play, but sometimes it does. “I know I like to get on the board early, so you are trying to play too tight, so you should loosen up, but now you’ve loosened up too much, but now you’ve tightend up too much, etc.”. This feeling is a wate of mental energy and foolish, but there is no denying that getting on the board early feels good and also feels like a good omen for the rest of the trip. It also makes me money.

However, I do want to play my best poker, and I know I have thoughts like this, so sometimes I lock in and tell myself “Shut the fuck up. That’s stupid. Play good poker. Who cares if you cash?” Today’s hand is one where, upon reflection, I could see the angel and devil on my shoulder fighting with each other, as the two key decisions in the hand reflected two very different mindsets about how I should be playing the hand. I made a loose flop peel, the type that someone concerned about cashing the tournament would never make. Then I made a cowardly river give-up, the type that someone who wanted to cash a tournament would make. It was the worst of both worlds, and I let my fishy logic determine how I should play a pretty standard hand. Ultimately my play was fishy, not logical.

Triton London 2023 - Event #6 $60k NLH 8-Handed
(10k/25k/25k) (SB/BB/BBA) 22 left, 17 cash. Average 946k

It folds to Alex Boika (1.005M/40bbs) who makes it 55k on the button, Fedor Holz (695k/28bbs) folds in the SB, it folds to me (1.18M/47bbs) in the BB who calls Q♣️3♣️.

Flop (145k) T♥️T♦️4♣️: I check, Alex bets 40k, I call.
Turn (225k) 9♦️: I check, Alex checks.
River (225k) A♣️: I check, Alex checks and wins with 3♥️3♦️.

YouTube Video of Hand

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What I Was Thinking

Closing in on the money with a just-above-average stack, I was going to tighten up in the BB, but not so much that I’d fold a suited queen from the BB. On the flop, I did not think I could fold queen high with a backdoor flush draw, but also did not want to raise the flop for whatever reason, so I decided to just call. There’s no reason to lead the turn, and I did not. The river ace looked ugly for me: I thought Alex would have top pair a lot, and I was unsure what size to bet. A big bet would be representing trips or better, and that’s hard to do after I just call the flop. A small bet might not even get king high to fold. I did not want to bet into a range that had so much top pair, did not know what size to pick if I chose to bet, and figured this close to the money, if I bluffed and lost something like 10-20% of my remaining stack, I’d greatly increase the chance I bubbled the tournament. So I checked and let Alex win the hand with his small pair.

What I Got Wrong

Preflop is a defend, but the flop is not. I call or raise with all sorts of unpaired hands, but there are three criteria that matter: hand strength, backdoor flush and straight potential, and having a second overcard to a four. Queen high is not such a strong hand that it automatically defends the flop; all ace high defends on the flop, but even king-high hands need a little more going on. My hand has a backdoor flush draw, but no backdoor straight draws. A hand like 5c3c is much more interested in continuing than Qc3c; even Kc3c folds more often than not on the flop. Finally, I do not have a second overcard to a four. Alex doesn’t have 4x all that often, only 5% of the time, but if I am looking at my marginal continues, having an extra three outs vs. 5% of his range is rather nice. Q5 and greater with a backdoor always continue on the flop here and mostly raise; however, they mix calls, as does almost every hand in my range that continues.

On the river it looks like he has ace high a lot, and he does; he rivers top pair 41% of the time. Do you know who also has top pair a lot of the time? Me. The guy who never folds ace high on the flop. I river top pair 35% of the time. If I bet half pot, he needs to call the river 2/3rds of the time for my bluff to break even. So that means he needs to call the river around 43% of the time he does not have an ace for my bluff to break even, which makes any unpaired hand an acceptable hand for me to bluff on the river, and that’s especially true when I make a loose flop peel and have an especially appealing river bluffing candidate. Giving up on the river is a costly and bad play. The ace is a good card for him, but not so good that I can never bluff when I also river top pair quite a bit. It’s a bad river card for me, but we are in a node where ranges are wide enough that there are very few turns and rivers that are especially good for either of us. I’m allowed to value bet and bluff on this river, and I have a prime bluffing candidate. I should have followed through.

Types of Error
Loose flop peel
Bad river check
Inconsistent play

Grade

One thing about this hand that was foolish of me is that I didn’t want to make a thin or neutral EV river bluff nearing the money. Well, for starters, this is not a thin or neutral EV bluff; bluffing the river here makes around 1.5k, about 5x the mistake that calling the flop was. Second, if I wanted to play smaller pots, avoid making thin river bluffs, and generally tighten up as we approached the money bubble, there was a simple way to do this: folding the flop. My hand is a pure fold for chips; it’s even more of a fold under ICM pressure. It plays better as a raise than as a call. It’s an easy decision. I should have just folded the flop, and once I didn’t, I should have bluffed the river. It’s hard to lose too much EV playing a 9bb pot, but blundering the only two close decisions and having a bad macro tournament strategy is not how one should play poker.

C-