Someone recently told me that Thomas Boivin had a heuristic when it comes to c-betting, which is if your range c-bets one size 80% of the time or more, defaulting to a range c-bet of that size is a good simplification that doesn’t lose much EV. I think this is a good piece of advice, but I would add one caveat to it. (I should note that someone told me that this is Thomas’s advice, so if the caveat I am about to spell out is something Thomas has already said, I apologize.) You can pivot to a pure range bet (or check if you are looking at something like leading from the BB), unless there are individual hands in your range that pick a non standard size 100% of the time. When there are individual hands that pick a pure strategy that is not your range’s most frequent strategy, it’s usually because they possess specific properties that make them want to deviate from the range strategy, and you should be able to figure that out and act accordingly.
In today’s hand from a $75k in Triton Vietnam, I felt I had a very clear range strategy on the flop and on the turn, but I was legitimately unsure about what to do on the river and ended up bluffing into the nuts. At the time, I remember thinking my flop and turn play were fine, and I was happy with my river play because I felt it was difficult for any opponent to find some of the bottom-of-range calls that the solver makes, plus, “I am never bluffing here.” However, today’s hand was not just vs. any random opponent, it was a hand vs. Steve O’Dwyer, who is nicknamed The Sheriff because he’s famous for writing people speeding tickets. Calling down people who are playing too fast and bluffing too often. In today’s hand we are going to look at what I got wrong about my range strategy on the flop and turn and then investigate if my river bluff was any good.
Triton Vietnam 2023 $75K NLH
(10k/15k/15k) (SB/BB/BBA) Registration is closed. 30 left. 11 cash.
I (475k/32bbs) have Q♠️8♠️ UTG7 and make it 35k, it folds to Steve O’Dwyer (423k/28bbs) in the BB who calls.
Flop (95k) Q♥️J♠️T♥️: Steve checks, I bet 50k, Steve calls.
Turn (195k) K♣️: Steve checks, I bet 90k, Steve calls.
River (375k) 6♠️: Steve checks, I shove for his final 263k, he calls with A♥️T♠️.
