POTD #72 Getting Bluffed By the Best Hand

In an online poker hand, I get a bluff windmilled in my face by a HU specialist

When I talk to former professional poker players who have been out of the game for some time and want to catch up on solver poker, they are often overwhelmed by how much there is to learn. One piece of advice I give them is to think of learning solver poker the way you learned how to play poker in the pre-solver era. You learn different tips, tricks, and mechanics, then understand how they work and implement them in game. It doesn’t matter if you learned this trick from a 2p2 post or a solver output; it’s the same process of learning something, applying it, and eventually internalizing it.

It used to be that most players did not two- and three-barrel nearly enough with no equity hands; they’d only bluff draws. When those draws hit, you probably didn’t have enough bluffs. When those draws missed, you probably had too many bluffs, and your opponent would know it because all the draws missed. I remember having conversations with people about how you could never bluff when all the draws missed, because no one would ever fold to you. A hand class that solvers often two- and three-barrel with that splits the difference between total air and high-EV draws are offsuit hands with a card that blocks draws. If you have As8h on QsTs7d2c, you can now barrel the turn; if the river is a spade, great, you have the nut flush blocker. If the river is a K, J, 9, or 6, you have a straight blocker to bluff with. These two-barrels are now part of the game; they're relatively easy to implement because they follow similar logic to two-barreling draws, a play most poker players are familiar with.

However, you can still run into the same problem as before. If the river is a brick, you have an unexciting bluff candidate; you want your opponent to have missed nut flush draws, and you have the As in your hand. All the draws missed; will your opponent fold anything? To combat that, you occasionally bluff with some real garbage hands like K4cc or 65dd, and that means you usually give up with hands like As8c. In today's hand, I take the lesson I learned from single-raised pots about two-barreling a one card flush blockers and giving up when you whiff on the river, and misapply it to a three-bet pot. Then I get a bluff (with the best hand) thrown in my face. A humiliation that caused me to learn a lesson that I’ll share with you today.

HH: GGPoker

7 Handed (600/1200/150) (SB/BB/ANTE)

It folds to Markus Leikkonen who raises to 3k in the CO, I make it 13.2k in the SB with K♠️J♥️, he calls.

Flop (28,650) Q♠️Q♥️6♣️: I bet 6600, he calls
Turn (41,850) 6♠️: I bet 14,400, he calls
River (70,650) 9♣️: I have 44,852 left and check, Markus shoves, I fold and he shows me A♠️4♠️