Having thought so much about the game last Saturday night, and wanting to get some discussion going here again, I wanted to talk about a couple more hands, one of which I won and one I lost. Together I hope they will represent a deeper discussion of a concept I talked about a couple posts ago, the value bet bluff. I found another interesting way to use the value bet bluff as a sort of stop-loss on the river with a sub-premium hand. Two different times I held a hand that might win in a showdown if my value bet was called, but would certainly have to fold to a substantial bet, and certainly fold to a raise of my initial bet. It’s a situation that comes up more often if I’ve been semi-bluffing with that same category of hands all the way through so that I’m controlling the action. The value bet bluff on the end not only might win the pot from a slightly better hand that is folded, but it might also keep a slightly worse hand from making a bet that I can’t call. I was thinking much more clearly in the first hand and the value bet bluff won me a substantial pot. In the second hand the value bet bluff was probably the wrong move, or rather the right move would have come on the turn, and by the river was too little, too late, except that it still fulfilled a slightly different mission. I might have foreseen that if it hadn’t been 4:30 in the morning.

The first hand was against an extremely experienced player who was capable of folding a decent hand if he thought he was beaten, and who was certainly capable of making a bluff at the pot that would push me into the muck. I held an ace and another card that made a straight and a flush draw from the flop. I bet aggressively throughout the hand, expecting to make something or else to force everyone else to fold. One player stuck around to the river, and to my horror it was just another blank. I didn’t have very long to consider my action, because any hesitation would be seen as a sign of weakness. I’d been betting the entire hand, after all, and the pot was sized at around one hundred fifty dollars. I thought of making a big bet at the pot, trying to buy it right there, but he was a player who could smell a rat in a big bet, and was capable of calling with a small pair if he thought I was weak. I thought of just letting the hand go, throwing no more good money after bad. He had called so far so I had reason to expect he had a hand that he would call whatever with. Still, I thought he was a little weak, and maybe on one of the same draws that I had been on, so I thought that just perhaps this was the wrong time to back down. The amount I bet had to be significant enough so that he would care whether he called or not, and it had to be small enough that I could lose it and shake it off, and also small enough that it was not an obvious attempt to “fire the last barrel,” so to speak. I decided on sixty dollars. I thought that two-fifths of the pot was enough to show him that I still thought I had a good hand, and also small enough that I should normally expect a call from the kind of hand he was likely to have, having called me all the way down and not raised. Also sixty dollars is made up of two green chips and two red chips. I hate to admit that I think this deeply about things like this, but the action of taking two green chips and two red chips from my stack and betting them seemed to be a very deliberate thing to do, while not being overly theatrical. I wanted to appear that I was betting the exact amount that I thought he would call, when what I was really doing was betting the exact amount to which I thought he would fold. He thought about it a moment and then folded.

The other hand in which I attempted largely the same thing happened much farther along in the night and I was probably not thinking altogether clearly. I held pocket eights and the board by the river contained three over-cards, the last one a queen. I had bet aggressively all the way through, and my opponent kept calling. The straddle was ten dollars, which got raised to thirty dollars, and three of us (by that point all of us) saw the flop. I bet out fifty on the flop and was called by one player, who was behind me in the action. This particular player admits to having a thing for calling me, hoping to beat me. I’m not sure why, other than that I’ve put some merciless beats on him with legitimate hands over the last couple years, and perhaps once I showed him a bluff that won me a large pot. Showing him put him on tilt like I thought it would, and I probably did it partly out of aggravation with the way he had been pushing the table around. Maybe it is my fault he’s always trying to beat me. It’s usually profitable, but not this particular time. The turn was another blank and then I made my big mistake. I think I was a little fuzzy-headed and hoping to make it out of this extremely high action game with my shirt. I’d just lost a huge pot a couple hands before that turned my seven hundred dollar stack into about five hundred. I bet fifty again, thinking, “I’ll just let him know I’m serious and he’ll probably get out. I doubt if he has anything anyway, and he’s just still in because this is the last hand” (it was supposed to be). He called again. The river was a queen and I still hadn’t improved. At this point my thinking changed a little. I still wasn’t convinced he had much of a hand, because he had acted weak all the way through, but I thought perhaps he had hit the second pair on the flop, a ten, and I decided to deploy the value bet bluff once again to try to take down the pot, again without losing my shirt, and it occurred to me that by continuing to bet it would keep him from betting hard into me and forcing me to fold, or rather betting just enough that I had to call, which I might have done for twice the size of my own bet. I bet fifty again, and he called. He’d hit the river queen. After consideration, which came after some sleep, I realized that my mistake had been trying to soft-play the hand just because it was close to the end of the night and I wanted to be assured a profit, while still being a little greedy for the pot. In betting fifty on the turn, I laid nearly four-to-one in just pot odds, and taking the implied odds into consideration (we both still had large stacks) he was correct to call to see the river with almost anything that he felt could draw out and beat me. As it turned out he had a straight draw and over cards, and was almost certainly correct to call. If I had bet one hundred on the turn his odds would have been decreased dramatically and he probably would have folded, and if he hadn’t I’d have still lost no more money. If I’d simply given up after he called my flop bet I’d have lost one hundred less. I think it shows what muddled thinking can do for you at the table. I still defend the river value bet bluff of fifty though. It was probably enough to prevent a stab at the pot if he hadn’t hit, and in fact it prevented a larger bet or a raise when he did hit.

One more brief note about the session which exposed a possible path toward improvement. I held AJ off-suit on the button and flopped a jack. The first position player (the super-aggressive one) bet one hundred, and the second player hesitantly called. It was folded around to me and I decided it was time for a big play. I had the first player slightly out-stacked (though more slightly than I realized). I moved all in for about one hundred sixty more. He’d flopped two pair, but nearly folded his hand thinking I’d made a better two pair or a set. Calling one hundred fifty with three hundred fifty in the pot with two pair on the flop seems like a no-brainer to me, but he seemed concerned. While I was mulling over my disappointment and waiting for his obvious call, I was also wondering what kind of show I might be able to put on to convince him I really did have the better hand. I’m not sure Marlon Brando could have pulled that one off, but he seemed to be a willing audience if I’d had the ability. I’ll have to think that over.