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Category: Poker Strategy
Tags: bluffinggameplaypokerriverstrategy
Entities: BrendanDiscordPokerRiver Bluffing
00:00
today I'll let you in on a secret those big profitable River Bluffs are within your reach because bluffing the river is so much easier than most people think in fact I believe that the main reason why many people struggle with River bluffing is not because they lack technical skills but because they lack a good
00:16
River bluffing method I will teach you this method and in addition I will also teach you the two fundamental principles that explain why bluffing well in the river is so essential to your win rate but let me start with an analogy you're driving in the desert your car gets a flat tire no problem you know exactly
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what to do you put on your parking brake you know where the Jack goes and how to switch that tire out for the spare you're a master it's a simple operation but imagine just how bad it would be if you got that flat tire in the desert and you didn't know this procedure I would bet you didn't use trial and error to
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figure the scill out someone taught you the method in this flat tire situation the solution is easy because all you have to do is execute that straightforward procedure from memory but when it comes to put your entire stack on the line in poker all of a sudden it's hard so much is happening
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MDF table image ranges HUD stats leveling you need a method to cut the BS there's too much to lose and of course every good method begins with a good understanding of what you're trying to do when it comes to River bluffing that understanding boils down to two fundamental
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principles as we'll see throughout this video it almost feels like the game of poker was built around exploiting people on the river there's three main reasons why first the river is rare we don't get to the river very often against any opponent which means that it usually takes our opponent hundreds of thousands
01:37
of hands to realize how we're exploiting them and by the time they realize we can always just change our strategy secondly our incentive to exploit people is higher on the river because pots are usually quite big have a look at the chai aggression Matrix posted in my Discord this grid clearly shows that we
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should maximally exploit rare and profitable spots the river meets both of these criteria and lastly there's a big skill asymmetry on the river our opponents have a notoriously difficult time defending well in the street but as we'll see shortly we usually have a very easy time attacking our opponents
02:11
struggle to defend mostly because River spots are very diverse there's so much variation on the river so it's almost impossible to learn how to defend on each one heuristics are varied complex and often have to do with blockers and many in different hands it's tough and I don't blame them one bit for not getting
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it perfect but when they get it even slightly wrong our own strategy becomes so incredibly profitable and simple and this is due to the second principle of river bluffing consider this example we're playing as big blind versus Button as
02:42
the pre- Flop 3 better holding Jack seven of clubs flop comes 10 10 five rainbow we bet half pot and get called Turn is a king giving us a flush draw we bet again and we get called river is in nine now we have a mraw and have to decide if we want to Bluff or not let's see what our River bluffing range looks
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like in solver this right here is our total range and these are our Bluffs we're bluffing 34% of the time in this example Jack 7 of clubs loses eeve as a gem but now let's head over to our opponent's response if they're playing
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perfect Nash up to this point you can see that they should call around 34 of their 53 combos facing a jam now we'll remove just one combo from their range just one we'll make them call 33 instead of 34 Combos and if we remove just one
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combo we can start bluffing anything our bluffing frequency used to be around 34% but now it goes up to 84% and our Bluffs don't just gain a sliver of Eevee that makes them slightly profitable to Bluff Jack 7 is now worth
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more than three big blinds as a bluff that is a huge amount and all of that EV gain is due to the tiniest overfolded of course the contrary is true as well in this example if our
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opponent overalls one combo then our Bluffs lose three big blinds in EV and our ideal bluffing frequency decreases it's now a huge mistake to Bluff Jack 7 of clubs however as you can see there are still many pure Bluffs in our range this is because they have good blockers
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and are still mandatory Bluffs blockers are very important and I'll talk a bit more about them at the end of this video but the vast majority of our bluffing range is incredibly sensitive to villains folding frequency because our bluffing strategy swings so much there is no such thing as a small
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mistake on the river and this principle is exclusive to the river on the turn for example our bluffing strategy doesn't swing quite as much and this is a big point which highly impacts the way we play the river so it's important to understand it mathematically which we can quickly do by comparing the EV
04:50
breakdown of our Bluffs on the river to their breakdown on the turn let's start this comparison by just seeing how our Bluffs gain EV on the river so this is the EV equation our Bluffs win the pot when our opponent folds and they lose their bet size when our opponent calls
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so the entire EV of our Bluffs really revolves around our opponent's folding frequency on the turn however the EV equation is different our Bluffs still win when our opponent folds but when our opponent calls we don't lose our entire investment this is because our hand has some equity and it has the potential to
05:20
win usually our hand will still lose but on average we do win some chips back and so because the EV difference between getting villain to fold and getting called isn't quite as big on the turn our hand is a little bit less sensitive to villain's folding frequency but on the river getting a fold is the only way
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we can win our hands have no equity and so our opponent's folding frequency is the main thing that matters it almost entirely boils down to this point now recall from the previous principle that rivers are rare highy spots that are very difficult for our opponents to play
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our opponents will almost always overfolded allows us to play a very binary bluffing strategy if we ignore blockers then very simply if villain over folds a tiny bit
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we should Bluff everything if villain overalls a tiny bit we should never Bluff and again we'll talk blockers later but even so this understanding only gets us so far if we knew where every overfolded and overall was we would in my friend Brendan's words be
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taking constant trips to the $500 store we would be poker gods swimming in ships but in reality we have to settle for just an edge and to maximize that edge and Crush our opponents we need a river bluffing plan that is effective and easy
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to execute in game my friends my Migos let me take a quick moment to tell you guys to join my Discord link below I'm building a motivated community and I really want you guys to be a part of it I'm doing daily hand reviews so if you're in a
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downswing join the Discord and I will help you fix your play right up back to the video so the basic method for River bluffing is a three-step plan which helps you find those profitable spots to Bluff in game simply it helps you estimate if your opponent will reasonably
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overfolded down value to best estimate what your opponent will do we need to consider three things step by step we need to consider the board texture the villain profile and our own table image these three things seem simple because I made the method that way on purpose but
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there's important Nuance here so I need to discuss each step in depth first let's talk about board texture consider the two following boards we're playing big blind versus buttton again as the pre-f Flop 3 better we bet half pot on the Flop get called
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bet half pot again on the turn and get called we can Bluff again for half pot on the River on which board would you prefer to Bluff on the board on the left or on the low board on the right the first board looks very scary a flush
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completes there's an ace on the river it seems tough to get folds the low board however looks a lot more promising we can easily estimate that our opponent's calling threshold is some but not all of their Ace Highs but actually wouldn't Bluff here and the reason has to do with their turn calling range this is our
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opponent's Nash strategy facing a bet on the turn now they're not playing Nash so to me there are two main possible scenarios scenario a is that our opponent over folds their Ace highs on the turn if this is true then they don't have the ace highs to
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overfolded regs are going to call versus a river Jam at this spr scenario B is that our opponent overalls their Ace highs on the turn and if they're over calling on the turn there's a reasonably large chance it's because they think that we're bluffing too much and if they
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think that we're bluffing too much then they'll probably also overall in the river I wouldn't Bluff on the low board for this reason but upon closer example examination the other wet board is actually a nice spot to Bluff wet boards are scary for both players just like we're putting our opponent on many
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strong hands our opponent is also putting us on many strong hands we have lots of flushes and other strong hands here and our opponent might think that it's hard for us to find enough Bluffs however if we look at the solution you'll actually see that villain's calling threshold here is quite low they
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should be calling many second Pairs and even under pairs without the flush blocker it's hard to find these this board is much better to Bluff on now this example highlights the importance of texture when bluffing some textures are much better for bluffing than others both because the calling thresholds
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differ and because our opponent is much more likely to put us on a stronger range finding good textures to Bluff on his hard and it takes a lot of work but poker isn't meant to be easy and the best players will have a strong willingness to learn if this video gets a lot of interest I'll make sure to make
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a followup that breaks down some of the best River textures to Bluff if you're interested give the video a like give it a comment it boosts engagement and I want to make a video that people will watch but in case I don't make it let me give you the summary good textures have a low calling threshold that is easy to
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miss a low possibility of our opponent over folding on previous streets and a natural preference for us to bed big when we're deciding whether or not to Bluff the river these are the first things that we should think about if the texture is bad don't Bluff and if it's good move on to step
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two when consider considering villain profile we're mainly trying to figure out if our opponent likes to Bluff catch or not it is my belief that there are two main types of people in most poker pools people who like to Bluff catch and people who don't most people fall into the don't catch category this player type is usually a bit timid and risk
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averse throughout the entire game tree which extends to the river I think most poker players already know how to identify this player type but I do want to mention a few misleading indicators that do not tell you if a player is timid the first one is if they see bet a lot on the Flop a lot of players range
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bet and have standardized flop strategies aggression on the Flop tells you nothing about a player's type but continued aggression on the turn and river does two is if they stab a lot on the turn stabbing a lot on the turn is a big exploit but it's a very low investment it's a single usually small
11:16
Bluff timid players will be okay making small Bluffs but it's their lack of big ones that tells us who they are and three another misleading indicator is if they Bluff a lot in broken lines so for example bet check bet or check Che bet any line with a check in it a lot of
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players will Bluff after the table checks and again this is a low investment bluff if someone is bluffing in a broken line they're usually trying to push you off a weak hand it doesn't necessarily show a lot of aggression to do this aggressive players will definitely Bluff here but many tighter players will as well remember what makes
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a player timid is their unwillingness to commit in big scary pots not small lower risk ones if you're up against a timid player you're much more likely to get folds in Big River pots and so you should Bluff more versus aggressive players though you should only Bluff on really good textures but before you make
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that bluff there's one final step to consider we can be playing on a really good texture against a timid opponent but with the wrong table image we sometimes might not have the fold Equity that we think I said in the previous section that rivers are great for
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maximally exploiting our opponents in part because they're so rare if we choose to be very aggressive on Good rivers we can fly under the radar for for a very long time but there are many other common spots in poker which also reward aggression just think about it if we're aggressive pre flop on the Flop on
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the turn and on the river then even very timid opponents will have an easy time seeing right through our Bluff heavy strategy and calling more on the river now in my previous video linked somewhere in the top corner I said it was not an issue to have an overly aggressive table image but only if you know what you're doing as an example if
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you remember the scary board from before our opponents had to Bluff catch with tons of weak pairs versus the River Jam on this board it doesn't really matter how aggressive our table image is our opponents are unlikely to call wide enough because they probably won't find the Slow threshold we can still Bluff
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aggressively but other spots like the low board are very sensitive to our table image our opponent's calling threshold is much more clear and it's very easy for villains to visualize the Bluffs in our range as a result even timid opponents will overall their Ace
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highs on this board if they think we Bluff too much table image is a much bigger Factor here if you have a very aggressive table image you need to be far more selective with the boards that you Bluff on being this selective is hard but in my opinion it's the best way to play poker and it's something that
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you work towards as you get better and better you'll feel much more comfortable playing hyper aggressively but until you feel ready I simply recommend that you just do your best to keep your aggression mostly in line don't be two aggressive and common spots and save those big exploits for the giant Rivers
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now there's one big thing left to discuss but first I want to just tie everything together with one final example we're playing big blind versus buttton as the pre flop 3 better holding King ton of Hearts our opponent is fairly timid and we don't have a super aggressive table image flop comes Jack a
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deuce rainbow we bet half pot and we get called the turn is a three flush draw we bet half the pot and we get called in the river comes the Ace of Spates should we Bluff using the basic method we consider three things step by step
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first we consider the board texture the texture is fairly neutral we can reasonably estimate that the calling threshold here is going to be somewhat low maybe some weak pair we also know that our opponent has some missed FL draws in their range and there's not a huge risk of them overfolded weak pairs
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on the previous Street this texture seems okay to Bluff most people will probably over fold a bit next we consider the villain profile we know our opponent is timid which probably increases our F equity which again just makes bluffing better and lastly we consider our own table image in this
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example I made it very simple we just have no reason to believe that our opponents think that we're massively over bluffing and now that we've considered each step we can make that bluff and finally before I end the video I want to mention one very important caveat
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blockers now I made this bluffing guide very simple on purpose I said that we should always bluff if our opponent over folds and that we should never bluff if our opponent over calls this is a very very good Baseline because it describes how to play something like 80% of our
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Bluffs but that other 20% of the time our Bluff will have such a strong preference to Bluff or check that we usually have to play it that way regardless of small deviations in our opponent's folding frequency River blockers are very tricky to spot but there are a few common patterns to learn
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so I recommend sticking to the binary bluffing strategy and only deviating from it if you're very certain that your hand has a very clear preference to better check regardless of small mistakes villain could be making this is much easier said than done and just like finding good bluffing textures it takes
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a ton of work but if you're interested in adding a bit of complexity to your strategy and making a little bit more money let me know and I'll do that work for you give me a comment or tell me in the Discord link right below if this video does well and there's interest I will teach you everything there is to know about River blockers but with that
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being said you can see right over here the Sun is setting so I'm going to go watch the sunset if you guys like the video give it a comment give it a like subscribe and there should be another video right up here for you guys to check out join the Discord we're doing hand reviews we're doing hand of the day there and I really want to build that
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Community thanks for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one