Not the right call... long term

watto84

I made the turn bet to see if he would repop it and I could get away there.

The River bet to me made no sense and I think I went with my gut rather than my head here as the table was playing really loose.

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
gwebling17	Small blind		25.00	25.00	1880.00
cartster27	Big blind		50.00	75.00	1690.00
	Your hole cards	8 8
watto84	Raise		200.00	275.00	4247.50
x	Call		200.00	475.00	1827.50
mannylad24	Call		200.00	675.00	1800.00
mark16	Fold
gwebling17	Fold
cartster27	Fold
Flop
		J 9 A
watto84	Check
x	Check
mannylad24	Check
Turn
		5
watto84	Bet		100.00	775.00	4147.50
thestig123	Call		100.00	875.00	1727.50
mannylad24	Fold
River
		5
watto84	Check
x	Bet		656.25	1531.25	1071.25
watto84	Call		656.25	2187.50	3491.25
x	Show	3 4
watto84	Show	8 8
watto84	Win	Two Pairs, 8s and 5s	2187.50		5678.75

Slipwater

Yeah, not really sure you should be putting any more chips in the pot once the flop comes down like that. The turn is no better for you either. Sure, it's a small bet you make, but still... I don't see the value. I don't like the river call either, because you're beating very little at that point.

As you say though: sometimes you have to go with your instinct, and this time it paid off.

77Chris91

Turn - We bet primarily for 2 reasons: A) Value  To get a better hand to fold. Your turn bet is not big enough to achieve either of these things.

As played your river call is fine imo. Villain has waaaay more 1 club type hands in his range then 5's which is effectively what he's repping with this sizing.

1267

Agree with others.  Bet on the turn is like WTF .

Also not sure why raising 4x pre.  much prefer between 2x and 3x.

As it turned out it seems he knew exactly what you had, tried to bluff you off it and you made a good call. Pretty good poker.  nh

hhyftrftdr

Raise less pre. Turn bet is pointless. Nice call on the river.

Slipwater

I ain't so sure the river call is good.

I can see the villain making the same bet with say, 8 9, 9 10 or J 10 - all of which beat us (obviously).

TeddyBloat

Villain needs to be bluffing 30% of the time for the call to be good. We have to think hed raise our turn bet for value and not allow any of the rather obvious draws to set their own price when he has a hand. Also he might want to cash in his fold equity if he had a draw with one card to come against our weak bet.

So maybe there is enough pure air and missed weak draws to hero the river, esp if hes never thin value betting second or third pair. How many 5s are in his range?

Id cbet the flop, if you get raised its usually hy a hand that has tremendous all in equity against us, and ace smacks a 4x range. People will be more honest on a high flops v a 4x.

KAM99

Don't love a 4x raise with 88 from UTG, or 4x really at all. There are tiny exception so this rule, but generally its to big for this.

Turn is, well... I dont want to be rude, but it's not good. Your flop bet is half the size of your opening raise. Hardly going to be believed by anyone, and no wonder it tried to take it on river. If he had raised you on turn you'd have had to fold.

River. Yeah you can call I guess here. The river is a blank most of the time and his turn play suggests he is likely pretty weak at that point. So I don't mind the call, though sometimes it will be wrong of course.

TeddyBloat

When bluff catching you can be wrong more often than you're right and its still correct to call.

On the river we are either ahead or behind, so when we need 30%  equity we mean we need to be right only 30% of the time for the all to be good.

People can get very results orientated and see they are running into better hands more often than not without realising they are making the correct play. In fact it is very difficult to grasp a concept where you profit bluff catching despite being beat more often than not.

--------

Lets assume he's bluffing 35% of the time and look at the numbers:

The way to get our expected final stack size is:

(Vf x Si) + (Bf x Sii) = ev

Where

Vf = %  of time we are beaten by a value bet

Bf =  % of bluffs

Si = stack size when we lose the pot

Sii = stack size when we win.

If the expected end stack size is bigger than the one we are calling from then we call, even knowing we are beat 65% of the time. Here:

(0.65×3,491.25)+(0.35×5,678.75) = 4256.875.

Since that is bigger than 4174.25, we call.

We will be 'wrong' nearly twice as often as we are 'right', yet will be making the correct play each time.

Grasping the fact that we are playing against ranges is key here

I'm ignoring icm here to make a general point on the pure ev and mental side of bluff catching.