Top 5 Spots to Bluff in Poker | Upswing Poker Level-Up #61

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady and Gary Blackwood. You can watch or listen to the entire episode via the links above or read on if you prefer a written version.

Mike Brady (00:00):

Let’s level up your poker game by arming you with the five best bluff spots in poker. I’m Mike Brady alongside Scottish Poker Pro, Gary Blackwood.

Gary Blackwood (00:09):

That’s right guys. Today we’re going to take you through all the best bluffing spots in poker, helping you to win more pots and make you feel so alive in the process.

Mike Brady (00:17):

We’ll be focusing on situations where the fundamentals should push you towards bluffing. Spots where the flop turn and river, along with your opponent’s actions simply make it quite tough for them to call. We will not be focusing on intangible spots, like when you have a specific read on your opponent or when they give off a particular live tell. We’ll have to save that black magic for another episode. Bluff spot number one is check-raising on paired flops after you’ve defended from the big blind.

Gary Blackwood (00:49):

You would be surprised at how often you are supposed to check-raise on a board like Ten Ten Deuce or Queen Deuce Deuce. Sometimes it’s as much as twenty-five percent. That’s one in every four times you face a c-bet you’re supposed to be check-raising. You don’t have anywhere near enough value for that to be pure value, so you’re going to have to find a lot of creative bluffs. Because you are supposed to be so loose here your opponent is supposed to continue with a lot of really questionable floats and people are just not defending enough when you check-raise.

Mike Brady (01:19):

Yeah, people are falling well short of an equilibrium GTO strategy in this spot. Again, you’re supposed to check-raise really, really wide on these boards and then your opponents are supposed to respond in kind by calling your check-raise with a super wide range, including hands that are just backdoor draws and overcards. A lot of people aren’t doing that and that’s what presents a really profitable bluff spot. Here’s an example from a cash game. Suppose you’re one hundred big blinds deep and the player in the cutoff, one before the button, raises up and you defend your big blind. The flop comes Ten Ten two rainbow, you check and your opponent c-bets small. This is a great spot to check-raise bluff. We’re pulling this situation up in the Lucid Poker trainer. If you’re watching the video, you can see it. If you’re listening on an audio platform, I’ll just try to describe it well enough. So when we see the cutoff c-bet here, which he’s doing at a very, very high frequency, the big blind is supposed to respond with a truly outrageously aggressive check-raising strategy. Thirty-seven percent of the time is the GTO check-raising frequency for the big blind here. There’s all sorts of backdoor hands and creative bluffs and bottom pairs, but that’s not really what we’re focusing on here. What we need to focus on is how the cutoff is then supposed to respond.

Gary Blackwood (02:33):

When we check-raised from the big bind here, the cutoff is supposed to respond by floating extremely wide. Lots of backdoor equity hands, hands like Nine Seven suited, King Jack suited, Ace Four suited. There are so many combos that are supposed to bet and then call when you raise. And ask yourself, if I check-raise the flop here, is my opponent going to bet-call a hand like Nine Seven suited? The answer is almost certainly no, which means our bluffs are performing extremely well if our opponents are not responding correctly, so we want to be aggressively check-raising with the right types of hands.

Mike Brady (03:07):

This works out really well in practice because your opponents are probably c-betting these boards very, very frequently and then they’re not going to expect you to check-raise as wide as a solver would and as a result they’re not going to defend against your check-raise as wide as a solver would. So it really works out. The just current meta of poker, and it’s probably going to be like this for a while, is that you can get away with very aggressive check-raises on these boards and expect your opponents to fold very often.

Gary Blackwood (03:34):

Now we must remember that the solver plays against the solver, which is why we’ll see the solver continue to barrel really aggressively on a bricky turn like the Four of spades, it will continue to barrel with hands like King Queen offsuit, King Jack offsuit. Let’s think about this from an exploitative standpoint. We already know people are underdefending versus our check-raise, so we want to be much more equity driven with our turn barrels and not go as crazy as the solver is here because our opponent’s range is already stronger. We know that, so we’re more selective with our turn barreling range as a result.

Mike Brady (04:06):

Yeah, you basically got them to play way too tight on the flop, which means they get to the turn with too strong of a range, so that’s where we should start to really veer away from the solver. And this is a pretty common thing in poker. If you’re studying with solvers, as you get deeper into the game tree, you are making more and more assumptions about how your opponent is playing and if your opponent didn’t play like a solver up through that point, then the solver outputs that you’re looking at are arguably much less useful. So just be careful following these aggressive actions on later streets when your opponent likely tightened up on an earlier street. By the way, we’re going to be looking at all cash-game-specific examples today, but these bluff spots tend to work well in tournaments too, unless there’s some sort of ICM or unusual stack dynamic at play. And I need to take a quick break to ask a favor of you. If you’re enjoying the show, if you’re getting value, please send our algorithmic lords some positive messaging that we’re doing a good job.

(05:06):

Hit the like button, subscribe, follow, rate the podcast five stars… Wherever you’re consuming this thing, do something positive, signal to our overlords that we deserve to be shown to more people. It’s much easier for Gary and I to justify making this show when we’re getting big view numbers, so please help us out. Hit one of those positive buttons and let’s move on to bluff spot number two, which is delayed c-betting in general. When your opponent checks twice, it’s often a very good spot to bluff. For example, we’re back in a cash game with one hundred big blind stacks. You raise it up from the cutoff and the big blind defends. The flop comes Nine Six Four with two diamonds and both players check. The turn is the two of clubs and your opponent checks again.

Gary Blackwood (05:50):

This is a great spot to delay c-bet bluff. Perhaps not from a theoretical standpoint but from an exploitative standpoint, this is a really nice spot for us to delay c-bet and here is why. Let’s look at the strength of our opponent’s checking range in theory. So they’ve checked on the flop, look at how often they’re supposed to check here on the turn with really strong hands, pocket Deuces, pocket Fours, even a little bit of pocket Sixes, Six Four suited, the two pairs, the list goes on. Your opponent is supposed to check relatively wide with these strong combos and even on some other boards which are not as good for the big blind, like King or Queen high boards, they’re supposed to check quite a lot of their top pairs, but the reality is when the flop goes check check, people are just betting all their strong hands, they’re betting all their really strong hands, they’re betting a lot of their top pairs, which means when they check their range is extremely weak and if you guys want to win a lot of money playing poker, you should be attacking capped ranges. Our opponent is capped here, they’ve checked twice. We should be attacking that capped range and delay c-betting extremely wide, extremely aggressively and extremely often.

Mike Brady (07:01):

For those who don’t know, a capped range is a range that doesn’t contain many, or any, super strong hands. And like Gary was saying, on this Nine Six Four Deuce board, the solver works really hard to prevent its range from being capped. And it does that by checking with a really good portion of its super strong hands. When we look at the filters for two pair plus, it’s about a quarter to a third of the time that the solver chooses to check with two pair and better. You have to ask yourself, are your opponents really doing that? Are they looking at this very dynamic, scary, draw-heavy Nine-high board and checking a hand like bottom set over half the time as the solver would here? The answer just is no. So the other side of that is when they do actually check they’re too weak on average and that means you could just pound them with an aggressive betting strategy and expect them to fold too often.

Gary Blackwood (07:58):

We have forced the solver to check again here from the big blind and as we can see, we’re not delay c-betting all that much in theory. However, we know that our opponent’s range is capped, so a lot of these King highs and Queen highs that we can see here that are not delay c-betting, we want to ramp up the aggression with these hands, delay c-bet, and we either take down the pot right here right now on the turn or we set up a really nice bluffing spot again on the river.

Mike Brady (08:24):

For the nerds out there, the way I would specifically go about adjusting the solver range, I would take every single hand that is a mixed frequency bet, so even if it’s betting a very small sliver of the time, and just turn it into a full frequency bet and I would expect that to really, really crush my opponent’s strategy and then it’s also not overdoing it. If you do have one of those hands that the solver really loves to check, you still check with that. You might be wondering why we’re only covering heads-up pots in this episode and the answer is simply that bluffing tends to suck multiway. I know that a lot of you play in games where multiway pots are frequent, probably even the majority, but simply put, no multiway situations make the top five bluff spots, they’re not super ripe for bluffing. But we do have a dedicated multiway pot episode where you can learn all about winning money in multiway pots.

(09:15):

It is appropriately titled “Winning Money in Multiway Pots”. Give it a search. We’ll try to get it in the YouTube and podcast description as well so you could check it out. Moving on to bluff spot number three, which is probe betting on the turn after your opponent checked back on a dynamic flop. For those who don’t know, probe betting is when you bet on the turn into a player who could have c-bet on the prior street but chose not to. For example, the cutoff raises you defend from the big blind and the flop comes Jack Four Three with two diamonds. Both players check on that flop. The turn is the Eight of clubs, making the board Jack Four Three Eight still with just two diamonds. This is a great spot to probe bet, much better than a solver would lead you to believe. And that’s because of how differently your opponents likely approach c-betting compared to the solver. Back into the lucid poker trainer for a second, looking at how the big blind is supposed to approach probing in this situation, on this turn, and we’re actually not seeing very much aggressiveness. The big blind is checking sixty-four percent of the time, so really not an aggressive probing strategy at all here, but Gary will explain why this is not really what we should be following against our human opponents.

Gary Blackwood (10:33):

It’s all well and good us just telling you the answer, but if we can get you to understand why the solver is doing certain things, poker becomes much easier to play. Let’s take a little look at the cutoff c-bet strategy on the flop and as we can see, in theory, because the Four and the Three they’re connected, they’re low, they’re good for the big blind, the cutoff is supposed to check back a decent number of strong hands here. Let’s take a little look at the overpairs first and foremost. Pocket Aces, a little bit of pocket Kings and Queens and then we can see the top pairs like Queen Jack, King Jack, even Ace Jack a little bit. In theory, the solver is checking back a relatively decent number of strong hands here and that is why we’re seeing the big blind not probe as much, because in theory you can’t just probe into a range that contains fifty percent of Queen Jack offsuit combos, a little bit of those Aces combos, all those other top pairs that we’re talking about.

(11:27):

So let’s ask ourselves, is my opponent checking back as much as the solver is here? The answer is almost certainly no, which means we want to probe more than the solver suggests. Now, how do we build our probing range? We don’t just probe nonsense hands relentlessly with no equity and so on. The way that I would adjust my strategy here is I would be more aggressive with my draws. We can see the solver here with a hand like Seven Six suited or Six Five suited. I would up my frequencies with those high equity bluffs like my flush draws, my straight draws and just stab them more aggressively.

Mike Brady (12:00):

It’s very similar to what I mentioned in the last bluff spot. You basically take all of these mixed frequency bluffs, the hands that the solver is kind of torn between bluffing and checking, and then just bluff them every time knowing that your opponent doesn’t have that proportion of top pairs and overpairs that a solver does. We battle on to bluff spot number four, which is when the board texture shifts dramatically in your favor.

Gary Blackwood (12:28):

Sometimes the turn or the river will be so good for you because you’ve got more turn trips in your range, or river straights in your range, and that shift in board texture will alter your strategy.

Mike Brady (12:40):

Right into an example. Back in a cash game, back with a cutoff raise, you defend from the big blind. The flop comes Eight Seven Four with two diamonds, you check and then call a small bet on that very draw-heavy board. The turn is the five of heart, so the board is Eight Seven Four Five, one-liner to a straight. This card hits you way harder than it hits your opponent. You’re much more likely to have a Six or have two pair in this situation so you can win more pots overall by building a leading range, aka, a donk betting strategy in this situation, that range should include both strong hands like the turn straight and also some bluffs like Ten Nine for a straight draw or any of the flush draws.

Gary Blackwood (13:27):

As we can see with Lucid, this is such a nice turn for our range because, as Mike said, we’ve got more turn two pairs, we’ve got more turn straights than our opponent. The solver is actually just leading out. Gone are the days where we play in flow and we check to the person who bet the last street. There are certain scenarios where we want to build a donk betting range and that is clear here. The turn is so good for our range that we’re not checking to the aggressor, we’re actually just leading out. We’ve got two pairs, we’ve got straights and we’ve got some of these high equity bluffs, hands like Ten Nine, Jack Nine, our turn flush draws. We definitely want to be building a leading range here when the turn is really good for our range.

Mike Brady (14:06):

If you’re watching on YouTube, go ahead and leave a comment if you know of any other good leading spots. There are a number of them, a number of different types of turns on types of boards that allow you as the out of position player to lead out aggressively and I’m curious how well our audience is familiar with them. I should note that this is a little bit of an advanced strategy. If you want to try to implement these leads into your game, highly recommended to toy around with a tool like Lucid. Study these situations and try to understand what exact boards, turns and river combos allow you to have a leading range and then what hands should you lead with. Looking at this Eight Seven Four Five example, the leading range includes a good number of obvious hands, like a Six for a straight, of course, but some of those two pairs that we mentioned get in there as well, like Five Four for bottom two pair leads a nice chunk of the time.

(15:00):

There are even some just random Seven x that lead and it’s kind of hard for me to even tell if these are bluffs or value. So the whole point being it’s a fairly complicated spot and it’s worth looking into if you’re going to try to implement it. Now with all that said, this is just an overarching mechanic in poker. When the board shifts dramatically in your favor, you get to play aggressively and that’s with both your strong hands and your bluffs. So whenever that happens, whether you’re in position, out of position, the aggressor or the caller, you should probably be ramping up your aggression frequency. By the way, have we mentioned that the world’s best poker coach has built a path to poker mastery that you can follow right now? It’s called Upswing Lab 2.0 and it was created by an absolute mastermind of the game Uri Peleg. The feedback has been incredible so far. Head over to upswingpoker.com to sign up for Upswing Lab 2.0 and be sure to use coupon code LEVELUP to get fifty dollars off.

Gary Blackwood (15:59):

Uri will be absolutely loving all the exploitative stuff we’re talking about so far today.

Mike Brady (16:03):

Yeah, that really is his style. He’s a practical poker God. Moving on to our fifth and final bluff spot, which is when you are barreling and draws complete and you have a good blocker to support your bluff. Getting into our final example of the day. Back in a cash game, this time you’re raising it up on the button and the big blind defends. The flop comes Ten Six Deuce with two diamonds. Your opponent check-calls your bet. The turn is the Three of hearts, so the board is Ten Six Deuce Three. Your opponent checks, you bet, and they call again. The river is the Queen of diamonds completing that frontdoor flush draw and your opponent checks again. The final board, Ten Six Deuce Three Queen with three diamonds.

Gary Blackwood (16:55):

This is a great spot to triple barrel bluff when you’ve got a hand like Ace Five with the Ace of diamonds. We’ve made a standard c-bet on the flop, we’ve turned a gut shot so we continue to barrel and then the river is a really quite scary card for the caller here. It’s an overcard to the board, it completes the flush and we can put a lot of pressure on our opponent’s range whilst also holding that key card, that Ace of diamonds, which blocks our opponent’s flushes. It means they’re more likely to hold a second-pair or third-pair-type hand that we can make fold. We’ve got the Ace of diamonds. We block those river flushes that our opponent could have. This is a really nice hand to continue to triple barrel. We can actually flip this example on its head. Let’s say the river is the Queen of spades, for example. This would be a really bad combo to bluff with because we’ve got the Ace of diamonds and we’re now blocking our opponent’s folding range, so it works both ways. When the river is a diamond, we block the flushes. That’s great. When the river is not a diamond, we block our opponents folds and we shouldn’t triple barrel this hand.

Mike Brady (17:58):

You really want your opponent to have a missed flush draw when you are barreling the river. That’s why it’s so important not to block it. These river bluff spots are so juicy when you have the Ace of diamonds that the solver will actually work really hard on earlier streets to reach this point with the Ace of diamonds. Stick with me here, it’s kind of complicated. But again, the board was Ten Six Deuce with two diamonds. The solver will think way ahead and bet the flop and barrel the turn with a hand like Ace of diamonds Eight. So that’s just a bare overcard, no draw, and it does this partially to try to get the fold on the flop or the turn, that’s certainly a good result, but also because when that river is the third diamond, now we have that beautiful Ace-of-diamonds-bluff hand to go for the pot with and try to take it down with a big bet.

Gary Blackwood (18:46):

Remember, when the draws complete, that is a scary card for your opponent a lot of the times and that’s when we should be looking to bluff. And it’s really great when we have that blocker so it’s less likely our opponent has just made their flush or made their straight and those are the spots we should be looking for to barrel our opponents off of their hands.