blockers poker strategy

Do Blockers Really Matter? | Upswing Poker Level-Up #40

LISTEN ON YOUR PLATFORM OF CHOICE

(YOU CAN ALSO SEARCH "UPSWING LEVEL UP" WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS)

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady with 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 (00:01):

(Mike) It’s time to upgrade your skills with Upswing Poker Level up, the world’s first and only podcast about poker. My name is Mike Brady and Scottish Poker Pro Gary Blackwood is here to bust some myths about blockers.

Gary (00:13):

(Gary) That’s right guys and girls, we’ll be talking all things blockers in this episode when they’re most important and also equally when they’re not as important as you might think.

What is a Blocker?

Mike (00:23):

(Mike) A blocker is a card held by a player that makes it impossible or less likely that an opponent has a hand that includes that card or a card of the same rank. For example, if there are three spades on the board and I hold the ace of spades, I quote unquote block the nut flush. My opponent cannot have the nut flush when I have the ace of spades. Blockers are a fundamental part of poker strategy, but they’re also one of the most misunderstood parts of poker strategy.

Many players disregard blockers and leave a ton of money on the table because they really do matter in a number of spots. On the other side of the coin, some players overvalue blockers in certain situations and flush money down the toilet as a result.

We’re about to run through three situations in which blockers should play a major role in your strategy. From there, Gary will share three situations in which you should completely ignore blockers and make your decision based on more consequential factors. Let’s dive right into it.

Gary, what is the first situation in which blockers really matter?

When Blockers Matter #1 – On the River (When Ranges are Narrow)

Gary (01:28):

(Gary) Your blockers are most important on the river. As ranges get narrower, blockers become more important, and as a result, the cards that you hold will help you make your decisions more than any other point in the hand. One really great example of this with really narrow ranges is from a hand that I played recently.

The button opens, I defend the big blind, we go heads up to eight four deuce with two diamonds.

Flop goes check check and the six of spades hits the turn.

I lead out from the big blind for 75% pot, my opponent makes the call and on the jack of spades river I blocked.

The solver is splitting between small and medium sized bets. Here my opponent then raised my block bet to a large size and if we look at the hands that want to three bet jam as a bluff, they are really, really defined by our blockers. We want to block our opponent from having pocket sixes, eight six suited, jack six and jack eight suited. And we also want to block seven five as well. Hands like seven six suited, six five offsuit, eight five suited, eight seven suited that block both the straights and the two pairs and the sets. These are the combos that 90% of our bluffs are derived from.

Mike (02:39):

(Mike) So once again, this board is eight four two turn six river jack. So seven five is the nut straight and then obviously some of the strongest possible hands are sets, a set of eights, a set of sixes and so on. Gary’s point here is that when we are running a big bluff on this river, in this case we bet small on the river, faced a raise and now we’re considering a bluff all in jam against that raise, the hands that we want to do that with all have blockers to those strongest possible hands in our opponent’s range.

We don’t want our opponent to have pocket eights, pocket sixes or seven five when we go all in because he’s going to call put simply. So when we bluff we want to have a hand like eight five suited, which blocks both of them. It blocks a set of eights and it blocks seven five.

(03:25):

We want to have a hand like seven six or eight seven, same exact thing. We block not only the nut straight, but we also block sets and all of those hands are the hands that are going to call this river jam. And if we go another step back this range that our opponent has on the river, we’ve already seen them raise pre flop, they check back on the flop, then they call the bet on the turn and then raised on the river. Only a very narrow range of hands is going to take all of those actions. Every single action they have taken so far has narrowed what they could have so they don’t have just a ton of hands in their range. They’ve already narrowed it quite a bit to not so many combos. The total range is only about 130 combos, which is really not that much.

(04:07):

And then looking at the composition of that range, there are some overpairs in there that slow-played on the flop. There are some rivered top pairs, things of that nature that do raise on the river, but then the hands that are able to then call our river all in are pretty specific. He calls when he has a two pair hand like jack eight, a set like pocket sixes, the nut straight with seven five. A handful of overpairs do make the call, although I’d question whether a human opponent would make those calls. But the point is we really want to be blocking those major call hands like the two pairs that involve a six or an eight, like the straight, like the set of sixes.

That’s what we want to be blocking here. So we don’t just bluff with some random hand here, we don’t just bluff because we think they’re weak. We bluff because we have the right combination to do it with and it’s a combination that blocks a considerable portion of the hands with which they will call.

Put simply, by bluffing with the proper hands here, the hands with good blockers to their calling range, our bluff is going to work considerably more often and net us more profit in the long run.

Gary (05:12):

(Gary) And this is a very specific example but it’s one that Mike and I have chosen on purpose to sort of really drill home our first point here of just how important your blockers are on the river and also when you’re playing for stacks if you want to run a crazy block then three bet bluff jam all in for all the chips. You can see just how important your blockers are here and you want to be choosing the right combination. So when you get to the river, when you want to play for stacks, when ranges get really narrow, I cannot stress how important it is that you’re choosing the combos that have the best blockers. You want to block your opponent’s ability to call you off in this spot. So your blockers are so important.

Mike (05:52):

(Mike) And this was an extreme example like Gary said, I bet a lot of people listening can count on one hand or maybe even zero hands how many times they’ve blocked the river and then went all in over a raise. It’s a fairly rare line, especially if you play live, but this advice does track for any deep in the game tree river scenario.

It could be a more simple scenario like you raise pre-flop, you bet on the flop, you bet on the turn and now you’re considering an all-in bet on the river or maybe it’s a three bet pot and you bet on the flop and the turn went check check. It’s the same idea. Whenever a lot of actions have been taken that has narrowed the ranges considerably, that’s when these blockers are going to be super, super critical.

Moving on Gary, what is the second situation in which unblockers matter?

When (Un)Blockers Matter #2 – Triple Barreling

Gary (06:37):

(Gary) So following on from that last answer again talking about general river strategy. When choosing combos that want to triple barrel, we want to focus on not quite our blockers but our unblockers. This is a concept we’ve spoken about on past episodes, but again it’s really important stuff.

Mike (06:55):

(Mike) Let’s define unblockers really quick just to make sure everyone’s on the same page. So it’s very much the same idea as blockers, it’s just kind of the other side of the coin. So unblocking refers to holding a card that does not lower the probability that an opponent has a certain hand. It’s sort of the opposite of a blocker. In other words, an unblocker is a card that makes hands that don’t contain that card more likely. I won’t give an example of unblocking yet because you’re about to get one.

Gary (07:24):

(Gary) So let’s use a three bet pot for this example. The button has opened, the small blind has three bet and the button has made the call. We go heads up to queen seven deuce with two clubs. The small blind is going to bet small here for 25% on the flop, the button is going to make the call. We go heads up to the turn, which is the eight of hearts we barrel again from the small blind this time for 75% on the turn and again the button makes the call. The river is the three of diamonds and most of our club combos now are giving up. Hands like jack ten of clubs, jack nine of clubs, almost all of our nut flush draws. They bet the flop, they bet the turn because they have equity and then they give up on the river. We have very bad blockers here blocking our opponents folding range. You think of the types of hands that the button is going to call the flop, call the turn and then fold the river with it is their club draws. So from the point of view of the small blind, we don’t bluff these hands and instead we choose hands that have better blockers. IE, they don’t block their opponents folding range, hands like ten nine, jack nine, ace king offsuit. All these types of hands make for far better bluffs on the river because they don’t block our opponents folding range.

Mike (08:36):

(Mike) It really stinks to have a missed flush draw when you are considering bluffing in a spot like this. So once again the board was queen seven two with two clubs and the turn and river bricked off. They were not clubs, they were not over cards. Think about the types of hands that your opponent would call the pre-flop three bet with in position, then call a flop bet, then call the turn bet with on this queen seven two, 2 club board, they’re going to have a lot of flush draws. Ace five of clubs, ten nine of clubs, king ten of clubs, ace jack of clubs. I could probably list these for a good two minutes. There’s a lot of flush draws in their range. They’re also going to fold to a river bet because they’ve missed their flush so of their folding range, a really good chunk of it is a missed flush draw.

(09:21):

Therefore you don’t want to have a missed flush draw yourself because that weights them away from having a missed flush draw which will fold and it weights them towards having a made hand which may call. By having jack ten of clubs here or ace jack of clubs here, we essentially make it more likely that our opponent has king queen, which is top pair that’s probably going to call the river or maybe a hand like a set of eights that they hit on the turn or maybe a hand like a set of sevens that they’ve slow played on the flop and turn. So you really don’t want to be bluffing with a missed flush draw on this spot. Rather you want to bluff with hands that unblock the missed flush draw. So a perfect bluffing hand on this river would be a hand like jack ten of diamonds.

(10:06):

It’s a hand you three bet pre flop. You bet on the flop as a continuation bet, you had some backdoor draws. You turn a gut shot so you continue barreling queen seven two, turn eight, you continue barreling with your jack ten of diamonds and then the river bricks off. You have jack ten of diamonds and you don’t block their missed flush draws. So this is a slam dunk all in. Every time you get to this river with jack ten suited no clubs, you are going to be bluffing all in. It has perfect unblockers and not bad blockers.

Now there is one interesting effect here. You might think based on the advice we just gave you that you wouldn’t want to bluff with a hand like ace of clubs king. So you do block that missed flush draw, but you don’t have two clubs in your hand, you just have Ace King you bet twice for whatever reason. It’s something the solver would do here. So you get to this river, you have ace of clubs king on this queen seven deuce, 2 clubs board turn eight, river three, flush misses. So the ace of clubs does block their missed flush draws. However, sometimes the solver will bluff with this hand on the river and I know Gary has a quick tangent for why that is.

Gary (11:14):

(Gary) Yeah, sometimes the solver will bluff with one bad blocker, but having two is really bad. You’ll rarely find the solver triple barrel in this spot with two bad blockers. Sometimes one is okay in certain spots, but having two bad blockers is a big no-no. And that doesn’t only pertain to flush draws. If you think of another extreme example where your opponent’s calling range is pocket jacks and pocket tens, you can sometimes bluff with a hand like King ten or Queen ten or Queen Jack, but never with Jack ten. Not all the time, sometimes having one bad blocker is okay, but generally bluffing with two is a big, big no-no.

Mike (11:52):

(Mike) I think the reason the solver will still bluff with some of these ace of club’s hands is put simply it needs more bluffs in its range. It reaches this river with quite a narrow range. We’ve three bet pre-flop, bet flop, bet turn. Now we’re considering betting river, our range is quite narrow and we have a wide value range.

We’re going to be jamming this river with Aces, kings, ace queen, sets. So a lot of value hands in our range and we need to balance those out with some bluffs and there just aren’t that many bluffs that aren’t missed flush draws or that have a single missed flush draw card in them. So I think, and this is kind of a teaser to a situation we’re going to talk about later, I just think the solver, if it were a person would kind of say Here, I wish I didn’t have the Ace of clubs here.

(12:35):

It’s probably not ideal. It does block their missed ace high flush draws, but I don’t have so many bluffs to choose from. I can’t be picky and I have to balance out my value range. So I’m going to bluff with this hand too. One more interesting note about Ace King here. So we have Lucid up on our screen. If you’re listening, I’ll just describe it to you on this river, the Ace King, no club, so a hand like ace of diamonds, king of hearts or a hand like ace of hearts, king of diamonds, which does get to this river sometimes in this line that hand actually checks, does not bluff. And at first you might think, I would think that hand would bluff because it doesn’t block those missed flush draws.

But if you dive a little deeper into the game tree using Lucid here, I’m going to make the small blind check. Then I’m going to make the button go all in. And if we look at how the small blind plays, the small blind actually check calls this river with those ace king hands. So ace of diamonds, king of hearts checks on this river with Ace high and then calls the jam. Same thing with several other of the Ace King offsuit combos that don’t contain a club. Gary, you want to speculate as to why that is?

Gary (13:40):

(Gary) The solver is just an animal. Sometimes the solver plays against the solver. It knows what the in position shoving range looks like. We’re going to delve into that a little deeper ourselves in just a few minutes. But yeah, I mean it makes a lot of sense. It’s bet the flop, it’s bet the turn, it’s made those decisions independently and then on the river it decides to check it’s not a great bluffing candidate and then the button then moves all in and those Ace King combos unblock the button’s bluffs.

So even though it’s just Ace High, it’s a nice candidate for the solver to call. One last thing while we’re off on this tangent. The solver doesn’t differentiate between having a pair or Ace High or Queen high or two pair or a set. If its hand is strong enough and it’s beating enough bluffs, the solver makes the call. There are no hand rankings in Solver Land. If it’s beating enough bluffs and it wins often enough, it elects to call, Ace High and top pair are the same thing for the solver. It doesn’t differentiate between hands, it’s whether or not his hand is profitable to call.

Mike (14:35):

(Mike) Indeed, that’s a great advanced note. One more note on this Ace King off call that is a little bit out of scope of the episode, but it is a fascinating one. I hope listeners are enjoying it. So if we look at the shoving range for the button at equilibrium, they’re shoving with a lot of missed draws. So hands like Jack nine, Jack ten, ten nine, bunch of missed flush draws are going to be shoving the river as the button as well. And Ace King off beats all those hands put simply. Yeah, the solver does run into some value sometimes, it checks the river calls the all in with Ace King offsuit and it was just up against a queen and the button just got a ton of value against Ace High, but sometimes the button’s going to just have that missed straight draw with ten nine or sometimes it’s going to have the missed flush draw with a hand like Ace five suited and that’s the situation where the Ace King off is going to win a huge pot with just Ace King High. Of course against your human opponents.

They’re probably not nearly as wide as the solver unless they’re a very, very good strong player. So is this the most practical advice if you play something like one three? No, but it is still very fascinating and it’s interesting to learn about these mechanics and heuristics because even if they don’t apply directly to your games or the specifics of your environment, they can still be quite helpful in deepening your understanding of poker and that’s going to help you make better decisions based on the specifics in your games.

Gary (15:56):

(Gary) The whole episode that we’re talking about today is we’re talking about blockers and the unblockers. We’ve just spoken about how Ace King unblocks the buttons bluffs. It also has the best of both worlds because it unblocks those bluffs but it also blocks the best Queen X that the button can have at the same time. So it’s a wonderful check call combo if you really think about it. It unblocks bluffs, it blocks value, it makes the call with ace high.

Mike (16:19):

(Mike) I do think I would consider this call against a somewhat loose strong player even, would I do it against some old guy or the old man coffee that people like to refer to online? Probably not. But if it’s a decent seeming player who’s probably playing somewhat loose against the three bet, calling with the proper hands on the flop and turn, I think you can make a really sick call here with Ace King High and it’s going to work out decently, but again, that’s only against certain people.

When Blockers Matter #3 – 4-Betting

Alright Gary, what is the third situation in which blockers really matter?

Gary (16:53):

(Gary) So let’s talk a little bit about pre-flop things. Now, when choosing your pre-flop four bet bluffs, we can look at a variety of scenarios starting off with under the gun versus middle position. Let’s say under the gun opens, middle position three bets, under the gun is going to four bet a lot of hands that may be surprising to some of our listeners. Ace Queen suited, Ace Jack suited, Ace ten suited the Ace is really important in these narrow range scenarios because you really want to block your opponent’s strongest hands like Aces and Ace King.

You four bet very little Jack ten, queen ten, Queen Jack, all these types of hands because your blockers when you hold Jack ten and Queen ten and Queen Jack, they’re not as good in this super tight scenario. So you really want to have really, really nice blockers when choosing your four bet bluffs. Having an ace is extremely important.

Mike (17:44):

(Mike) It makes sense that Jack ten suited wouldn’t want a four bet, right? Because when you think about what a player might be three betting against a raise that isn’t super strong, it’s going to be the queen jack suited, the Jack nine suited the Jack ten suited. So by having Jack ten suited yourself, you weigh them more towards those really high card hands like the Ace King, Ace Queen, Queens, Aces kings, et cetera. So you just want to have an ace or a king yourself.

That’s why King Queen suited does some four betting as well. Gary didn’t mention that one, but it does like to get in there. King Jack suited even likes to get in there a bit, blocking Ace King, Kings and Jacks. Ace Jack suited, Ace ten suited, Ace five suited and Ace four suited are kind of the classic four bet bluffs that a lot of people like to mix in that it’s almost a meme at this point how much the solver likes Ace five suited and indeed in this situation the Ace five suited four bets a very, very chunky percentage of the time, over half the time against this three bet.

(18:38):

So you really want to be composing your four bet bluffing range around these hands that have good blockers.

Gary (18:45):

(Gary) Yeah, let’s move around the table a little bit now to some wider range scenarios. Say cutoff versus button. The cutoff opens, the button three bets, we’re going to take a little look at the cutoffs four bet range here, we can see that the four bet bluff range widens a lot here, but still very Ace x heavy. Lots of ace queen offsuit now, some pre-flop charts have got Ace Jack offsuit as well. Even more of these strong ace jack, ace ten suited, the frequencies are going up and then you’ve got Ace five and Ace four suited as well, but crucially still very little, ten nine, Jack ten, queen ten and so on. Given the wideness of both players ranges, you’ll see Jack ten suited four betting a little more than under the gun versus middle position, but still not very often.

Overall blocking the absolute strongest parts of your opponent’s range is really important here while still allowing for some playability post flop. If you four bet ace ten suited and get called, your flush draws will dominate your opponent’s flush draws. When you four bet the Ace five suited, you flop a wheel draw, you’ve got that gut shot, you’ve got your Ace as an out, you’ve got a backdoor flush draw. All these types of flops are pretty good for you in a four bet pot. It’s really important that we are choosing some hands that might look like just pure calls and we add those to our four bet bluffing range. And the reason for that: good blockers.

Mike (19:59):

(Mike) The common thread between these three scenarios where blockers have mattered is narrow ranges. We were talking about the river scenarios. Those are kind of the most obvious examples of narrow range spots because it takes several decision points to get to the river. But pre-flop four betting is very similar. You’ve opened, your opponent has chosen to attack your open. You’ve said I have a hand worth playing by raising, they’ve said, I see that you have a hand worth playing and I don’t care, I’m reraising.

So they’ve already narrowed their range quite a bit with that three bet and now it’s back on you and it’s a very narrow range spot. So blockers matter. So that’s a big takeaway and you’re going to notice the opposite in the situations we’re about to go over where blockers don’t matter. When ranges are narrow, blockers are super important and should drive your strategy, especially when bluffing and bluff catching.

When Blockers Don’t Matter #1 – When Your Opponent Just Won’t Fold

Moving on Gary to the part of the episode that I think people who hate blockers are going to like, when blockers don’t matter, what is the first situation in which you should all but disregard blockers?

Gary (21:01):

(Gary) Let’s talk a little bit about exploitative poker. Now picture the scene, you’re on the river, there’s three spades on the board. Your opponent bets. You’ve got ace high with the ace of spades, you’ve got enough behind to go all in and still have good fold equity. It seems like a great spot to shove all in as a bluff here. What if your opponent is a massive calling station? He’s never folding a baby flush. Hell, he’s never folding two pair.

In theory this will likely be a great spot to shove it in, but exploitatively just folding is going to be the best play. A lot of people are too theory oriented and just focus on what the solver would do, but you have to think about your opponent’s tendencies, particularly if we’re playing live. There are some big, big calling stations out there, bluff those guys a whole lot less even with your good bluffs and instead exploit these players by taking them to value town instead.

Mike (21:52):

(Mike) I think in a lot of these spots too, sometimes these calling station passive players will have narrowed their range to only hands that will call, which makes bluffing really, really bad. So for example, Gary just used, it’s a three spade board. It doesn’t really matter what the specific scenario is, but let’s say a couple bets have one in post flop so your opponent’s not messing around, right? We’re not in a wide range spot, we’re in a fairly narrow range spot and your opponent who’s generally pretty passive and kind of a calling station decides to bet, let’s say decently big on the river. A lot of players especially live when they’ve taken those actions, they’ve reached a narrow range spot on a scary board and they’ve bet big, they probably just have a quite good hand. They probably just have two pair of better. Maybe they don’t even bet two pair.

(22:39):

Maybe the range is just sets and flushes. And then let’s say you just look down and you’re like, oh man, I have the perfect bluffing combo. This is the perfect blocker. I just learned from Gary and Mike a few minutes ago that narrow range spots, I’m supposed to be bluffing with this blocker and you decide to go all in and then they snap you off with a set or a small flush that in theory they should consider folding but they’re a calling station. So they just call it. And then not only that, they’ve narrowed their range to only be those hands. They wouldn’t have bet with anything else. So you’re essentially bluffing into a range that is never folding. You’re just saying, Hey buddy, you can have all my chips or I’m going to double you up. I don’t need ’em. I’m just going to follow theory blindly and pay you off despite the fact that you don’t really deserve to be paid off.

(23:25):

You’re playing in a way that doesn’t necessitate you bluffing in this way. They don’t have a balanced range. They’re not making some hero folds, so you don’t need to bluff them. You could just adjust your strategy. Only jam in that situation for value. Maybe if you still want to mix in a handful of bluffs, maybe you could do it a tiny microscopic percentage of the time just if it makes you feel a little better. But for the most part you want to be value heavy and you want to make sure that when you’re sticking in all that money against their range that probably isn’t folding, you have a hand that beats their calling range over 50% of the time. It’s that simple.

When Blockers Don’t Matter #2 – When Ranges are Wide

Alright Gary, what is the second situation in which players overrate the value of blockers?

Gary (24:06):

(Gary) On the flop in single raised pots where ranges are really wide, people tend to get this specific scenario we’re going to talk about the wrong way round. Say it’s button versus big blind, you’re on the button and the flop is ten eight five with two clubs, you’re supposed to check your pocket Aces here sometimes, some people will check with a club and bet without a club. They think that having the Ace of clubs is bad here because they quote unquote block their opponent’s flush draws.

This is a single raised pot, you’ve opened on the button, the big blind has called, ranges are really wide, your opponent has infinite flush draws here. You bet with the club yourself because you want to have that little bit extra equity. As well as that, blocking a hand that’s got nine outs, which is around 35% equity versus your pair is pretty good. So in this scenario where there are two clubs and one diamond on the board, bet more often with your strong hands that have the backdoor flush draw, don’t worry about blocking your opponent’s flush draws. Both ranges are so wide, your opponent’s got infinite flush draws and you having one club in your hand here for example, you actually block so little.

Mike (25:09):

(Mike) Yeah, put simply you want to build the pot a little bit more with your Aces when you have the club on this two club board because it’s a higher value pair of Aces. You’d rather have the ace of clubs on a ten eight five, 2 clubs board with your pocket Aces than not have it because if the turn’s a club you don’t hate it so much.

Whereas if you have red Aces and the turn is a club, it’s not as fun. So yeah, great point from Gary there. We’re going to want to steer towards betting with the single club in these spots with an overpair. And again, this is a wide range spot, blockers just aren’t as important. It’s a more holistic, simple game in this scenario. Blockers do play a role, don’t get me wrong, but not nearly as much as just the value of your hand, the equity of your hand and how your ranges match up against each other.

(25:54):

Before we wrap this thing up with the third situation in which you should pretty much forget blockers exist, attention tournament players, you have about a week left to take advantage of the World Series of Tournament Sale at upswingpoker.com.

If you’ve considered upgrading your game with a course made by an elite player, now is the time to get off the fence. All of the courses and bundles currently on sale were made by pros who have won literally tens of millions of dollars in tournaments. I didn’t misspeak, tens of millions in profit.

Get between 30 and 51% off right now. Best time of the year to upgrade your tournament skills.

wsot sale

Alright, Gary, let’s get into it. The third and final spot in which blockers don’t really matter.

When Blockers Don’t Matter #3 – When Your Range Lacks Bluffs

Gary (26:41):

(Gary) We’re going to use the exact same board and positions as we did earlier today. Small blind versus button three bet pot, the small blind is bet the flop and the turn and is now checked on the river. Earlier the small blinds blockers really mattered when selecting which combos to triple barrel with. Now let’s look at the other side of the coin and about why the button having clubs does not matter. IE the buttons blockers are not relevant. The small blind doesn’t want to shove clubs on the river because they block the button’s hands that fold and the small blind has a lot of other bluff combos to choose from here. Now the button probably doesn’t want to shove clubs here because it blocks the small blinds folds, but the difference is the button has no choice. The button’s range here is so heavily defined by the fact that they have called the flop and called the turn.

(27:28):

It removes virtually everything else from their range and they’re now forced to bluff with flush draws here because they’ve got nothing else. Some players live by this mantra of I can’t ever bluff with a missed flush draw. And sometimes it is true. We saw earlier from the point of view of the small blind, but as we can see here, it’s equally important that we ignore that in the right situations where our blockers don’t matter and we bluff those missed flush draws. There’s just so little else for us to bluff with here that we’re forced to bluff with our missed flush draws.

Mike (27:59):

(Mike) Yeah, it’s like I said earlier, sometimes your range is so narrow and you have so few potential bluffing hands in your range that you just can’t be picky. If you have jack high, you have no showdown value. You have to balance out your value range. You can’t only shove with value unless you’re up against that guy we were talking about a few minutes ago. So you have to bluff with that jack ten of clubs. Yeah, it’s not ideal that you block their missed flush draws that are going to fold, but what else are you going to do? You have to bluff with something and you have so few bluffs to choose from. You just don’t have the luxury of being picky. So we bluff with these missed flush draws and hands that block their folds sometimes simply because we don’t really have much of a choice.

(28:41):

We don’t have other bluffs to choose from. Thanks a ton for listening to this very nerdy episode about blockers. I knew it was going to be nerdy going in, but dang. Did we go on some nerdy tangents? Hope you enjoyed it. Hope you found the extra nerdy out of scope stuff interesting at the very least, and I’m sure you found that blocker advice helpful. Good luck putting it into use during your next session. We’ll see you in the next episode of Upswing Level Up. We might be taking a few week break, but we’ll see you soon.