a hand that never beats any hand in his value range, your EV is 0 to call versus a balanced range. When you have a pure bluff catcher – i.e. If he has 20 combos in his value range he is supposed to find ten bluff combinations. Your pot odds are 2:1 and therefore their bluffs should be 2:1. The example I like to use is there is $100 in the pot and your opponent bets $100. Let’s work with a general assumption: In most games, the population does not bluff the river often enough to be “balanced.”Ī balanced bluffing range is bluffing at the identical frequency of the pot odds. Here is a minimally edited version of what he wrote: But PokerCoaching moderator Joey P, the MTT Hero, cut to the chase. Some people in the thread were looking at the various bluffs the opponent might have and the features of Kevin’s hand as a bluff catcher.

Make the best preflop decisions with Jonathan Little’s Push/Fold Charts! Applying this to bluff catching This is what Nate means by, “They move an inch, we move a mile.” So even though your friend made only a tiny change to their casino choice strategy, your correct response is to radically change your casino choice. Note also that every time you show up at Casino Alpha, your expected loss is $52, $4 more than choosing Casino Beta. Each time you play at Casino Beta, your expected loss is $48 – $2 less than you expected to lose when your friend had a “balanced” casino choice strategy. Note that now the GTO strategy for avoiding your friend is to always play at Casino Beta. They play at Casino Alpha with probability 0.52, and Casino Beta with probability 0.48. If you flip a coin, there’s a 50% chance that you will see your friend, so your expected “loss” (having to pay back the $100) is $50.īut suppose you learn that your friend prefers the coffee at Casino Alpha, so has slightly altered their routine. What is your best (literally GTO) strategy for avoiding them? You should also flip a coin to choose between the two casinos – this will maximize your chances of missing your friend.

You know that your friend also plays poker at those two casinos, and chooses them by flipping a coin, so they have a 50% probability of being at each casino. Each day you go to play poker, at either Casino Alpha or Casino Beta. Suppose you owe a poker buddy $100, and would like to avoid them for a little while so you don’t have to pay them back yet. Here’s a simple explanation of what Nate means, courtesy of Andrew Brokos, and his excellent book, Play Optimal Poker. I say “former,” because Nate has left the poker world to pursue other interests. I wish I could take credit for that line, but I learned it from former poker theorist Nate Meyvis.

Poker calling a bluff