Friday, February 29, 2008

Double Barreling, and Bluffing in General

One aspect of my game I don't feel like I have improved upon much playing 10 tables of $25NL is bluffing in non-standard spots. Obviously I cbet most of the time (~90% when heads up, probably 40-60% when in a 3-way pot) as is appropriate for my TAG style. I will also steal pots with weak holdings or complete air when opponents act weak. Last night I made a bluff I'm particularly proud of (as I rarely make big bluffs at pots), where I shoved my stack on the river (which was roughly pot size), after an opponent called my C-bet and then bet weak on the turn. I had complete air at the time, but the weak turn bet coupled with a reasonably scary river was enough to convince to me that the villian would fold >50% of the time, as he did.

However, what I commonly have problems with is when a fairly standard TAG floats my flop cbet on a low flop which I missed. Normally I give up and they steal the pot on the turn, unless I catch a card of course. That said, there's got to be some spots where I can take the pot down, because they simply will have to fold their mid sized pocket pair again a strong turn bet/raise. I know the common advice on 2+2 and other forums is not to two barrel at the stakes I'm playing, but I would definitely like to work on picking appropriate spots, as it is a tactic I know I'll need to use more often as I move up the limits.

Writing this out just brought on another realization: because very few people fire two barrels at uNL stakes, I should start floating the TAG regs more often (but not the nits) with midsize PPs on low flops! I very likely do not do this enough, and doing it moreso will simply require paying closer attention to opponent stats.

So to sum up...
(1) I need to find good places to fire two barrels as a learning exercise, even though it may not be necessary at the stakes I currently play.
(2) I need to float low flops with PPs when playing heads up with TAGs in order to steal pots on the turn, because most of them will not fire multiple barrels.

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