Mixing it up: "pretending" to flop a set

The solid regulars in my game don't pay off my big hands nearly as often as I'd like them to and it's probably because they've noticed that I almost always have the goods when I play a big pot. I think I need to bluff more often and generally do a better job of mixing up my play, against good players.

Here is an idea that I had today. Let's say a solid player raises, and I call with a small pair hoping to flop a set. I know that this player is capable of folding top pair or an overpair to serious post-flop aggression. When I miss my set, sometimes I could "pretend" that I flopped a set, and play the hand as though I have one. I could do this often enough that when I take my "flopped set" line, 2/3 of the time I have one, and 1/3 of the time I'm bluffing. Therefore if my opponent decides to call me down light, he's making a losing play because more often than not, I have a set. But, if he folds to my aggression, I'll steal more pots from him post-flop and hopefully induce him to call me down more often.

I actually flop a set 1/8 of the time, so I should be pretending to flop one 1/16 of the time, or (1/16)/(7/8) = 1/14 of the time that I miss the flop. So if I miss, I can look at the second hand on my watch, and if it's between 1 and 4, pretend that I have a set.

What do you guys think, good idea or terrible?

Sounds solid.

Good idea. I use this at 50NL against players I know are aware (I have 500+ hands on them and I've seen them make good laydowns). If I'm heads-up in position I'll call a flop bet and then raise a turn bet. It has worked well for me over a small sample size. It's very read/situation dependent though... I like to do it with uncoordinated boards when I have a tight image at the table and only against aware opponents.

True, but if you're playing back at them too often on rag flops, that's easily exploitable. They'll just call you down with overpairs and stack you more often than not. I was trying to figure out how often I should be making this play.

Sorry, I didn't read your post carefully enough. I agree that you shouldn't do it very often and your math is correct. I think a 1/3 bluffing frequency sounds about right too. If you make a 1/2 pot size raise with your sets and bluffed sets, then you're bluffing optimally according to Sklansky.

definitely try to run over the solid regulars

once you start tearing them apart they will fear you and you don't see them as so solid anymore

if they dont put up with your BS just tighten back up

that will only work at higher limits. Try mixing up the hands that you farm in the ep with a couple sc (to mix up your play), i like to farm 89s, 910s, and j10s, the same way I farm sets. try to mix up your play when you do flop a set, such as leading into the raiser on the flop (check call flop and any bet from you on the turn gives it away). I like making a play by pretending to flop a set, but it just wont work at lower limits. Id prefer to play aggressively from the button to try to tarnish my table image rather than wild checkraise bluffs.

this works nicely, just make sure you know your opponent.

I don't like it too much. It seems kinda counter-intuitive.

I'd much rather have a draw (at least a gutshot) when I do this.

If you can just play all your 8+ out draws like you play sets, then you are accomplishing exactly what you are talking about, except when you do get calls you have a lot more equity.

I agree. I would rather make that play w/ a hand like 98s where you have a backdoor flush draw or gutshot straight draw. You don't have to actually have a pocket pair to pretend to flop a set. With the suited connectors you are more likely to backdoor a decent hand to bail you out. Not to mention if you back door a flush on some guy w/ 76s and bust his KK he will think you are a huge donkey and you will get all sorts of action from him later when you do flop a set. Low pocket pairs play so easily after the flop I hate to complicate it with bluffs where you have a very little chance to win if the guy calls you down.

Regulars just like us, FTR'ers also deal with sooted fishies everyday and lots of them learned to not pay off chasers & pick off bluffs from busted draws.

Rilla wrote that somewhere:
Draw to straights and use flushcards as scarecards.

Nits hate going broke with one pair hands and if their flop bet will be flat-called on 2-flush board, they will assume you are drawing for flush.

I started to incorporate to my nit-poker some turn raises with air/draw, generally it works against regulars if they know you and you know them. If you bluff & show, even if regular knew what you were doing, rest of table will peg you as postflop nutcase and will pay off their stack with a lot worse garbage than overpair/tptk.

This is when the poker becomes fun.

Originally Posted by Renton

I don't like it too much. It seems kinda counter-intuitive.

I'd much rather have a draw (at least a gutshot) when I do this.

If you can just play all your 8+ out draws like you play sets, then you are accomplishing exactly what you are talking about, except when you do get calls you have a lot more equity.

I'm not accomplishing even close to the same thing if I play all my draws that way, because draws come more frequently than sets, so a thinking player who knew what I was doing could profitably call me down with top pair unless the board didn't have any draws on it. The point of this strategy is to
1) bluff with the correct frequency so that either a calldown or a fold is a -EV decision on my opponent's part.
2) make it more difficult for my opponents to read me, whereas with your strategy they can get a pretty good idea of whether you have a draw or a set based on the texture of the board (of course sometimes you'll have a set on a draw-heavy board and stack them).

Having outs is of course nice, but fold equity is far more important and if you push the envelope too much then you won't have any of it.

Originally Posted by crushednuts

I agree. I would rather make that play w/ a hand like 98s where you have a backdoor flush draw or gutshot straight draw.

I disagree. Seeing as a suited connector flops a decent draw about as often as a pocket pair flops a set, the suited connectors don't seem to have any advantage over the pocket pairs here.

you don't have to play all your draws that way.

I actually like playing passively with draws like 1/2 the time. This game starts to get a tad expensive if you are raising and reraising every draw you have. But the idea is that when someone bets their top pair on the flop and you raise, that they don't know whether you have a draw or a set.

If you instill doubt, you have an edge automatically.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

When I miss my set, sometimes I could "pretend" that I flopped a set, and play the hand as though I have one. I could do this often enough that when I take my "flopped set" line, 2/3 of the time I have one, and 1/3 of the time I'm bluffing.
I actually flop a set 1/8 of the time, so I should be pretending to flop one 1/16 of the time, or (1/16)/(7/8) = 1/14 of the time that I miss the flop. So if I miss, I can look at the second hand on my watch, and if it's between 1 and 4, pretend that I have a set.

Another way to achieve a 1/3 bluffing frequency would be to pick a single card pre-flop as your "bluff out". E.g. if you hold 77 you decide that if the 5 hits on the flop you will represent a flopped set of fives.

pick the two common line sfor sets and draws

call flop raise turn push river
or
raise flop bet(push) turn push river

when you mix up the oesd/flush draw/sets into these two lines your opponents wont have a clue what you have.
Add to that, you have to pick the right opponent to do it to while not destroying your implied odds from a draw and other players in the pot

So if you guys go bonkers on a dry flop like 259 rainbow do you always have a set? That doesn't seem good.

sounds good in theory, but for some reason this always ends in tears whenever I try it.

I do this against some regulars. I have played very nitty poker
for sometime at 25NL and some of the regulars have been
playing back at me. Last weeks I have started to call them down
whenever I have TPTK or better. Ive catched them bluffing
surprisingly often.

I have also taken my flop semibluffs a step further if I miss
them I will represent set at turn or river. Works quite well
against regulars. Although I think its not so +EV in long run
because winnings are so small. And sometimes u run into a real
hand.

I guess i continue this calling strategy for couple of weeks and
then go back to my nitty style

T.

The problem is really that you're more predictable than you might think. If you start playing big on a 2-flush board, people will think you have a draw, not a set! So that leaves you with playing a set on a rainbow board as if it is.. a set. So on a 2-flush board, a set line is.. usually a draw. On a rainbow board, a set line is ALWAYS a set. Too predictable for an aware player not to notice. Especially since this isn't too uncommon.

Btw I don't see why you'd need a system to bluff having a set.. if you notice people fold to your set line too often, then you start using it as a bluff too against those people..

What I meant about the suited connectors is that they give you backdoor possibilities to make your hand. Pretending to flop a set will only work as a bluff if you have a pocket pair as you only have two outs to actually get a set. What I was saying is to pretend to flop a set when you miss a good draw with the suited connectors but have some kind of backdoor possibilities. For example, if you have 9h8h and the flop comes down T 6 2 with one heart, you have a backdoor flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. Here you could pretend to have a set of 6s and still have many cards which can complete a good hand or give you a very strong draw on the turn. This is sort of a semi-bluff as opposed to a full bluff if you have 55 and the flop comes T 7 2. Here if you get called only the 2 fives will help you on the turn...

I find that sometimes I just need to show down one single weak hand from EP to wake up aggression against my big hands again. Like yesterday some TA smack (19/8.5) pretending to just have learned the game from her boyfriend ("AA is the best hand right..?") told the table: "that Borax guy only plays the top hands, so everyone should fold when he bets, right?".

The table folded to all my raises after that and although I could bluff a bit more I got no action on monsters.

I then raised 76s from UTG and won a 50£ pot after the board came 665JJ and KK and ?? stayed in, and after that I got some really nice donations to my AA and KK

I do not do this very often, but if the table shuts down like this, it works nicely to show some speculative hand.

Originally Posted by Borax

Like yesterday some TA smack (19/8.5) pretending to just have learned the game from her boyfriend ("AA is the best hand right..?") told the table: "that Borax guy only plays the top hands, so everyone should fold when he bets, right?".

lol i got someone like that yesterday on my table. some clown pretending they only played once before and that 'her' 'boyfriend told me to watch how everyone plays'. Maybe it was the same person, screename something like 'hannah6', £25NL on william hill perchance?

edit: are you 'yagurax'?

Originally Posted by pantherhound

Originally Posted by Borax

Like yesterday some TA smack (19/8.5) pretending to just have learned the game from her boyfriend ("AA is the best hand right..?") told the table: "that Borax guy only plays the top hands, so everyone should fold when he bets, right?".

lol i got someone like that yesterday on my table. some clown pretending they only played once before and that 'her' 'boyfriend told me to watch how everyone plays'. Maybe it was the same person, screename something like 'hannah6', £25NL on william hill perchance?

edit: are you 'yagurax'?

Yes, could be the one
Smiffy44 I presume?

Originally Posted by Borax

Originally Posted by pantherhound

Originally Posted by Borax

Like yesterday some TA smack (19/8.5) pretending to just have learned the game from her boyfriend ("AA is the best hand right..?") told the table: "that Borax guy only plays the top hands, so everyone should fold when he bets, right?".

lol i got someone like that yesterday on my table. some clown pretending they only played once before and that 'her' 'boyfriend told me to watch how everyone plays'. Maybe it was the same person, screename something like 'hannah6', £25NL on william hill perchance?

edit: are you 'yagurax'?

Yes, could be the one
Smiffy44 I presume?

indeed! I asked you if asshat was a verb but alas the answer must remain a mystery for you did not reply

I had quads on another table when you asked, so I didn't answer at the time, but I have no clue what "asshat" is at all

Anyway, you play very well on the 25£ tables and seem to be a winning player. At least you top my list for net winnings in PT so I might learn something here. What are your BB/100 for 10 000 hands or more? Any tip for the 25£ you like to share?

For me it seems like there are many regulars that it's getting harder to win much from, while the people that just drop in now and then leave their small stacks at the tables. I just wish some of the regulars would stop tapping the aquarium all the time

I also remember I was silly enough to stack off with KK against your AA so I think your at least one stack ahead of me

Good luck at the tables!
(and please don't refer to my forum name at the tables if you don't mind. It's hard enough chasing the fish already )

Originally Posted by Borax

At least you top my list for net winnings in PT so I might learn something here. What are your BB/100 for 10 000 hands or more? Any tip for the 25£ you like to share?

Can I just ask, I'm not big into all these stats on other players and stuff, at the risk of sounding stupid how exactly do you go about getting these? (This has probably been discussed in a million other threads so if anyone wants to post a link).

yeah, £25 on willhill is soft, the fish reveal themselves after roughly 2 hands and the regulars are totally predictable. Just bet hard, look for implied odds, and stay away from me

I use Poker Tracker (PT) as many others do on this forum I think. www.pokertracker.com

It will cost you 55$ but is worth it. You can try it for free for the first 1000 hands. At William Hill for example, I just press a button and every hand is logged directly to the software calculating stats on myself and every opponent.

Also the support on the PT site is very good if you find it hard to get started.