May 22, 2024 • 29 mins
This podcast reveals the truth about blockers in poker. Upgrade your tournament skills and save up to 51% during the World Series of Tournaments sale at Upswing Poker https://upswingpoker.com/wsot-sale/
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 money on the table. Other players over-value blockers in certain situations and flush money down the toilet as a result.
***CORRECTION 11:36***
Gary meant to say "where your opponent's FOLDING range is Jacks and Tens" (he mistakenly said calling)
Article Version of this Episode
00:00 Introduction to Rake Strategy
02:14 Rake Structures Around the World
03:55 Adjusting Strategies for High Rake Games
05:14 Tightening Big Blind Defense in High Rake
08:31 Adjusting for Multi-Way Pots and Rake
13:14 Additional Tips for Playing in Raked Games
16:37 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
20:29 Importance of Chopping the Blinds
In this episode of our poker strategy podcast, hosts Mike Brady and Gary Blackwood discuss the impact of rake on your game and how to adjust your strategy to beat it. Rake, the fee taken by the house from each pot, can significantly affect your profitability, especially in low-stakes games where the percentage of the pot taken can be quite high. Understanding how to adjust your play based on the rake structure is crucial for any serious poker player, whether you’re playing live or online.
The episode begins with an overview of different rake structures, from high-rake environments, where more than four big blinds are taken out of the pot, to low-rake games and even no-rake games, like home games or those with time-based seat fees. Mike and Gary explain how these different environments impact your pot odds and strategic incentives, emphasizing the need to adjust your strategy accordingly to avoid leaving money on the table.
Listeners will learn how to tighten their ranges and adopt a more aggressive approach in high-rake games. Gary shares his tips for three-betting more frequently and trimming marginal hands from your defending range to counteract the impact of rake. The hosts also explore how to adjust when playing in low or no-rake games, allowing for a looser style and taking advantage of the extra equity available in these more favorable settings.
This poker strategy podcast also covers the importance of understanding your opponents' tendencies and using this information to make more profitable decisions. Mike and Gary highlight the benefits of playing tighter in multi-way pots and discuss when to fold or adjust your strategies based on the rake and your opponents' actions.
Finally, the hosts provide insights into additional adjustments you should make in different rake environments, such as chopping the blinds in high-rake games to minimize the money lost to the house. Whether you’re grinding micro stakes online or playing in a home game with no rake, this episode provides practical advice to help you navigate any poker environment.
Tune in to this poker strategy podcast to learn how to beat the rake and maximize your win rate with e
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:01):
It's time to upgrade your skills with Upswing Poker Level up,
the world's first andonly podcast about poker.
My name is Mike Brady and Scottish PokerPro Gary Blackwood is here to bust some
myths about blockers.
Gary (00:13):
That's right guys and girls,
we'll be talking all things blockers inthis episode when they're most important
and also equally when they're notas important as you might think.
Mike (00:23):
A blocker is a card held by a player that makes it impossible or less
likely that an opponent has a hand thatincludes that card or a card of the same
rank. For example,
if there are three spades on theboard and I hold the ace of spades,
I quote unquote block the nut flush.
My opponent cannot have the nutflush when I have the ace of spades.
Blockers are a fundamentalpart of poker strategy,
(00:45):
but they're also one of the mostmisunderstood parts of poker strategy.
Many players disregard blockers andleave a ton of money on the table because
they really do matter in a number ofspots. On the other side of the coin,
some players overvalue blockers incertain situations and flush money down
the toilet as a result.
(01:05):
We're about to run through threesituations in which blockers should play a
major role in your strategy. From there,
Gary will share three situations inwhich you should completely ignore
blockers and make your decisionbased on more consequential factors.
Let's dive right into it. Gary,
what is the first situation inwhich blockers really matter?
Gary (01:28):
Your blockers are most important on the river. As ranges get narrower,
blockers become moreimportant, and as a result,
the cards that you hold will help youmake your decisions more than any other
point in the hand.
One really great example of this withreally narrow ranges is from a hand that I
played recently. The buttonopens, I defend the big blind,
we go heads up to eight fourdeuce with two diamonds.
(01:50):
Flop goes check check and thesix of spades hits the turn.
I lead out from the big blind for 75% pot,
my opponent makes the call and onthe jack of spades river I blocked.
As we can see, the solver is splittingbetween small and medium sized bets.
Here my opponent then raised myblock bet to a large size and if we
look at the hands that want to threebet jam as a bluff, they are really,
(02:13):
really defined by our blockers.
We want to block our opponent fromhaving pocket sixes, eight six suited,
jack six and jack eight suited.
And we also want to block seven fiveas well. Hands like seven six suited,
six five offsuit, eight five suited,
eight seven suited that block both thestraights and the two pairs and the sets.
(02:34):
These are the combos that 90%of our bluffs are derived from.
Mike (02:39):
So once again, this board is eight four two turn six river jack.
So seven five is the nut straight andthen obviously some of the strongest
possible hands are sets, a set ofeights, a set of sixes and so on.
Gary's point here is that when we arerunning a big bluff on this river,
in this case we bet small on the river,
faced a raise and now we're consideringa bluff all in jam against that
(03:02):
raise,
the hands that we want to dothat with all have blockers to
those strongest possiblehands in our opponent's range.
We don't want our opponentto have pocket eights,
pocket sixes or seven five when we goall in because he's going to call put
simply. So when we bluff we want tohave a hand like eight five suited,
(03:22):
which blocks both of them. It blocks aset of eights and it blocks seven five.
We want to have a hand like sevensix or eight seven, same exact thing.
We block not only the nut straight,
but we also block sets and all of thosehands are the hands that are going to
call this river jam.
And if we go another step back thisrange that our opponent has on the river,
we've already seen them raise preflop, they check back on the flop,
(03:44):
then they call the bet on theturn and then raised on the river.
Only a very narrow range of hands isgoing to take all of those actions.
Every single action they have taken sofar has narrowed what they could have so
they don't have just a tonof hands in their range.
They've already narrowed it quitea bit to not so many combos.
The total range is only about 130combos, which is really not that much.
(04:07):
And then looking at thecomposition of that range,
there are some overpairs in therethat slow-played on the flop.
There are some rivered top pairs,
things of that nature thatdo raise on the river,
but then the hands that are able tothen call our river all in are pretty
specific. He calls when he hasa two pair hand like jack eight,
a set like pocket sixes, thenut straight with seven five.
A handful of overpairs do make the call,
(04:30):
although I'd question whether a humanopponent would make those calls.
But the point is we really wantto be blocking those major call
hands like the two pairs that involvea six or an eight, like the straight,
like the set of sixes. That'swhat we want to be blocking here.
So we don't just bluffwith some random hand here,
we don't just bluff becausewe think they're weak.
(04:50):
We bluff because we have the rightcombination to do it with and it's a
combination that blocks a considerableportion of the hands with which they will
call. Put simply, by bluffingwith the proper hands here,
the hands with good blockersto their calling range,
our bluff is going to work considerablymore often and net us more profit in the
(05:10):
long run.
Gary (05:12):
And this is a very specific example but it's one that Mike and I have
chosen on purpose to sort of really drillhome our first point here of just how
important your blockers are on the riverand also when you're playing for stacks
if you want to run a crazy block thenthree bet bluff jam all in for all the
chips.
You can see just how important yourblockers are here and you want to be
(05:34):
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 thatyou're choosing the combos that have
the best blockers.
You want to block your opponent'sability to call you off in this spot.
So your blockers are so important.
Mike (05:52):
And this was an extreme example like Gary said,
I bet a lot of people listening can counton one hand or maybe even zero hands
how many times they've blocked theriver and then went all in over a raise.
It's a fairly rare line,especially if you play live,
but this advice does track forany deep in the game tree river
scenario. It could be a more simplescenario like you raise pre-flop,
(06:13):
you bet on the flop,
you bet on the turn and now you'reconsidering an all-in bet on the river or
maybe it's a three bet pot and you beton the flop and the turn went check
check. It's the same idea.
Whenever a lot of actions have beentaken that has narrowed the ranges
considerably, that's when these blockersare going to be super, super critical.
Moving on Gary,
what is the second situationin which unblockers matter?
Gary (06:37):
So following on from that last answer again talking about general river
strategy. When choosing combosthat want to triple barrel,
we want to focus on not quiteour blockers but our unblockers.
This is a concept we'vespoken about on past episodes,
but again it's really important stuff.
Mike (06:55):
Let's define unblockers really quick just to make sure everyone's on the
same page. So it's very muchthe same idea as blockers,
it's just kind of theother side of the coin.
So unblocking refers to holdinga card that does not lower the
probability that anopponent has a certain hand.
It's sort of the opposite ofa blocker. In other words,
an unblocker is a card that makeshands that don't contain that card more
(07:18):
likely.
I won't give an example of unblockingyet because you're about to get one.
Gary (07:24):
So let's use a three bet pot for this example. The button has opened,
the small blind has three betand the button has made the call.
We go heads up to queenseven deuce with two clubs.
The small blind is going to betsmall here for 25% on the flop,
the button is going to make thecall. We go heads up to the turn,
which is the eight of hearts we barrelagain from the small blind this time for
75% on the turn and againthe button makes the call.
(07:48):
The river is the three of diamondsand most of our club combos now
are giving up. Handslike jack ten of clubs,
jack nine of clubs, almostall of our nut flush draws.
They bet the flop,
they bet the turn because they haveequity and then they give up on the river.
We have very bad blockers hereblocking our opponents folding range.
(08:10):
You think of the types of hands thatthe button is going to call the flop,
call the turn and then fold theriver with it is their club draws.
So from the point ofview of the small blind,
we don't bluff these hands and insteadwe choose hands that have better
blockers. IE, they don't blocktheir opponents folding range,
hands like ten nine, jacknine, ace king offsuit.
All these types of hands make for farbetter bluffs on the river because they
(08:33):
don't block our opponents folding range.
Mike (08:36):
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 seventwo with two clubs and the turn and
river bricked off. They were notclubs, they were not over cards.
Think about the types of hands that youropponent would call the pre-flop three
bet with in position,then call a flop bet,
then call the turn bet with onthis queen seven two, 2 club board,
(08:58):
they're going to have a lot offlush draws. Ace five of clubs,
ten nine of clubs, king tenof clubs, ace jack of clubs.
I could probably list thesefor a good two minutes.
There's a lot of flushdraws in their range.
They're also going to fold to a riverbet because they've missed their flush so
of their folding range,
a really good chunk of itis a missed flush draw.
(09:21):
Therefore you don't want to have amissed flush draw yourself because
that weights them away from having amissed flush draw which will fold and it
weights them towards havinga made hand which may call.
By having jack ten of clubshere or ace jack of clubs here,
we essentially make it more likelythat our opponent has king queen,
(09:43):
which is top pair that's probably goingto call the river or maybe a hand like a
set of eights that they hit on the turnor maybe a hand like a set of sevens
that they've slow playedon the flop and turn.
So you really don't want to be bluffingwith a missed flush draw on this spot.
Rather you want to bluff withhands that unblock the missed flush
draw. So a perfect bluffing hand on thisriver would be a hand like jack ten of
(10:06):
diamonds. It's a handyou three bet pre flop.
You bet on the flop as a continuationbet, you had some backdoor draws.
You turn a gut shot so you continuebarreling queen seven two, turn eight,
you continue barreling with your jackten of diamonds and then the river bricks
off. You have jack ten of diamonds andyou don't block their missed flush draws.
So this is a slam dunk all in.
Every time you get to this riverwith jack ten suited no clubs,
(10:28):
you are going to be bluffing all in.
It has perfect unblockersand not bad blockers.
Now there is one interesting effect here.
You might think based on the advice wejust 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,
(10:48):
you just have Ace King youbet twice for whatever reason.
It's something the solver woulddo here. So you get to this river,
you have ace of clubs king on this queenseven deuce, 2 clubs board turn eight,
river three, flush misses.
So the ace of clubs does blocktheir missed flush draws. However,
sometimes the solver will bluff withthis hand on the river and I know
(11:10):
Gary has a quick tangent for why that is.
Gary (11:14):
Yeah, sometimes the solver will bluff with one bad blocker,
but having two is really bad.
You'll rarely find the solver triplebarrel in this spot with two bad blockers.
Sometimes one is okay in certain spots,
but having two badblockers is a big no-no.
And that doesn't onlypertain to flush draws.
If you think of another extreme examplewhere your opponent's calling range is
(11:37):
pocket jacks and pocket tens,
you can sometimes bluff with a hand likeKing 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 withtwo is a big, big no-no.
Mike (11:52):
I think the reason the solver will still bluff with some of these ace of
club's hands is put simply itneeds more bluffs in its range.
It reaches this river with quite anarrow range. We've three bet pre-flop,
bet flop, bet turn. Now we'reconsidering betting river,
our range is quite narrow andwe have a wide value range.
We're going to be jamming this riverwith Aces, kings, ace queen, sets.
(12:13):
So a lot of value hands in our range andwe need to balance those out with some
bluffs and there just aren't that manybluffs that aren't missed flush draws or
that have a single missed flushdraw card in them. So I think,
and this is kind of a teaser to asituation we're going to talk about later,
I just think the solver, if it werea person would kind of say Here,
(12:34):
I wish I didn't have the Ace ofclubs here. It's probably not ideal.
It does block their missedace high flush draws,
but I don't have so manybluffs to choose from.
I can't be picky and I haveto balance out my value range.
So I'm going to bluff with this hand too.
One more interestingnote about Ace King here.
So we have Lucid up on ourscreen. If you're listening,
I'll just describe it to youon this river, the Ace King,
(12:58):
no club, so a hand like ace of diamonds,
king of hearts or a hand likeace of hearts, king of diamonds,
which does get to this river sometimesin this line that hand actually checks,
does not bluff. And atfirst you might think,
I would think that hand wouldbluff because it doesn't block those missed flush
draws. But if you dive a little deeperinto the game tree using Lucid here,
(13:18):
I'm going to make the small blind check.
Then I'm going to makethe button go all in.
And if we look at howthe small blind plays,
the small blind actually check callsthis river with those ace king hands.
So ace of diamonds,
king of hearts checks on this riverwith Ace high and then calls the jam.
Same thing with several other of the AceKing offsuit combos that don't contain
a club. Gary, you want tospeculate as to why that is?
Gary (13:40):
The solver is just an animal.
Sometimes the solverplays against the solver.
It knows what the in positionshoving range looks like.
We're going to delve into that a littledeeper 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 independentlyand then on the river it decides to
check it's not a great bluffing candidateand then the button then moves all in
(14:02):
and those Ace King combosunblock the button's bluffs.
So even though it's just Ace High, it'sa nice candidate for the solver to call.
One last thing whilewe're off on this tangent.
The solver doesn't differentiate betweenhaving a pair or Ace High or Queen high
or two pair or a set.
If its hand is strong enoughand it's beating enough bluffs,
the solver makes the call. Thereare no hand rankings in Solver Land.
(14:23):
If it's beating enough bluffs and itwins often enough, it elects to call,
Ace High and top pair are thesame thing for the solver.
It doesn't differentiate between hands,
it's whether or not hishand is profitable to call.
Mike (14:35):
Indeed, that's a great advanced note.
One more note on this Ace King off callthat 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 rangefor the button at equilibrium,
they're shoving with a lot of misseddraws. So hands like Jack nine,
Jack ten, ten nine,
bunch of missed flush draws are goingto be shoving the river as the button as
(14:57):
well. And Ace King off beats allthose hands put simply. Yeah,
the solver does run intosome value sometimes,
it checks the river calls the all inwith Ace King offsuit and it was just up
against a queen and the button justgot a ton of value against Ace High,
but sometimes the button's going to justhave that missed straight draw with ten
nine or sometimes it's going to have themissed flush draw with a hand like Ace
(15:18):
five suited and that's the situationwhere the Ace King off is going to win a
huge pot with just Ace King High. Ofcourse against your human opponents.
They're probably not nearly as wideas the solver unless they're a very,
very good strong player.
So is this the most practical advice ifyou play something like one three? No,
but it is still very fascinating andit's interesting to learn about these
(15:40):
mechanics and heuristics because even ifthey don't apply directly to your games
or the specifics of your environment,
they can still be quite helpful indeepening your understanding of poker and
that's going to help you make betterdecisions based on the specifics in your
games.
Gary (15:56):
The whole episode that we're talking about today is we're talking about
blockers and the unblockers.
We've just spoken about how AceKing unblocks the buttons bluffs.
It also has the best of bothworlds because it unblocks those bluffs but it also
blocks the best Queen X that thebutton can have at the same time.
So it's a wonderful check callcombo if you really think about it.
It unblocks bluffs, it blocks value,it makes the call with ace high.
Mike (16:19):
I do think I would consider this call against a somewhat loose strong
player even,
would I do it against some old guy orthe old man coffee that people like to
refer to online? Probably not.
But if it's a decent seeming playerwho's probably playing somewhat
loose against the three bet, calling withthe proper hands on the flop and turn,
(16:40):
I think you can make a really sick callhere with Ace King High and it's going
to work out decently, but again,that's only against certain people.
Alright Gary, what is the third situationin which blockers really matter?
Gary (16:53):
So let's talk a little bit about pre-flop things. Now,
when choosing yourpre-flop four bet bluffs,
we can look at a variety of scenariosstarting off with under the gun versus
middle position. Let's say under thegun opens, middle position three bets,
under the gun is going to four bet a lotof hands that may be surprising to some
of our listeners. Ace Queensuited, Ace Jack suited,
(17:13):
Ace ten suited the Ace is reallyimportant in these narrow range
scenarios because you really want toblock your opponent's strongest hands like
Aces and Ace King. You four betvery little Jack ten, queen ten,
Queen Jack,
all these types of hands because yourblockers when you hold Jack ten and Queen
ten and Queen Jack, they're not asgood in this super tight scenario.
(17:36):
So you really want to have really,
really nice blockers whenchoosing your four bet bluffs.
Having an ace is extremely important.
Mike (17:44):
It makes sense that Jack ten suited wouldn't want a four bet, right?
Because when you think about what aplayer might be three betting against a
raise that isn't super strong, it'sgoing 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 reallyhigh card hands like the Ace King,
Ace Queen, Queens, Aces kings, et cetera.
(18:07):
So you just want to havean ace or a king yourself.
That's why King Queen suiteddoes 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 getin there a bit, blocking Ace King,
Kings and Jacks. Ace Jacksuited, Ace ten suited,
Ace five suited and Ace four suited arekind of the classic four bet bluffs that
a lot of people like to mix in that it'salmost a meme at this point how much
(18:29):
the solver likes Ace five suited andindeed in this situation the Ace five
suited four bets a very, verychunky percentage of the time,
over half the time against this three bet.
So you really want to be composing yourfour bet bluffing range around these
hands that have good blockers.
Gary (18:45):
Yeah,
let's move around the table a littlebit now to some wider range scenarios.
Say cutoff versus button. Thecutoff opens, the button three bets,
we're going to take a little lookat the cutoffs four bet range here,
we can see that the four betbluff range widens a lot here,
but still very Ace x heavy.Lots of ace queen offsuit now,
some pre-flop charts havegot Ace Jack offsuit as well.
(19:06):
Even more of these strongace jack, ace ten suited,
the frequencies are going up and thenyou've got Ace five and Ace four suited as
well, but crucially still verylittle, ten nine, Jack ten,
queen ten and so on. Given thewideness of both players ranges,
you'll see Jack ten suited four bettinga little more than under the gun versus
middle position, but still not very often.
(19:26):
Overall blocking the absolute strongestparts of your opponent's range is really
important here while still allowingfor some playability post flop.
If you four bet ace tensuited and get called,
your flush draws will dominateyour opponent's flush draws.
When you four bet the Ace fivesuited, 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 prettygood for you in a four bet pot.
(19:49):
It's really important that we are choosingsome hands that might look like just
pure calls and we add those toour four bet bluffing range.
And the reason for that (19:56):
good blockers.
Mike (19:59):
The common thread between these three scenarios where blockers have
mattered is narrow ranges. We weretalking about the river scenarios.
Those are kind of the most obviousexamples of narrow range spots because it
takes several decisionpoints to get to the river.
But pre-flop four betting isvery similar. You've opened,
your opponent has chosento attack your open.
You've said I have a hand worthplaying by raising, they've said,
(20:22):
I see that you have a hand worthplaying and I don't care, I'm reraising.
So they've already narrowed their rangequite a bit with that three bet and now
it's back on you and it's a verynarrow range spot. So blockers matter.
So that's a big takeaway and you'regoing to notice the opposite in the
situations we're about to goover where blockers don't matter.
When ranges are narrow,
blockers are super importantand should drive your strategy,
(20:46):
especially when bluffingand bluff catching.
Moving on Gary to the part of the episodethat I think people who hate blockers
are going to like, whenblockers don't matter,
what is the first situation in whichyou should all but disregard blockers?
Gary (21:01):
Let's talk a little bit about exploitative poker. Now picture the scene,
you're on the river, there's threespades on the board. Your opponent bets.
You've got ace highwith the ace of spades,
you've got enough behind to go allin and still have good fold equity.
It seems like a great spot toshove all in as a bluff here.
What if your opponent isa massive calling station?
He's never folding a baby flush.Hell, he's never folding two pair.
(21:23):
In theory this will likely bea great spot to shove it in,
but exploitatively just foldingis going to be the best play.
A lot of people are too theory orientedand just focus on what the solver would
do, but you have to think aboutyour opponent's tendencies,
particularly if we're playinglive. There are some big,
big calling stations out there,
bluff those guys a whole lot lesseven with your good bluffs and instead
(21:48):
exploit these players by takingthem to value town instead.
Mike (21:52):
I think in a lot of these spots too,
sometimes these calling stationpassive players will have
narrowed their range toonly hands that will call,
which makes bluffing really, reallybad. So for example, Gary just used,
it's a three spade board.
It doesn't really matter whatthe specific scenario is,
but let's say a couple bets have one inpost flop so your opponent's not messing
(22:13):
around, right? We're notin a wide range spot,
we're in a fairly narrow range spot andyour opponent who's generally pretty
passive and kind of a callingstation decides to bet,
let's say decently big on the river.
A lot of players especially livewhen they've taken those actions,
they've reached a narrow range spoton a scary board and they've bet big,
(22:33):
they probably just have a quite good hand.
They probably just have twopair of better. Maybe they don't even bet two pair.
Maybe the range is just sets and flushes.
And then let's say you just lookdown 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 fewminutes ago that narrow range spots,
I'm supposed to be bluffing with thisblocker and you decide to go all in and
(22:55):
then they snap you off with a set or asmall flush that in theory they should
consider folding but they're acalling station. So they just call it.
And then not only that, they've narrowedtheir range to only be those hands.
They wouldn't have bet with anything else.
So you're essentially bluffinginto a range that is never folding.
You're just saying, Hey buddy,
(23:15):
you can have all my chips or I'm goingto double you up. I don't need 'em.
I'm just going to follow theory blindlyand pay you off despite the fact that
you don't really deserve to be paid off.
You're playing in a waythat doesn't necessitate you
bluffing in this way. Theydon't have a balanced range.
They're not making some hero folds,so you don't need to bluff them.
(23:36):
You could just adjust your strategy.Only jam in that situation for value.
Maybe if you still want tomix in a handful of bluffs,
maybe you could do it a tiny microscopicpercentage of the time just if it makes
you feel a little better.
But for the most part you want to bevalue heavy and you want to make sure that
when you're sticking in all that moneyagainst their range that probably isn't
folding, you have a hand that beatstheir calling range over 50% of the time.
(23:58):
It's that simple. Alright Gary,
what is the second situation in whichplayers overrate the value of blockers?
Gary (24:06):
On the flop in single raised pots where ranges are really wide,
people tend to get this specific scenariowe're going to talk about the wrong
way round. Say it'sbutton versus big blind,
you're on the button and the flopis ten eight five with two clubs,
you're supposed to check yourpocket Aces here sometimes,
some people will check with aclub and bet without a club.
They think that having the Ace of clubsis bad here because they quote unquote
(24:29):
block their opponent's flushdraws. This is a single raised pot,
you've opened on the button, the bigblind has called, ranges are really wide,
your opponent hasinfinite flush draws here.
You bet with the club yourself becauseyou want to have that little bit extra
equity. As well as that, blockinga hand that's got nine outs,
which is around 35% equityversus your pair is pretty good.
(24:51):
So in this scenario where there aretwo clubs and one diamond on the board,
bet more often with your strong handsthat have the backdoor flush draw,
don't worry about blocking your opponent'sflush draws. Both ranges are so wide,
your opponent's got infinite flush drawsand you having one club in your hand
here for example, youactually block so little.
Mike (25:09):
Yeah,
put simply you want to build the pot alittle bit more with your Aces when you
have the club on this two club boardbecause it's a higher value pair of Aces.
You'd rather have the ace ofclubs on a ten eight five,
2 clubs board with your pocket Acesthan not have it because if the turn's a
club you don't hate it so much.
Whereas if you have red Aces and theturn is a club, it's not as fun. So yeah,
(25:30):
great point from Gary there.
We're going to want to steertowards betting with the
single club in these spotswith an overpair. And again,
this is a wide range spot,blockers just aren't as important.
It's a more holistic, simple game inthis scenario. Blockers do play a role,
don't get me wrong, but not nearly asmuch as just the value of your hand,
(25:50):
the equity of your hand and how yourranges match up against each other.
Before we wrap this thing up with thethird situation in which you should pretty
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Best time of the year to upgrade yourtournament skills. Alright, Gary,
let's get into it.
The third and final spot in whichblockers don't really matter.
Gary (26:41):
We're going to use the exact same board and positions as we did earlier
today. Small blind versusbutton three bet pot,
the small blind is bet the flop and theturn and is now checked on the river.
Earlier the small blinds blockers reallymattered when selecting which combos to
triple barrel with.
Now let's look at the other side of thecoin and about why the button having
clubs does not matter. IE thebuttons blockers are not relevant.
(27:05):
The small blind doesn't want to shoveclubs on the river because they block the
button's hands that fold and the smallblind has a lot of other bluff combos to
choose from here.
Now the button probably doesn't want toshove clubs here because it blocks the
small blinds folds, but the differenceis the button has no choice.
The button's range here is so heavilydefined by the fact that they have called
(27:26):
the flop and called the turn.
It removes virtually everything else fromtheir range and they're now forced to
bluff with flush draws herebecause they've got nothing else.
Some players live by this mantra of Ican't ever bluff with a missed flush draw.
And sometimes it is true.
We saw earlier from the pointof view of the small blind,
but as we can see here,
it's equally important that we ignorethat in the right situations where our
(27:49):
blockers don't matter and webluff those missed flush draws.
There's just so little else for us tobluff with here that we're forced to bluff
with our missed flush draws.
Mike (27:59):
Yeah, it's like I said earlier,
sometimes your range is so narrow andyou have so few potential bluffing
hands in your range that you justcan't be picky. If you have jack high,
you have no showdown value. You haveto balance out your value range.
You can't only shove with value unlessyou're up against that guy we were
talking about a few minutes ago.
So you have to bluff withthat jack ten of clubs. Yeah,
(28:22):
it's not ideal that you block theirmissed flush draws that are going to fold,
but what else are you going to do?
You have to bluff with something andyou have so few bluffs to choose from.
You just don't have theluxury of being picky.
So we bluff with these missed flushdraws and hands that block their folds
sometimes simply because we don'treally have much of a choice.
We don't have other bluffs to choose from.
(28:44):
Thanks a ton for listening to thisvery nerdy episode about blockers.
I knew it was going to benerdy going in, but dang.
Did we go on some nerdytangents? Hope you enjoyed it.
Hope you found the extra nerdy out ofscope stuff interesting at the very least,
and I'm sure you found thatblocker advice helpful.
Good luck putting it intouse during your next session.
(29:04):
We'll see you in the nextepisode of Upswing Level Up.
We might be taking a few weekbreak, but we'll see you soon.
It's time to upgrade your skills with Upswing Poker Level up,
the world's first andonly podcast about poker.
My name is Mike Brady and Scottish PokerPro Gary Blackwood is here to bust some
myths about blockers.
Gary (00:13):
That's right guys and girls,
we'll be talking all things blockers inthis episode when they're most important
and also equally when they're notas important as you might think.
Mike (00:23):
A blocker is a card held by a player that makes it impossible or less
likely that an opponent has a hand thatincludes that card or a card of the same
rank. For example,
if there are three spades on theboard and I hold the ace of spades,
I quote unquote block the nut flush.
My opponent cannot have the nutflush when I have the ace of spades.
Blockers are a fundamentalpart of poker strategy,
(00:45):
but they're also one of the mostmisunderstood parts of poker strategy.
Many players disregard blockers andleave a ton of money on the table because
they really do matter in a number ofspots. On the other side of the coin,
some players overvalue blockers incertain situations and flush money down
the toilet as a result.
(01:05):
We're about to run through threesituations in which blockers should play a
major role in your strategy. From there,
Gary will share three situations inwhich you should completely ignore
blockers and make your decisionbased on more consequential factors.
Let's dive right into it. Gary,
what is the first situation inwhich blockers really matter?
Gary (01:28):
Your blockers are most important on the river. As ranges get narrower,
blockers become moreimportant, and as a result,
the cards that you hold will help youmake your decisions more than any other
point in the hand.
One really great example of this withreally narrow ranges is from a hand that I
played recently. The buttonopens, I defend the big blind,
we go heads up to eight fourdeuce with two diamonds.
(01:50):
Flop goes check check and thesix of spades hits the turn.
I lead out from the big blind for 75% pot,
my opponent makes the call and onthe jack of spades river I blocked.
As we can see, the solver is splittingbetween small and medium sized bets.
Here my opponent then raised myblock bet to a large size and if we
look at the hands that want to threebet jam as a bluff, they are really,
(02:13):
really defined by our blockers.
We want to block our opponent fromhaving pocket sixes, eight six suited,
jack six and jack eight suited.
And we also want to block seven fiveas well. Hands like seven six suited,
six five offsuit, eight five suited,
eight seven suited that block both thestraights and the two pairs and the sets.
(02:34):
These are the combos that 90%of our bluffs are derived from.
Mike (02:39):
So once again, this board is eight four two turn six river jack.
So seven five is the nut straight andthen obviously some of the strongest
possible hands are sets, a set ofeights, a set of sixes and so on.
Gary's point here is that when we arerunning a big bluff on this river,
in this case we bet small on the river,
faced a raise and now we're consideringa bluff all in jam against that
(03:02):
raise,
the hands that we want to dothat with all have blockers to
those strongest possiblehands in our opponent's range.
We don't want our opponentto have pocket eights,
pocket sixes or seven five when we goall in because he's going to call put
simply. So when we bluff we want tohave a hand like eight five suited,
(03:22):
which blocks both of them. It blocks aset of eights and it blocks seven five.
We want to have a hand like sevensix or eight seven, same exact thing.
We block not only the nut straight,
but we also block sets and all of thosehands are the hands that are going to
call this river jam.
And if we go another step back thisrange that our opponent has on the river,
we've already seen them raise preflop, they check back on the flop,
(03:44):
then they call the bet on theturn and then raised on the river.
Only a very narrow range of hands isgoing to take all of those actions.
Every single action they have taken sofar has narrowed what they could have so
they don't have just a tonof hands in their range.
They've already narrowed it quitea bit to not so many combos.
The total range is only about 130combos, which is really not that much.
(04:07):
And then looking at thecomposition of that range,
there are some overpairs in therethat slow-played on the flop.
There are some rivered top pairs,
things of that nature thatdo raise on the river,
but then the hands that are able tothen call our river all in are pretty
specific. He calls when he hasa two pair hand like jack eight,
a set like pocket sixes, thenut straight with seven five.
A handful of overpairs do make the call,
(04:30):
although I'd question whether a humanopponent would make those calls.
But the point is we really wantto be blocking those major call
hands like the two pairs that involvea six or an eight, like the straight,
like the set of sixes. That'swhat we want to be blocking here.
So we don't just bluffwith some random hand here,
we don't just bluff becausewe think they're weak.
(04:50):
We bluff because we have the rightcombination to do it with and it's a
combination that blocks a considerableportion of the hands with which they will
call. Put simply, by bluffingwith the proper hands here,
the hands with good blockersto their calling range,
our bluff is going to work considerablymore often and net us more profit in the
(05:10):
long run.
Gary (05:12):
And this is a very specific example but it's one that Mike and I have
chosen on purpose to sort of really drillhome our first point here of just how
important your blockers are on the riverand also when you're playing for stacks
if you want to run a crazy block thenthree bet bluff jam all in for all the
chips.
You can see just how important yourblockers are here and you want to be
(05:34):
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 thatyou're choosing the combos that have
the best blockers.
You want to block your opponent'sability to call you off in this spot.
So your blockers are so important.
Mike (05:52):
And this was an extreme example like Gary said,
I bet a lot of people listening can counton one hand or maybe even zero hands
how many times they've blocked theriver and then went all in over a raise.
It's a fairly rare line,especially if you play live,
but this advice does track forany deep in the game tree river
scenario. It could be a more simplescenario like you raise pre-flop,
(06:13):
you bet on the flop,
you bet on the turn and now you'reconsidering an all-in bet on the river or
maybe it's a three bet pot and you beton the flop and the turn went check
check. It's the same idea.
Whenever a lot of actions have beentaken that has narrowed the ranges
considerably, that's when these blockersare going to be super, super critical.
Moving on Gary,
what is the second situationin which unblockers matter?
Gary (06:37):
So following on from that last answer again talking about general river
strategy. When choosing combosthat want to triple barrel,
we want to focus on not quiteour blockers but our unblockers.
This is a concept we'vespoken about on past episodes,
but again it's really important stuff.
Mike (06:55):
Let's define unblockers really quick just to make sure everyone's on the
same page. So it's very muchthe same idea as blockers,
it's just kind of theother side of the coin.
So unblocking refers to holdinga card that does not lower the
probability that anopponent has a certain hand.
It's sort of the opposite ofa blocker. In other words,
an unblocker is a card that makeshands that don't contain that card more
(07:18):
likely.
I won't give an example of unblockingyet because you're about to get one.
Gary (07:24):
So let's use a three bet pot for this example. The button has opened,
the small blind has three betand the button has made the call.
We go heads up to queenseven deuce with two clubs.
The small blind is going to betsmall here for 25% on the flop,
the button is going to make thecall. We go heads up to the turn,
which is the eight of hearts we barrelagain from the small blind this time for
75% on the turn and againthe button makes the call.
(07:48):
The river is the three of diamondsand most of our club combos now
are giving up. Handslike jack ten of clubs,
jack nine of clubs, almostall of our nut flush draws.
They bet the flop,
they bet the turn because they haveequity and then they give up on the river.
We have very bad blockers hereblocking our opponents folding range.
(08:10):
You think of the types of hands thatthe button is going to call the flop,
call the turn and then fold theriver with it is their club draws.
So from the point ofview of the small blind,
we don't bluff these hands and insteadwe choose hands that have better
blockers. IE, they don't blocktheir opponents folding range,
hands like ten nine, jacknine, ace king offsuit.
All these types of hands make for farbetter bluffs on the river because they
(08:33):
don't block our opponents folding range.
Mike (08:36):
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 seventwo with two clubs and the turn and
river bricked off. They were notclubs, they were not over cards.
Think about the types of hands that youropponent would call the pre-flop three
bet with in position,then call a flop bet,
then call the turn bet with onthis queen seven two, 2 club board,
(08:58):
they're going to have a lot offlush draws. Ace five of clubs,
ten nine of clubs, king tenof clubs, ace jack of clubs.
I could probably list thesefor a good two minutes.
There's a lot of flushdraws in their range.
They're also going to fold to a riverbet because they've missed their flush so
of their folding range,
a really good chunk of itis a missed flush draw.
(09:21):
Therefore you don't want to have amissed flush draw yourself because
that weights them away from having amissed flush draw which will fold and it
weights them towards havinga made hand which may call.
By having jack ten of clubshere or ace jack of clubs here,
we essentially make it more likelythat our opponent has king queen,
(09:43):
which is top pair that's probably goingto call the river or maybe a hand like a
set of eights that they hit on the turnor maybe a hand like a set of sevens
that they've slow playedon the flop and turn.
So you really don't want to be bluffingwith a missed flush draw on this spot.
Rather you want to bluff withhands that unblock the missed flush
draw. So a perfect bluffing hand on thisriver would be a hand like jack ten of
(10:06):
diamonds. It's a handyou three bet pre flop.
You bet on the flop as a continuationbet, you had some backdoor draws.
You turn a gut shot so you continuebarreling queen seven two, turn eight,
you continue barreling with your jackten of diamonds and then the river bricks
off. You have jack ten of diamonds andyou don't block their missed flush draws.
So this is a slam dunk all in.
Every time you get to this riverwith jack ten suited no clubs,
(10:28):
you are going to be bluffing all in.
It has perfect unblockersand not bad blockers.
Now there is one interesting effect here.
You might think based on the advice wejust 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,
(10:48):
you just have Ace King youbet twice for whatever reason.
It's something the solver woulddo here. So you get to this river,
you have ace of clubs king on this queenseven deuce, 2 clubs board turn eight,
river three, flush misses.
So the ace of clubs does blocktheir missed flush draws. However,
sometimes the solver will bluff withthis hand on the river and I know
(11:10):
Gary has a quick tangent for why that is.
Gary (11:14):
Yeah, sometimes the solver will bluff with one bad blocker,
but having two is really bad.
You'll rarely find the solver triplebarrel in this spot with two bad blockers.
Sometimes one is okay in certain spots,
but having two badblockers is a big no-no.
And that doesn't onlypertain to flush draws.
If you think of another extreme examplewhere your opponent's calling range is
(11:37):
pocket jacks and pocket tens,
you can sometimes bluff with a hand likeKing 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 withtwo is a big, big no-no.
Mike (11:52):
I think the reason the solver will still bluff with some of these ace of
club's hands is put simply itneeds more bluffs in its range.
It reaches this river with quite anarrow range. We've three bet pre-flop,
bet flop, bet turn. Now we'reconsidering betting river,
our range is quite narrow andwe have a wide value range.
We're going to be jamming this riverwith Aces, kings, ace queen, sets.
(12:13):
So a lot of value hands in our range andwe need to balance those out with some
bluffs and there just aren't that manybluffs that aren't missed flush draws or
that have a single missed flushdraw card in them. So I think,
and this is kind of a teaser to asituation we're going to talk about later,
I just think the solver, if it werea person would kind of say Here,
(12:34):
I wish I didn't have the Ace ofclubs here. It's probably not ideal.
It does block their missedace high flush draws,
but I don't have so manybluffs to choose from.
I can't be picky and I haveto balance out my value range.
So I'm going to bluff with this hand too.
One more interestingnote about Ace King here.
So we have Lucid up on ourscreen. If you're listening,
I'll just describe it to youon this river, the Ace King,
(12:58):
no club, so a hand like ace of diamonds,
king of hearts or a hand likeace of hearts, king of diamonds,
which does get to this river sometimesin this line that hand actually checks,
does not bluff. And atfirst you might think,
I would think that hand wouldbluff because it doesn't block those missed flush
draws. But if you dive a little deeperinto the game tree using Lucid here,
(13:18):
I'm going to make the small blind check.
Then I'm going to makethe button go all in.
And if we look at howthe small blind plays,
the small blind actually check callsthis river with those ace king hands.
So ace of diamonds,
king of hearts checks on this riverwith Ace high and then calls the jam.
Same thing with several other of the AceKing offsuit combos that don't contain
a club. Gary, you want tospeculate as to why that is?
Gary (13:40):
The solver is just an animal.
Sometimes the solverplays against the solver.
It knows what the in positionshoving range looks like.
We're going to delve into that a littledeeper 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 independentlyand then on the river it decides to
check it's not a great bluffing candidateand then the button then moves all in
(14:02):
and those Ace King combosunblock the button's bluffs.
So even though it's just Ace High, it'sa nice candidate for the solver to call.
One last thing whilewe're off on this tangent.
The solver doesn't differentiate betweenhaving a pair or Ace High or Queen high
or two pair or a set.
If its hand is strong enoughand it's beating enough bluffs,
the solver makes the call. Thereare no hand rankings in Solver Land.
(14:23):
If it's beating enough bluffs and itwins often enough, it elects to call,
Ace High and top pair are thesame thing for the solver.
It doesn't differentiate between hands,
it's whether or not hishand is profitable to call.
Mike (14:35):
Indeed, that's a great advanced note.
One more note on this Ace King off callthat 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 rangefor the button at equilibrium,
they're shoving with a lot of misseddraws. So hands like Jack nine,
Jack ten, ten nine,
bunch of missed flush draws are goingto be shoving the river as the button as
(14:57):
well. And Ace King off beats allthose hands put simply. Yeah,
the solver does run intosome value sometimes,
it checks the river calls the all inwith Ace King offsuit and it was just up
against a queen and the button justgot a ton of value against Ace High,
but sometimes the button's going to justhave that missed straight draw with ten
nine or sometimes it's going to have themissed flush draw with a hand like Ace
(15:18):
five suited and that's the situationwhere the Ace King off is going to win a
huge pot with just Ace King High. Ofcourse against your human opponents.
They're probably not nearly as wideas the solver unless they're a very,
very good strong player.
So is this the most practical advice ifyou play something like one three? No,
but it is still very fascinating andit's interesting to learn about these
(15:40):
mechanics and heuristics because even ifthey don't apply directly to your games
or the specifics of your environment,
they can still be quite helpful indeepening your understanding of poker and
that's going to help you make betterdecisions based on the specifics in your
games.
Gary (15:56):
The whole episode that we're talking about today is we're talking about
blockers and the unblockers.
We've just spoken about how AceKing unblocks the buttons bluffs.
It also has the best of bothworlds because it unblocks those bluffs but it also
blocks the best Queen X that thebutton can have at the same time.
So it's a wonderful check callcombo if you really think about it.
It unblocks bluffs, it blocks value,it makes the call with ace high.
Mike (16:19):
I do think I would consider this call against a somewhat loose strong
player even,
would I do it against some old guy orthe old man coffee that people like to
refer to online? Probably not.
But if it's a decent seeming playerwho's probably playing somewhat
loose against the three bet, calling withthe proper hands on the flop and turn,
(16:40):
I think you can make a really sick callhere with Ace King High and it's going
to work out decently, but again,that's only against certain people.
Alright Gary, what is the third situationin which blockers really matter?
Gary (16:53):
So let's talk a little bit about pre-flop things. Now,
when choosing yourpre-flop four bet bluffs,
we can look at a variety of scenariosstarting off with under the gun versus
middle position. Let's say under thegun opens, middle position three bets,
under the gun is going to four bet a lotof hands that may be surprising to some
of our listeners. Ace Queensuited, Ace Jack suited,
(17:13):
Ace ten suited the Ace is reallyimportant in these narrow range
scenarios because you really want toblock your opponent's strongest hands like
Aces and Ace King. You four betvery little Jack ten, queen ten,
Queen Jack,
all these types of hands because yourblockers when you hold Jack ten and Queen
ten and Queen Jack, they're not asgood in this super tight scenario.
(17:36):
So you really want to have really,
really nice blockers whenchoosing your four bet bluffs.
Having an ace is extremely important.
Mike (17:44):
It makes sense that Jack ten suited wouldn't want a four bet, right?
Because when you think about what aplayer might be three betting against a
raise that isn't super strong, it'sgoing 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 reallyhigh card hands like the Ace King,
Ace Queen, Queens, Aces kings, et cetera.
(18:07):
So you just want to havean ace or a king yourself.
That's why King Queen suiteddoes 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 getin there a bit, blocking Ace King,
Kings and Jacks. Ace Jacksuited, Ace ten suited,
Ace five suited and Ace four suited arekind of the classic four bet bluffs that
a lot of people like to mix in that it'salmost a meme at this point how much
(18:29):
the solver likes Ace five suited andindeed in this situation the Ace five
suited four bets a very, verychunky percentage of the time,
over half the time against this three bet.
So you really want to be composing yourfour bet bluffing range around these
hands that have good blockers.
Gary (18:45):
Yeah,
let's move around the table a littlebit now to some wider range scenarios.
Say cutoff versus button. Thecutoff opens, the button three bets,
we're going to take a little lookat the cutoffs four bet range here,
we can see that the four betbluff range widens a lot here,
but still very Ace x heavy.Lots of ace queen offsuit now,
some pre-flop charts havegot Ace Jack offsuit as well.
(19:06):
Even more of these strongace jack, ace ten suited,
the frequencies are going up and thenyou've got Ace five and Ace four suited as
well, but crucially still verylittle, ten nine, Jack ten,
queen ten and so on. Given thewideness of both players ranges,
you'll see Jack ten suited four bettinga little more than under the gun versus
middle position, but still not very often.
(19:26):
Overall blocking the absolute strongestparts of your opponent's range is really
important here while still allowingfor some playability post flop.
If you four bet ace tensuited and get called,
your flush draws will dominateyour opponent's flush draws.
When you four bet the Ace fivesuited, 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 prettygood for you in a four bet pot.
(19:49):
It's really important that we are choosingsome hands that might look like just
pure calls and we add those toour four bet bluffing range.
And the reason for that (19:56):
good blockers.
Mike (19:59):
The common thread between these three scenarios where blockers have
mattered is narrow ranges. We weretalking about the river scenarios.
Those are kind of the most obviousexamples of narrow range spots because it
takes several decisionpoints to get to the river.
But pre-flop four betting isvery similar. You've opened,
your opponent has chosento attack your open.
You've said I have a hand worthplaying by raising, they've said,
(20:22):
I see that you have a hand worthplaying and I don't care, I'm reraising.
So they've already narrowed their rangequite a bit with that three bet and now
it's back on you and it's a verynarrow range spot. So blockers matter.
So that's a big takeaway and you'regoing to notice the opposite in the
situations we're about to goover where blockers don't matter.
When ranges are narrow,
blockers are super importantand should drive your strategy,
(20:46):
especially when bluffingand bluff catching.
Moving on Gary to the part of the episodethat I think people who hate blockers
are going to like, whenblockers don't matter,
what is the first situation in whichyou should all but disregard blockers?
Gary (21:01):
Let's talk a little bit about exploitative poker. Now picture the scene,
you're on the river, there's threespades on the board. Your opponent bets.
You've got ace highwith the ace of spades,
you've got enough behind to go allin and still have good fold equity.
It seems like a great spot toshove all in as a bluff here.
What if your opponent isa massive calling station?
He's never folding a baby flush.Hell, he's never folding two pair.
(21:23):
In theory this will likely bea great spot to shove it in,
but exploitatively just foldingis going to be the best play.
A lot of people are too theory orientedand just focus on what the solver would
do, but you have to think aboutyour opponent's tendencies,
particularly if we're playinglive. There are some big,
big calling stations out there,
bluff those guys a whole lot lesseven with your good bluffs and instead
(21:48):
exploit these players by takingthem to value town instead.
Mike (21:52):
I think in a lot of these spots too,
sometimes these calling stationpassive players will have
narrowed their range toonly hands that will call,
which makes bluffing really, reallybad. So for example, Gary just used,
it's a three spade board.
It doesn't really matter whatthe specific scenario is,
but let's say a couple bets have one inpost flop so your opponent's not messing
(22:13):
around, right? We're notin a wide range spot,
we're in a fairly narrow range spot andyour opponent who's generally pretty
passive and kind of a callingstation decides to bet,
let's say decently big on the river.
A lot of players especially livewhen they've taken those actions,
they've reached a narrow range spoton a scary board and they've bet big,
(22:33):
they probably just have a quite good hand.
They probably just have twopair of better. Maybe they don't even bet two pair.
Maybe the range is just sets and flushes.
And then let's say you just lookdown 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 fewminutes ago that narrow range spots,
I'm supposed to be bluffing with thisblocker and you decide to go all in and
(22:55):
then they snap you off with a set or asmall flush that in theory they should
consider folding but they're acalling station. So they just call it.
And then not only that, they've narrowedtheir range to only be those hands.
They wouldn't have bet with anything else.
So you're essentially bluffinginto a range that is never folding.
You're just saying, Hey buddy,
(23:15):
you can have all my chips or I'm goingto double you up. I don't need 'em.
I'm just going to follow theory blindlyand pay you off despite the fact that
you don't really deserve to be paid off.
You're playing in a waythat doesn't necessitate you
bluffing in this way. Theydon't have a balanced range.
They're not making some hero folds,so you don't need to bluff them.
(23:36):
You could just adjust your strategy.Only jam in that situation for value.
Maybe if you still want tomix in a handful of bluffs,
maybe you could do it a tiny microscopicpercentage of the time just if it makes
you feel a little better.
But for the most part you want to bevalue heavy and you want to make sure that
when you're sticking in all that moneyagainst their range that probably isn't
folding, you have a hand that beatstheir calling range over 50% of the time.
(23:58):
It's that simple. Alright Gary,
what is the second situation in whichplayers overrate the value of blockers?
Gary (24:06):
On the flop in single raised pots where ranges are really wide,
people tend to get this specific scenariowe're going to talk about the wrong
way round. Say it'sbutton versus big blind,
you're on the button and the flopis ten eight five with two clubs,
you're supposed to check yourpocket Aces here sometimes,
some people will check with aclub and bet without a club.
They think that having the Ace of clubsis bad here because they quote unquote
(24:29):
block their opponent's flushdraws. This is a single raised pot,
you've opened on the button, the bigblind has called, ranges are really wide,
your opponent hasinfinite flush draws here.
You bet with the club yourself becauseyou want to have that little bit extra
equity. As well as that, blockinga hand that's got nine outs,
which is around 35% equityversus your pair is pretty good.
(24:51):
So in this scenario where there aretwo clubs and one diamond on the board,
bet more often with your strong handsthat have the backdoor flush draw,
don't worry about blocking your opponent'sflush draws. Both ranges are so wide,
your opponent's got infinite flush drawsand you having one club in your hand
here for example, youactually block so little.
Mike (25:09):
Yeah,
put simply you want to build the pot alittle bit more with your Aces when you
have the club on this two club boardbecause it's a higher value pair of Aces.
You'd rather have the ace ofclubs on a ten eight five,
2 clubs board with your pocket Acesthan not have it because if the turn's a
club you don't hate it so much.
Whereas if you have red Aces and theturn is a club, it's not as fun. So yeah,
(25:30):
great point from Gary there.
We're going to want to steertowards betting with the
single club in these spotswith an overpair. And again,
this is a wide range spot,blockers just aren't as important.
It's a more holistic, simple game inthis scenario. Blockers do play a role,
don't get me wrong, but not nearly asmuch as just the value of your hand,
(25:50):
the equity of your hand and how yourranges match up against each other.
Before we wrap this thing up with thethird situation in which you should pretty
much forget blockers exist,attention tournament players,
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(26:32):
Best time of the year to upgrade yourtournament skills. Alright, Gary,
let's get into it.
The third and final spot in whichblockers don't really matter.
Gary (26:41):
We're going to use the exact same board and positions as we did earlier
today. Small blind versusbutton three bet pot,
the small blind is bet the flop and theturn and is now checked on the river.
Earlier the small blinds blockers reallymattered when selecting which combos to
triple barrel with.
Now let's look at the other side of thecoin and about why the button having
clubs does not matter. IE thebuttons blockers are not relevant.
(27:05):
The small blind doesn't want to shoveclubs on the river because they block the
button's hands that fold and the smallblind has a lot of other bluff combos to
choose from here.
Now the button probably doesn't want toshove clubs here because it blocks the
small blinds folds, but the differenceis the button has no choice.
The button's range here is so heavilydefined by the fact that they have called
(27:26):
the flop and called the turn.
It removes virtually everything else fromtheir range and they're now forced to
bluff with flush draws herebecause they've got nothing else.
Some players live by this mantra of Ican't ever bluff with a missed flush draw.
And sometimes it is true.
We saw earlier from the pointof view of the small blind,
but as we can see here,
it's equally important that we ignorethat in the right situations where our
(27:49):
blockers don't matter and webluff those missed flush draws.
There's just so little else for us tobluff with here that we're forced to bluff
with our missed flush draws.
Mike (27:59):
Yeah, it's like I said earlier,
sometimes your range is so narrow andyou have so few potential bluffing
hands in your range that you justcan't be picky. If you have jack high,
you have no showdown value. You haveto balance out your value range.
You can't only shove with value unlessyou're up against that guy we were
talking about a few minutes ago.
So you have to bluff withthat jack ten of clubs. Yeah,
(28:22):
it's not ideal that you block theirmissed flush draws that are going to fold,
but what else are you going to do?
You have to bluff with something andyou have so few bluffs to choose from.
You just don't have theluxury of being picky.
So we bluff with these missed flushdraws and hands that block their folds
sometimes simply because we don'treally have much of a choice.
We don't have other bluffs to choose from.
(28:44):
Thanks a ton for listening to thisvery nerdy episode about blockers.
I knew it was going to benerdy going in, but dang.
Did we go on some nerdytangents? Hope you enjoyed it.
Hope you found the extra nerdy out ofscope stuff interesting at the very least,
and I'm sure you found thatblocker advice helpful.
Good luck putting it intouse during your next session.
(29:04):
We'll see you in the nextepisode of Upswing Level Up.
We might be taking a few weekbreak, but we'll see you soon.
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