Barreling as a Bluff Postflop From Out of Position
This week's hand comes from a $10,000 buy-in World Poker Tour event. It occurred relatively early in the tournament when the stacks were deep, and involves me making a "squeeze" reraise from the blinds preflop, then facing having to play from out of position after having missed the flop.
With the blinds 75/150 and effective stacks around 30,000, an older player min-raised to 300 from the hijack and got two callers from the button and small blind. I then looked down at A♦3♣ in the big blind — not a very good hand, but not so bad to call with in this situation.
However, as I explain in the video below I like reraising sometimes with this kind of hand in this spot, especially early in a tournament, because A♦3♣ isn't going to play very well after the flop in a multi-way situation. I made a reraise to 1,700 and only the original raiser called.
There was 4,000 in the middle, and the flop came J♥10♠4♦, missing my hand completely. With the flop bringing two high cards, I had to decide if I should continue with the bluff and barrel off or give up and check-fold.
Take a look and see what I decided to do, and listen to my reasons for continuing as the hand proceeds to the river:
After betting the flop and getting called, the turn brought another big card and I faced the same decision again. Would you be willing to fire again here? And if called on the turn, would you bet again on the river as a bluff?
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,500,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
