Bluffing the Turn: Jonathan Little Barrels Again When Board Doesn’t Change
Today I’m sharing one more hand from the same World Series of Poker event we’ve been looking at over recent weeks, last summer’s Event #25: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Eight Handed where I managed to make the final table and finish sixth.
By this point the money bubble has just burst and there are a little over 50 players left in the event. The blinds are 2,000/4,000 with a 500 ante, and I have a stack of about 200,000 to start the hand (around 50 big blinds).
Having been dealt A♥9♣ in the small blind, I decided to make a fairly standard reraise versus a cutoff raiser. After missing the K♥Q♠7♣ flop I made a continuation bet with nothing, then decided to fire again on a 3♦ turn card that did not appear to help either of us.
It is important to figure out how wide your opponent will call your flop continuation bet. Most players have a specific point in each hand where they revert to playing straightforwardly. Some will play straightforwardly on the flop, some will call with a wide range on the flop then play straightforwardly on the turn, and some will go all the way to the river before playing in a straightforward manner.
If you constantly focus on your opponents’ strategies, you will be able to make educated guesses as to when you should continue betting as a bluff, even when the board doesn’t change.
Watch as I describe my thoughts both before and after the flop in this hand, and see what happens after I fire that second barrel on the turn:
How would you have played this hand? Let me know your thoughts in a comment below.
That wraps up the hands I’m analyzing from this $5K WSOP event. You can check out the earlier ones here:
- “How to Get Full Value After Flopping a Set”
- “Jonathan Little Flops a Marginal Top Pair in a Three-Bet Pot Versus Tuan Le”
- “Responding to Weakness: When the Preflop Raiser Checks Behind on the Flop”
- “Tournament Hand Analysis: Protecting Your Stack vs. Maximizing Value”
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,200,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
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