GTO Gone Wrong: "But I Had the Bottom of My Range!"
One of my more popular past issues was about how players trying to emulate GTO strategies screw up due to bet sizing (and how to take advantage of it).
The list of ways that players mess up the implementation of GTO concepts is long, so I figured it would be a good time to dive into the next iteration.
Bluffing: In Theory
Awareness of one’s own range, and the range of one’s opponent, is critical for playing high-level poker. You don’t need to be ultra-precise, but you should have a rough idea.
Where you’re at in your range determines whether or not you should bluff, value bet, bluff-catch, or fold.
There are many spots in poker where you should bluff based primarily on where you are in your range.
These occur most often in wide-range spots, and when you’re in position, where you should usually bluff the absolute worst hands that you have.
Fortunately for you, reader of my newsletter, many people get this wrong, and in a few different ways!
When the Bottom Doesn’t Matter
One of the concepts people first learn when studying GTO poker is to bluff with the bottom of their range – the worst hands they can have.
While some situations call for this, others don’t.
Here’s an example for you:
You raise to $15 on the Button at a $2/$5 NL game and get called by the Big Blind.
Flop: T♥️9♠️6♥️
Check, you bet 3/4 pot, call.
Turn: T♥️9♠️6♥️2♦️
Check, check.
River: T♥️9♠️6♥️2♦️J♥️
It’s checked to you. What types of hands are you bluffing with? What’s the bottom of your range?
First of all, if you asked yourself those questions thinking they’re the same answer, I’ve got bad news for you. (Yes, I tricked you. Sorry!)
This is not a spot where you want to bluff the bottom of your range – and this is a GTO-approved statement!
Why?
Because your opponent check-called a big bet on T♥️9♠️6♥️. On this J♥️ river they almost always have a pair, and if they don’t, they’re not going to check to you!
When you know your opponent always has a 6 or better, there is no difference in showdown value between Queen High and 55. None.
So you don’t want to choose your weakest hands to bluff with – you want to choose your weakishhands that have good blockers.
You’ll check 7♦️5♦️ but bluff with A♥️Q♠️.
The key to remember here is that a bet has already gone in, and the hand has played out in such a way that your opponent can’t have total air anymore.
At the Bottom Again
In GTO Land, the quintessential spot to bluff the bottom of your range is when no money has gone into the pot (you’re in position) and you’re trying to make your opponent fold their better air by betting your weakest air.
With only a cursory understanding of the way ranges work, players often bluff “the bottom of their range” in a spot where they mostly have “the bottom of their range,” or what feels like it.
Let’s get into a hand example:
You raise to $15 on the Button at a $2/$5 NL game and get called by the Big Blind.
Flop: T♥️9♠️6♥️
Check, check.
Turn: T♥️9♠️6♥️2♦️
Check, check.
River: T♥️9♠️6♥️2♦️J♥️
It’s checked to you. What types of hands are you bluffing with? What’s the bottom of your range?
You’ll notice that this is a very connected board. There are three straights possible (KQ, Q8, and 87), a flush possible, and a new top pair candidate on the river!
That’s a lot of potential value hands, which means you should bluff some pretty strong stuff, right?
You’ve probably seen similar spots where you have to dig into hands like 5♥️5♣️ and A♠️2♠️ to bluff because of how well this board connects with a preflop opening range.
Here’s the problem: You didn’t bet the flop, and you didn’t bet the turn.
You’d have bet most flush draws, sets, straights, two pair, Tx, and straight draws that hit top pair on the Jack.
Yes, your preflop range connects really well with this board, but by the time you check the flop and the turn, your range gets very weak and will not connect very well with this river.
Theory vs. Practice
In theory, you’re supposed to have plenty of JT, QJ, KJ, J7, and some flush draws.
In practice, most people bet too many of those hands on the flop or turn.
In theory, you’re supposed to value bet hands like A9.
In practice, most people get too scared by the board texture to do so, and many would’ve already bet A9 before the river!
If the above holds true for you, you shouldn’t bluff nearly as much in practice as you can in theory (to remain balanced).
In theory, you have about 23% of your range that can value bet, which means that you can bluff around 10% of hands if you bet ¾ pot or so.
In practice, you might have 10% of your range that can value bet, meaning that you can only bluff about 4% of hands!
What a lot of players will do, if they are trying to bluff the bottom of their range, is bluff most Ace High and worse. On a board this connected, that looks like the bottom of a Button opening range.
Can you guess how much of your range that actually is?
The player described above will have Ace High or worse around 35% of the time.
So that’s 35 bluffs for every 10 value bets, meaning you’ll be bluffing 78% of the time you bet!
Remember: If you bluff over 30% of the time here, your opponent should call with anything that beats a bluff*.
In theory, even with a more proper value range, you should check back most of your Ace High hands!
In practice, you’ll want to check all of your Ace High and most of your King high to remain in balance.
And if you’re up against the player described, you’re going to want to check-call all bluff-catchers and check to check-raise all good hands!
*If this is confusing to you, you would almost certainly benefit from my 4.5-hour Foundations course.
And There’s More
These were two common examples of how people mess things up by misunderstanding the theoretical implications.
Next time, I want to talk about how people mess up in practice even when they understand the theory properly, because I view that as an even bigger problem.
See you then!
