Poker Strategy For The Rest Of Us -- Rick 'Rask88' MaskA Look At Bluff Catching On The River |
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Pro – Rick “Rask88” Mask
Concept – Bluff Catching on the River
Rick Mask is a highly skilled online cash game player. The 25-year-old Canadian pro has played for high stakes online, but now mainly focuses on $1-$2 and $2-$4 full-ring and six-max games under the name “Rask88.”
Mask is an instructor at CardRunners, where he makes videos that mostly focus on online full-ring cash games. His latest video series will be released on the site in the coming months.
The Hand
In a $1-$3 no-limit hold’em cash game, a player under-the-gun ($250) limps in and another player in early position ($670) limps behind. Our hero ($440) raises to $17 with Q
J
and gets called by both limpers.
The flop is J 8
3 and both limpers check. Our hero bets $35 and gets called by both players. The turn is the 4 and it gets checked around.
The river is the 4 and the first limper checks and the second limper bets $165. Our hero makes the call and the under-the-gun player folds. The limper shows Q 9 for a busted straight draw and our hero scoops the pot.
Relevant reads from our hero: Under-the-gun player was unknown and accidentally exposed a 10 while hero was tanking, so he no longer had to worry about the player behind him on the river. The second limper was a regular who fast plays his big hands.
The Interview
Steve Schult: When these two players limp ahead of us, do you like limping behind or raising to isolate?
Rick Mask: Preflop I think is pretty close. I go back and forth on this when I play live or when I play in weaker online games. When there are two limpers and you raise here, I’m fairly confident that you are going to the flop three handed. Is that a terrible thing when you have position on two weaker players and have the betting lead? Probably not, so I don’t mind the raise although I sometimes do limp along. The only thing I wouldn’t do is fold. Either one of the two options is fine.
SS: At what point do you always limp behind? Is there a number of limpers that would just make you not want to raise and bloat the pot with just Q-J?
RM: I think once you lose the fold equity preflop, I would just limp. I don’t want to say your hand does poorly multi-way, but it kind of does, especially in big pots because you are going to usually just make one pair. Generally, I try to over limp hands live that are too strong to fold, but too weak to raise. Other hands I would over limp would be hands like all my suited aces and my small pocket pairs.
SS: The flop seems like an automatic continuation bet. Is there any merit to checking back?
RM: I don’t see any reason to check back here. There is a lot of value in a bet. When you play live, most of your opponents are pretty honest and are going to raise their good hands and they won’t raise their weaker hands. I don’t think there is too much risk of getting check-raised as a bluff. So when our hero bets 2/3 of the pot, it’s fine.
SS: If you get check-raised by either of these players, you are folding?
RM: Yes. I know it feels pretty weak, but I’m pretty sure I would just fold my hand.
SS: So when both players call what is going through your mind?
RM: I think I have the best hand most of the time here. However, I think you just need to be aware that there are going to be a lot of turn cards that may not give me the best hand or may make it tough for me to continue to put a lot of money in the middle against worse hands. A queen would be a little dicey. A nine, a ten, a seven, are all also not too great to see.
Given the read that our hero has on the second limper, I would venture a guess that we have him beat almost always except for the rare time that he has like K-J or something like that. But given our hero’s read of his opponent, I would imagine that he would always check-raise with a hand that is better than one pair.
SS: When the turn is a brick and both players check, do you like to check for pot control or do you just bet again since you think the players would play honest.
RM: I would bet again at this point with the plan of checking back a lot of rivers and getting to show down. I think there is still a lot of value in a turn bet. We don’t know too much about the under-the-gun player except that we perceive him to be pretty weak, so we can assume that Q-J is good pretty often on this turn.
We can get value from a worse jack, straight draws, and maybe from an eight. I think most of the time players are going to have 9-10, Q-10, and other straight draws that will call another bet.
SS: So what would your bet sizing be on the turn if you are going to bet since there is almost $170 in the pot?
RM: I would probably bet around 60 percent of the pot as a default. The only reason I would bet a little less than that is to encourage a call from a hand that we have crushed like a worse jack or an eight, but I would probably just bet 60 percent pot, which would be around $110.
SS: So if you bet $110, would you be calling a jam from the under-the-gun limper since he only has about $200 left?
RM: I would just kind of shrug and call and feel pretty gross about it, but I don’t expect him to get it in on the turn too often. I would almost always check back the river though if either player called my turn bet.
SS: So when you are facing a pot-sized river bet, what are you thinking about doing with top pair?
RM: It’s definitely a big bet, I’ll say that. But I think he’s just not representing anything credible and I have a jack, so I’m going to call.
SS: Is this a fairly standard call for you?
RM: Yeah, especially the way the board ran out and the way we got to the river, it’s just tough for him to have anything good here. Also since we have established that he likes to fast play his hands, I think it’s a fairly standard call most of the time.
SS: Now let’s say that the under-the-gun player didn’t accidentally expose a card. Would you be worried about him having a better hand behind you?
RM: A little bit, but not too much. Given that he limp called preflop, I don’t think he has better than Q-J too often. I mean, if we had J-2 or something like that, it would be a little different, but since we have a decent kicker I’m just going to call and not worry too much about it.
SS: So if we are just bluff catching and putting the second limper on air, what range are we going to be calling the $165 with? Would a hand like pocket nines have the same value as Q-J here?
RM: I guess when he bets I would think pocket nines and Q-J are pretty close in value because when he bets he is polarizing his range pretty hard. He is saying that he either has a really good hand or nothing at all, so I don’t think you are going to see him bet this amount and then see a value hand like J-5. He either has a hand that can beat a decent jack or he has nothing.
So in that sense, nines are pretty much the same hand, but the difference is that when you have a player behind you, it’s better to have a stronger jack than pocket nines just in case you get overcalled. Also it’s good to have the jack for blocker value. Since we have a jack, it makes it a lot less likely that either one of the other players can have K-J or something like that. Also, if we have pocket nines, it’s a lot more difficult to be good because we block a lot of hands like 9-10 that we think are going to be bluffing often. So we would be blocking hands that we want to be bluffing and we don’t block better hands, which is obviously not an ideal situation.
When the second limper makes this bet on the river, the two hands are similar in strength, but in this spot, Q-J is like a slam dunk call and nines are closer to a fold.
SS: So just to make it definitive, can you give me a range that you would call this river with?
RM: A jack. Any jack that I would raise preflop with I am calling this river bet. I would bet those jacks on the turn, but as played I would call any of those jacks.
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