How to play junk hands
Dara O'Kearney is back with advice on playing the very, very, bottom of your range.
Below is the UTG1 response to an open from a 40BB stack in GTO Wizard. The pink hands are raises.
Lots of value in that range. The bluffs are the suited broadway hands like KJs, KTs, K9s, QJs, QTs and the Ax hands like A9s and A8s (The other Ax is arguably value). As bluffs go, these are actually very good hands. They are easy to play post flop, making one pair is usually good and they can make a lot of very strong hands when called.
This is the 40BB response from the BB to an open from the SB:
It's a much wider range because the SB is wider and we get to close the action. What do you notice about the bluffs?
They are mostly complete junk like Q5o and 92s.
Why is it that our bluffs are quite quality hands in one example but garbage in the next?
Your bluffs should be your worst hands
Our range in general needs to be much stronger in the first example, which is why our bluffs need to also be strong hands. Most people understand this.
What some struggle with is why we don't pick playable hands like A5s, T9s or 87s for our bluffs in the second example. If we get called, we want some sort of playability, right?
The short answer is we would hate to get 4-bet and have to fold a hand like T9s. It has good equity and plays well in position, so it sucks having to fold it. We have no problem, however, folding a hand like Q5o to a 4-bet.
When we raise in this spot, this is how the SB responds:
If we bluff a trash hand like 92s, the SB folds 39% of their range. That is a brilliant result for 92s. If the SB raises we have an incredibly easy fold, we are not even ahead of their bluffs.
If they call and we have a weak bluff, their calling range is high card heavy, mostly broadway type hands. We will have relatively easy decisions going forward. If the flop comes Ace high we can bluff at it, if it comes broadway we can shut down, if the flop comes low and we hit, we can stick around a little longer.
Your bluffs should always be the bottom of your range. When ranges are wide, that means your bluffs will be absolute junk. When ranges are wide and you have position, you are much better just calling with the playable middle strength hands and taking it to the streets.
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