The fundamentals of barreling
by mersenneary
Barreling off is one of the strongest weapons you have at your disposal in HUSNGs. To understand why, think about the situation in reverse: When you check/call the flop readless, what is your range like? Does that range enjoy facing sizable bets on the turn and the river? When you play competent, aggressive opponents, do you feel like it's easy to optimally adjust your ranges and pick these bluffs off, or do you constantly feel like you're in a guessing game about whether you're about to make a big call or get owned by a value hand? If you're like most people (myself included), you don't love your life playing against that opponent. Because of that, it's worth learning how to barrel yourself and become that opponent that people don't want to face.
Let's start with a simple base case, again from the bluffcatcher's perspective. You have J7s and call a minraise OOP. Your opponent has been playing a wide range of hands on the button, around 80% or so. The flop comes AJ6, with no flush draw. Your play seems easy (and it is), just check/call. The turn is a 2, completing the fourth suit. You check, and your opponent fires out 70% of the pot.
Suddenly, your opponent represents nothing for value that is worse than your hand. There are also no draws in his range, other than 54/43/53 gutshots. Essentially, either your opponent has a stone cold bluff, or he has a hand better than yours. Because of this reality, some players would elect to fold right here. Others would stubbornly cling on for another street, but when facing a river bet, generally give the hand up readless. It's a lot to put your opponent on a stone cold bluff when about he has plenty of value hands in his range as well.
That's the reality that we need to take advantage of when we're in the button's shoes in this hand. Given a 100% c-bet frequency on this flop, J7s is behind in the hand just 26% of the time once the deuce hits the turn, and yet most players will fold it to later aggression. My readless call pre, check/call flop range here 50bb deep is generally something like this:
Notice that this range is pretty damn weak, and “capped”, which means it doesn't have any monster hands in it. In fact, the strongest holding is an ace with a mediocre kicker (the better aces I am likely to 3-bet preflop or check/raise the flop), and even with that hand, you can't love it when your opponent triple barrels with sizable bets – once again, you beat nothing other than a stone cold bluff against most opponents.
Given the ranges I've set up, once again, 26% pops up in our analysis. That's also the frequency
that I have an ace when I check/call this flop. That means 74% of my range is highly likely to give up to three streets of aggression readless, simply because I don't expect people to barrel off as much as they should. The rest of that range is folding sometimes, too.
That means you have to take advantage of the situation and barrel off with a high frequency until I catch on. A good double or triple barrel means correctly taking into account three main factors: How your opponent perceives your range, how your opponent perceives his own range, and your opponent's actual range.
The first aspect of this is whether your opponent is perceiving your range at all. Many recreational opponents will think only in terms of the strength of their hand in deciding whether to call a bet (“Is a pair of jacks a good enough hand to call a bet on this turn?”), and while that implies some reflection on what you might have, it's a very different thought process.
Your opponent being able to realize that you only have a stone cold bluff or a better hand makes barreling off on dry boards much better. Your opponent being able to realize that you have a wide range on the flop, and are capable of continuing to contest with that wide range on the turn, makes barreling off much worse.
How your opponent perceives his own range is part most people think about when deciding whether to barrel – is my opponent a station who thinks middle pair is a much better hand than it actually is? How loose or tight is he? Is he risk-averse or is he willing to gamble? These questions are what most people think about when deciding whether to bluff. And finally, it comes down to what your opponent's actual range is, and how much of it is going to call you down given the other factors at play.
Some more specific examples to come in an article next weekend!
mers
http://www.handconverter.com/hands/1400436BB calls wide at BB(~50%) and 3bet very few hands. BB plays passive postflop and calls a lot of my flop cbets. Is this a good spot for triple barreling?
Yes. It'd be better if your opponent was 3betting a good percentage of his Ax hands, but there still should be much more Kx to fold out than Ax to call down. The river isn't a great card, though, because a thinking opponent will know it's very difficult for you to have a straight here, and somewhat unlikely for you to jam without it (that's part of why you should still jam this river with AT against a good thinking opponent).
Quick question regarding this particular hand:If we actually had a value hand here - would we use the same bet sizings, or maybe make it a little bit bigger ott like maybe 100 and then maybe make a non-all-in bet otr ? Or would we play two pair+ the same way ? And if we don't, then how would we balance that (if we think we'll play this opponent again in future) ?
I'd generally use similar sizings, but you can definitely use exploitative ones with reads, or even just the belief that people will respond the way you want to certain sizes. That's something I really don't have all that much evidence about.
Ah, I hate when I get in that situation like in the example with J7 on AJ6.2.I dont think that villans at the lower stakes bluffs in this spot to often. Whats your generall strategy in these spots readless (ST)?Do you 2b in this spot IP with air/marginal hands readless (ST) ? At what stakes will this concept of berlling become important?
What kind of factors make it a good idea to double barrel but not pull the third one? So for instance, there are flops (like the AJ6 example actually) where you already see when you cbet that if called triple barreling can be a good idea. Then you can go through with it or pull back depending on how the board develops, i.e give up when the board pairs or when turn / river are good for villain's range or depending on whether u rep missed draws or not, etc. Or you can plan on barreling certain cards and not others. But are there spots where it's generally a good idea to pull a second barrel on turn but give up if called regardless of river? I'm not sure it's a good idea to try to think this way.Also, not necessarily linked to other question. If you double barrel but are planing on shutting down if called, do you make your turn sizing a little bigger for max fold equity right there? At least vs certain villains?
Which kind of reads / history do you need before deciding whether to double or even triple barrel, especially on these Ace-high boards ?I made the experience that many opponents at the $60's play their Ax hands rather passively, ie. they flat pre-flop, then check/call multiple streets - and bluffing these boards obviously isn't such a great idea if the opponent doesn't raise these hands somewhere.
"Ah, I hate when I get in that situation like in the example with J7 on AJ6.2. I dont think that villans at the lower stakes bluffs in this spot to often. Whats your generall strategy in these spots readless (ST)? Do you 2b in this spot IP with air/marginal hands readless (ST) ?" I usually fold Jx on the turn and definitely on the river readless. Which happens to be why it's a good spot to bluff against a good thinking player who knows you rep very little air, and doesn't know what you're capable of.
Double barrel but not the third - These are spots where getting called on the second really indicates a pretty strong range, often top pair heavy, when there aren't as many middle pair/middle pair+draw hands in his range. They are also situations where there are very clear missed draws and air in your range - when there are flush and straight draws on the flop that all miss, it's often just best to give up against a thinking player without too much dynamic.So, for example, let's say the flop comes K45 with a suit, and you're fairly deep, too deep for a hand like K8 to really check raise. Turn is an offsuit 9. This is a very good spot for a fairly big turn double barrel - but once you get called, that's going to be Kx a lot, and it's often best just to give up unless the river is a really good bluff card.
Awesome answer.What about the sizing?"Also, not necessarily linked to other question. If you double barrel but are planing on shutting down if called, do you make your turn sizing a little bigger (edit: than you would if planing to tripel barrel) for max fold equity right there? At least vs certain, (non-good) villains?"
Whats your generall strategy in these spots readless (ST)? Do you 2b in this spot IP with air/marginal hands readless (ST) ? "I usually fold Jx on the turn and definitely on the river readless. Which happens to be why it's a good spot to bluff against a good thinking player who knows you rep very little air, and doesn't know what you're capable of." So you wouldnt barell the turn readless since you dont know if villian is a good thinking player?Like nicoasp said, would you barell the turn smaller if you intend to give up on the river?
Often times a bigger turn sizing is better when you're planning on double barreling, but it depends on texture, etc. Sometimes a half pot second barrel is all that's required to fold out some high card/bottom pair type hands that are calling flop to fold to future aggression.
No Limit Holdem Tournament • 2 Players$29.37+$0.63 Hand converted by the official HUSNG.com hand converter BBgrbsergio490 SBHero510 Effective Stacks: 25bb Blinds 10/20 Pre-Flop (30, 2 players) Hero is SB Hero raises to 40, grbsergio calls 20 Flop (80, 2 players) grbsergio checks, Hero bets 40, grbsergio calls 40 Turn (160, 2 players) grbsergio checks, Hero bets 80, grbsergio calls 80 River (320, 2 players) grbsergio checks, Hero bets 160, grbsergio calls 160 Final Pot: 640Should I 3 barrel here or just give up on river? BB is kind of passive but I didn't think he is passive enough not to bet or c/r his Qx with no clubs on flop(he did have Q2hh). I double barrel with my K high flush equity on turn(after watching your video, i think I may need to increase my turn bet to ~110). On river, I think he probably have 7x or 5x so I decide to fire out for another bullet. Is my reasoning ok here?
Ya if you 2barell here I think you have to go for a 3barell to get him of 7x/5x.I think you can go bigger on turn. I would go for 105, sets it up for a good river push.
I think I prefer slightly bigger bets on turn and river. There's an easy missed draw for people to put you on, and I think you get looked up too light when you make it these sizes. I'm just talking about the difference between 100 on the turn, or 200 on the river. The fact that there's an easy draw to put you on does make it a worse triple barrel spot - I usually check behind turn here, but if you do bet turn I think it should be to fire on a lot of rivers. People don't like folding pairs+draw and even simple pairs on the turn.
Do you 2b in this spot IP with air/marginal hands readless (ST) ? "I usually fold Jx on the turn and definitely on the river readless. Which happens to be why it's a good spot to bluff against a good thinking player who knows you rep very little air, and doesn't know what you're capable of." So you wouldnt barell the turn readless since you dont know if villian is a good thinking player?
In an ST, yeah, I'm actually barreling off readless, because there's even less Ax in his range.