Should You Ever Bluff with a Pair?

On earlier streets, however, multiple merged motives can sometimes encourage us to take the aggressive line with some of our weak pairs.
To clarify, a solver does not “think” as a human would; it’s an EV-maximizing algorithm that calculates the best strategies given the inputs that were provided. By comparing solver outputs, we can recognize repeating patterns for which we can build heurístics that make all of this output easier to understand and more practical to use in-game.

The Dos and Don’ts

Turning pairs into a bluff can be tricky. Often, minor differences draw the line between an excellent play and a spew. But there is good news! This is not just solver noise. Every strange-looking play is made for a reason. The more we understand how ranges interact with board textures and potential runouts, the easier it becomes. To uncover the different motives for sometimes taking the aggressive route with our weak pairs and acquire the ability to spot the difference between randomly clicking buttons and thoughtful plays, we will inspect some realistic examples to better grasp when and why to turn pairs into bluffs.

Bluffing Pairs in Single-Raised Pots

We usually want to keep the pot small with marginal holdings, especially when we are out of position (OOP). There are situations, though, where we want to check/raise some of our weak pairs. To give you a better insight, let us explore the following spot:

As we can see, our bottom pairs, especially the ones with the lowest kickers, get checked/raised around 20% of the time here. But why is that? Let’s take a closer look at the BTN response to find out:

There are a couple of prominent indicators to be identified in the BTN’s response:

Getting a clearer picture of how to play the flop is already great, but future streets are often still shrouded in a fog of war. Countless different runouts can make it feel complicated to locate the signal of when and why to keep betting our weak pairs. Let us examine how and how not to keep betting our weakest pairs on future runouts together.

We take a turn onto a bricky 2. The sim tells us to keep the pressure on with almost 80% of BB’s 4-x. Some motives are pretty similar to the flop, but a few differ.

While the BB’s reasons for check/raising some of their small pairs started out merged on the flop, the motives cleared up as the hand progressed through the streets to the river. Blocking a substantial amount of BTN´s strong hands and running out of natural bluffs while at the bottom of their range are the leading drivers for the BB to complete the conversion of 4-x into a bluff on the river in this spot.

In some scenarios, we don’t want to follow through with our weak pairs. To gain a more detailed understanding, let’s explore the following spot.

Did you notice a difference regarding the board texture from the prior spot? At first, it seems there is only a small one, right? The suits changed, but that´s about it. The strategy for OOP’s 4-x massively differs, though.
All of BB’s 4-x is now pure checking the river. Let us find out why!

To summarize the key learning so far:

There are sometimes merged motives for betting low pairs on the flop and turn, despite having enough showdown value and other bluffs to choose from.

The main merged motives for low pairs are:

Those merge-bets with low pairs happen even more frequently when in position because the IP player can realize more EQ by always being able to check back the river on runouts where they don’t need to turn their weak pairs into a bluff.

As we can see, minor differences in board texture can cause major differences in strategy. Keeping an eye on how ranges look across all streets will help you maneuver through these spots more efficiently.

Bluffing Pairs in 3-Bet Pots

Turning pairs into a bluff is not just happening in SRPs. Let us explore the following two spots together to help you understand when and when not to bluff pairs in 3-bet pots!

When we examine the river output more closely, we will instantly notice that the BTN is bluffing with a decent amount of third and worse pairs (roughly 62%). There are a few reasons:

Notice that the same reasons to bluff low pairs return:

Before we explore when not to bluff pairs in 3-bet pots, let’s test our understanding of ranges and how this impacts our strategy!

Question: J♠T♠ makes more money than J♥T♥ and even more than double the amount of J♦T♦ for the shoving option. Why is that?

You can use this knowledge to your advantage. In spots where you suspect that your opponent will call slightly lighter than he is supposed to, we can simplify and purely give up with our worst-performing pairs that are indifferent at equilibrium.

When you struggle with finding the motives why a particular combo gets chosen over another for a particular action, a closer look at the following two things will help you.

When we compare the previous spot with this one, we will spot a big difference regarding the bluffing combos: The BTN is not bluffing with a single pair on the river, but why?

In spots where a player has lots of natural bluffs with good blocker properties and very little showdown value to choose from on the river, they often won’t need to turn weak pairs into a bluff.

The Influence of Position

Positions play a prominent role in how you construct your strategy. Let’s jump into the following spot to understand more deeply what influence positions have on bluffing pairs.

Both spots are very similar, with the same flop sizing and turn check, on the same board. The only visible difference is the position. The IP player in the left picture opened from UTG, and the IP player on the right opened from the BTN. When we note the worst pairs of the IP player, we notice that the BTN checks them 100% of the time, while the UTG player turns them into a bluff almost 40% of the time. There are the following reasons:

As we can see, position is a very influential factor in the process of answering the questions of when and why to bluff pairs. In the end, though, it all comes down to how well you understand the composition of ranges and their interaction with board textures. Constantly improving this skill will help you to outperform and outplay your opponents in the long run.

When We Want to Deviate

Against weaker opponents who deviate themselves (often unintentionally), we want to adjust our strategy as well—from the default, GTO game plan to a custom-tailored, exploitative one. To illustrate how to adapt when it comes to turning pairs into bluffs, let us do a little experiment and take the previous BB vs BTN spot on JT36A flush-completing river but with a little twist.

In theory, the BB can only fold slightly over 50% of their third and worse pairs against a 67% pot river-bet in this spot.

Depending on the combo, the EV of bluffing for all low pairs increases between 250 and even over 400%. An outcome like this is not even unrealistic when we face a very tight player. As we can see, turning pairs into a bluff that would usually always take a showdown can be highly profitable. Keeping an eye on the player type you are facing, understanding what you and your opponent are supposed to do, and being able to adjust accordingly will skyrocket your win rate.

Conclusion

Uff, this was a lot of information to process! Let us go over the most critical points again.

Do you want to learn more about strategy with pairs? Then, this excellent article on check/raising a single pair will probably be interesting to you.