Using "Blocker Bets" and "Fake Blocker Bets"

[Zybomb]

I've come across something lately in my live full ring play which I have found to be effective mostly because I think it frustrates/spazzes out players

First off just real quick, as most people know a "Blocker Bet" is a bet made as a defensive bet when out of position. It is usually a small bet when you assume your opponent doesn't have the NUTS but may have a hand that beats you --- you plan on calling if he bets, so since you believe he can not raise, you make a smaller bet yourself which hopefully he will just call, and you get to showdown for cheaper. It also can be used earlier in the hand when you are drawing. This can be an effective move, but aggressive players lately have seen thru these bets and have been auto bluff raising them, or raising them lighter.

I think this presents a nice opportunity for "fake blocker bets". These naturally are bets designed to look like blocker bets but in reality you have a huge hand.

Example:

We lead out $50 into a $75 with the nut flush draw on the flop and are raised by an opponent to $150, the remaining players fold and we call.

We hit our flush on the turn...but we're OOP so getting max value is going to be tough... a lot of the times if we check our opponent will check behind, then call down the river. The times that we do lead out strong most non set hands will fold...and if we lead out medium, our opponent will generally either fold if he is medium strong or call if he is very strong but then fold if we bet the river again leaving us with the same result (one street of value) (if we have a hyper aggro image and consistently represent draws then this doesn't apply since we'll get called down light so just bet/bet is the way to go if thats the case or if you are against players who don't know about the fold option of this game the same applies)

So what do we do.... lead the turn with a ridiculously sized bet of $45... the same player who would have CHECKED if we checked now seems to raise this an incredible amount of the time (it looks like we have 1 big heart and a pair or something now and dont wanna call a big bet) so he jacks it up to $350. We thnk a while and then call. The river blanks and we lead out for $40 (or something else ridiculous). Opponent will at least just call this bet but he may be tempted to value raise again!

It sounds stupid but this has been effective for me as of late. And obviously the ridiculous bets don't have to be THAT small (i think in the examples i over did it a bit) but generally max of 25% of the pot (also depends on stack sizes)... but i have found that when you bet LESS than your original bet the street before people spaz and auto raise you a very very high % of the time (i bet 50 u raise 150 then i bet 45 the next street)