Lesson
Choosing River Bluffs: Block Their Calls, Unblock Their Folds
River Bluffing · advanced · 10 min
Tyler Forrester reviews how a solver fills a river bluffing range by choosing hands that block calls without blocking folds. The lesson focuses on why some ace-high, queen-x, and ten-x combos become preferred bluffs, and how turn ranges include value, draws, and low-equity hands to create credible river pressure.
Key takeaways
- Choose river bluffs that block the opponent's calling range while interfering as little as possible with the folding range.
- On queen rivers, it can be difficult to over-bluff, so the solver uses many bluff candidates, including some ace-high and small-card suited combos.
- Do not build the turn betting range only from value and obvious draws; in this example Tyler describes it as roughly 50% value, 30% draws, and 20% low-equity hands.
- Old-school heuristics like avoiding diamond blockers can miss high-value bluffs such as some queen-x diamond combos.
- River calling decisions are combo-specific: hands with key diamonds can be profitable calls, while similar-looking random calls can lose multiple big blinds.