My biggest recurrent leak is paying off with bluff catchers. How do I fix this.

Well instead of calling try the fold or raise button.
Stop calling 3 barrels oop as well. They're unprofitable with tp.
Be the aggressor not the caller.
Try the same line with your nutted range as a trap next time.

Don't know if this helps, but here are some random thoughts...

Triple barrels tend to be under-bluffed.

Sometimes we need to listen to our intuition, which will often tell us we're beat, even if it's not obvious how we're beat.

Most players tend to over-bluff or under-bluff. Know which type your opponent is before hero calling.

It's okay to get bluffed. It's part of the game.

Have a repeatable thought process for bluff catching. I like Hungry Horse's as a starting point:

1. Do I beat value?
2. Is my opponent capable?
3. Did I give him rope?
4. Is the bet sizable for the game?
5. Does he have non SDV in his range?
6. Would it be more profitable to turn our hand into a bluff by raising, rather than calling?

Hungry Horse co-founder Gethen advocates for over-folding to big river bets from weak opponents.

First, fold preflop. The first hand you described where you paid off three streets from out of position with top pair/bad kicker.....probably should have been a fold preflop.

Your urge to bluffcatch is partly driven by the fact you get to the river with too many hands. So much of your range is bluffcatchers...that's what you end up doing a lot. So fold preflop, and play stronger ranges that hold up better over multiple streets.

Post-flop....bet/fold. Your next two example hands you check back turn opening up bluff opportunities that in turn inspire you to bluff catch. Just stop doing that. If you're in position with a made hand.. bet/fold.

Rivers are drastically underbluffed in low stakes live games. Orders of magnitude less often than they should. You'll get bluffed sometimes, but it's not a mistake to over-fold. So start folding to chunky river bets.

Grinding through the stakes I had to learn this the hard way too but I now realize 2 things that I repeat in threads over and over again. Most are playing stakes where people don't bluff anywhere near enough and call way too much.

I understand you're looking for a more sophisticated answer but truthfully the answer is ''fold more'' and stop convincing yourself you're being bluffed. You're not.

What Pablito wrote. For the most part, LLNL players don't bluff, especially on the river. You should know the regulars you play with and how likely they are to bluff. If you keep calling, it's even less likely they are bluffing 😉

I do think you could be more aggressive, too. Bet those turns; raise when you think you have the best hand.

You lost $720 on those 3 hands. How much $$ did you win on the rest of the river calls? Can’t just fold the ones you would have lost. Have to look at the move overall.

Your first example where he turned a disguised small pair and rivered a disguised two pair actually sounds like it could have been a reasonable scenario to bluffcatch river.

That being said, I would try to implement some sort of process to get you to rethink these spots. It can be helpful to have a standard question or two that you ask yourself every time you are faced with a river bet.

For example, when facing a river bet ask yourself what his potential bluffs and value combos are. If you can't identify either value combos that you beat or enough reasonably-likely bluffs, then you probably shouldn't be calling.

Whatever your exact thought process is, the idea is to disrupt the impulse to call. Your issue is likely an emotional one, at least to an extent. As you invest more money in the pot you become emotionally invested in winning. So you need to override your emotions with pure logic.

Another possible thing to ask yourself when faced with a non-all-in river bet:

Would raising be the better play? Sometimes you check the river with second pair or something, and it will be good a fair amount when they check back, but if they bet it's rarely good. Sometimes it's better to turn your hand into a bluff and raise.

Even if it's not, by considering a raise you will think some more about his range. If you conclude that you shouldn't raise because he is likely to have a top pair hand that won't fold, that can help you come to the right decision that you shouldn't call either.

Do you bluff a lot?
Usually people that bluff often think everyone else does too.

You can’t play call down poker - part of reading hands is ‘shaking things up’ using aggressive lines. Just being on the river deciding whether to hero call three times is not strong poker.

There’s never a snap-call on the river. Most of the time if you think it through logically it’s a fold - but sometimes it can be a raise/shove

It’s mostly not about whether he’s bluffing, it’s more like you have AQ, would he do this with AJ.

Again, you shouldn’t be getting yourself in this situation too often. It’s a lot better when villain decides whether to hero call.

Try folding every time you get in this river spot until you see 3 bluffs. Bet it takes awhile

@OG, I feel your frustration, brother. I've had the same leak. In my prior two sessions, I paid off a couple of big river value bets, because I convinced myself they could be bluffing. But they just so rarely are, at least at lower stakes. Maybe pros with big bankrolls are capable, but most non pros are likely to be unbalanced.

Going into my session last night, I reminded myself to not be too fast to call off big river bets. I ended up not paying off any that I can recall. One guy tried to convince me I made a bad fold, but he refused to show. The whole night, every time I made a disciplined fold, I asked my opponent to show me a bluff. Not one ever did. Only once did an opponent admit he bluffed me after a hand, and it was an under-bluffed spot where I only had ace-high and couldn't really call.

I paid off a few small river bets, and usually they were good calls, in spots where I had a decent bluff catcher and/or my line induced.

Conversely, I noticed that all my thin value bets were getting paid off. And once or twice I was able to induce an opponent to raise with worse by betting small.

After the opponent on my left made a couple of big hero calls against me, in spots where I would have folded his hand, the guy on my right told me he would mostly fold vs the population, but not against me, apparently because of my aggro table image. It seems he and everyone else at the table didn't notice that I almost always had it when they called. Very few of my bluffs were getting picked off, because I only bluffed the players who showed me they had a fold button.

Generally the player pool under-barels with their bluffs and thin value. They'll try to make up for it by sizing up with their strongest hands. They're just so face up.

Lots of helpful suggestions here.
Definitely a lot to think about, and some things to keep in mind while I play.

Appreciate it!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If I had to guess you might be playing too tight, thus you are arriving at showdown with too much value incentivizing you to call because you cant just be folding TP all the time. I actually suggest you loosen your game up. As your redline skyrockets you will no longer be concerned with making the occasional hero fold.

No, it's literally the opposite. He's playing too loose, and thus getting to the river with too many hands.

If he's losing hands at showdown, then the problem can't possibly be "too much value"

Ever heard of implied odds?

I remember reading a post from a top online pro who used to have 'Fold River' written on a note attached to the bottom of his screen.

It's definitely good advice at low stakes where...as Venice points out...people underbluff

other advice is to watch hands more carefully than you are. Every showdown gives you information about the players involved and also the dynamics at your stake in your room. If you see a showdown and don't know what the action was that got to the river because you were talking or scrolling then it is a huge leak.

watching hands is boring, tiring and difficult but it is essential. poker is a game of information

I used to do something similar. I had a note saved on my phone that said something like, "If other options are not clearly +EV, then fold."

The idea I was trying to remind myself of was that if I couldn't clearly articulate in my own mind a reason to continue, then the default action should be to take the 0 ev option of folding.

I did this because I was aware that my personal bias was to put money in the pot and continue. Oftentimes this was in line with theory, but in situations where humans just always had it.

I think it's good to be self-aware enough to recognize your own biases, then force yourself to default to the opposite play. This forces you to logically sell yourself on a reason to take your preferred action, rather than doing it on impulse.

if they are betting bigger then 1/2 pot on the river you need a read to call.

Oh please....PLEASE elaborate

I can't wait to hear this

If someone always gets to the river with top of range are they more or less likely to fold vs a bet? How often do you ever play pairs below 99, and why?

Who is "someone" in this question? Hero or Villain? What do low pairs have to do with this?

I'm confused, so let's recap.

The OP is losing at showdown too often.
Your advice is to play more hands. You think OP has "too much value" and would do better if he got to the river with a weaker range.

That sounds absurd to me. But you say it's not absurd because of "implied odds"

That sounds even more bonkers to me because implied odds don't exist when we're at showdown. The betting is over.

So I asked you to elaborate and you've now come back with a friggen riddle.

How about you just explain, in plain terms, how playing looser will result in winning more showdowns.

Stop calling - especially on rivers. Raise or fold. If your hand isn't strong enough to raise, then fold. Unless you are playing against an obviously spewy player, or obviously good player, you can overfold whenever they show aggression. Most players are far more likely to check back an obvious bluff than they are to bluff with more than they should and they are unlikely to bet thin for value.

On earlier streets, raise more. If you have TPGK OOP, and you think you're good, then bet or x/r the turn.

1: It's cheaper than calling pot OTR.
2: You get value from weaker TP sometimes.
3: You get value from some draws.
4: You protect your equity.
5: V will have to play more face-up so you can easily fold to another bet and get to check down the river a lot more.

Bet turns more frequently. If you have a hand that you think is strong enough to call river to bluffcatch, say 2nd pair, bet the turn and check back river. When Vs call flop, they don't have pure air. They have some pair, some draw. You can bet most turns, even if just a small bet, and then they are only x/r or leading river with really big hands and you can fold. Betting turn will fold out the weakest pairs and some draws on most boards. Checkback turns when you have a monster that pretty much blocks Vs from having anything (Say you turn top set on a dry board). Since Vs aren't going to bluff anywhere close to enough, you can just fold to any raise or river bet without a strong hand because you didn't show any obvious weakness.

Consider checking flops more frequently. With moderate hands like say K9 on a KJ3r board, I will check back flop because:

1: V's will check/call their monsters and fold a lot of their weak stuff on this board, with a flop bet we want them to call with weak stuff and raise with monsters.
2: We're never getting three streets of value from Jx or weaker Kx so we aren't really "losing value" against weak hands by delaying our c-bet.
3: We're far more likely to get two streets from Jx going x/b/b than b/b because Vs won't give us as much credit for having a K when we check flop.
4: Vs will lead turn with better Kx, 2p, etc. so we can be very confident when they check turn that we're ahead. We can play pot control and exploitively fold depending on the size if they bet.

b/x/c is a great line against good regs with SDV, it's a terrible line against most fish. Against fish I prefer x/b/b with moderate SDV, looking to fold against most aggression because they aren't aggressive frequently enough. Basically, if our hand strength is moderate, we want to keep V's range weak. When we b/xb V's range is uncapped and strong. V has all 2p, sets, overpairs, etc. When we xb flop, V will lead with monsters a lot, and failing to lead therefore has a weaker range going to the river.

Here's what I'm trying to get you to realize; we play speculative hands to stack players who cant fold. The 2 main types of players who dont fold much are maniacs and nits. A nits problem is they dont really understand relative hand strength. They've waited all night for AA and arent about to fold on a J9236 runnout. In their poker worldview 'top of range' means 'if I'm folding here then I'm folding everywhere' to justify calling too much. I dont really know what OP's hand range consists of, but the idea that the only people who are payoff masters are people who playing 100% of hands is only half-right. If OP keeps getting to showdown with TP and losing then the reality is everyone knows they can win decent pots off him because he's the very definition of an implied odds player. Thats why I brought up the 99 hand. You know who that hand isnt good against? Solid tags/lags. If OP is running into this player type then he's just going to be constantly winning small pots and losing big one's.

OP, I’ve had this exact leak. The solution starts at the beginning—raise or fold preflop, and don’t play non-premium hands oop.

And then, as at least three far more experienced NLHE players than me have said, stop bluff catching.