Bluff floating flops is very simple mostly because we should really only be doing so in select spots. Like we talked about in the previous section, the big things we care about are our equity and our opponent. If we know our opponent will always CB-and-quit, then we should be floating much more liberally assuming that his CB range is very wide. Again, if he is going to double barrel a wide range, then floating becomes less ideal because of the money necessary to run the play coupled with the level of uncertainty that comes along with it.
Let’s look at a very common situation. A nitty 11/6 raises from EP with a 4% EPPFR, it folds to us on the button and we call with T9s, and we see a HU flop of A76r. He CBs $4 into $7.5 and the action is on us. If we take a look at a 4% range we see it is 99+/AK. If we see how that range hits the flop we see it hits TP or better 40% of the time, and the other 60% is made up of 99-KK. If we think he would CB his whole range now (and usually we can assume that is so when players have very high CB percentages), and we know that he is a CB-and-quit type player, a float here is perfect.
We can catch an 8 and get paid in the event that he has a strong hand on the turn. We can also win by stabbing when he checks the turn. We are simply using our positional edge and forcing our opponent to play a very difficult spot. With such definitive boards this play can be very easy against CB-and-quit type players, and we should look to pressure them whenever possible.
Many players will look at the Flopzilla results and ask themselves if they should raise the flop (because only 40% of his range, at max, would probably continue if we did raise the flop). This is a very valid question to ask, but we have to consider the parlays and logical actions. By raising we are risking, say, $13. If we call the CB and bet the turn for $9 we are actually risking the same $13. However, when we call and bet the turn we do so with more information. We get to see how he reacts to the turn. We get to see if he bets at us with his strong hands and then we never put more money at risk. We also get to take our equity draw for cheap. Maintaining and using our positional edge is something we want to do often, and often times floating is a great way to do that.
Let’s look at another hand that comes up fairly often. Say a player opens from MP, we call in the CO with 55, and see a HU flop of J93. MP bets at us and it’s our action. With no information on MP this is a very easy fold. In fact, if we had information that MP was a fish, an unknown, an aggressive double barreler, or a minimal CBer then this is still a very easy fold. Again, the big things we are looking for is a person who CBs a wide range of hands, and plays CB-and-quit postflop. That is all. We can see this in a large FlopCB and small TurnCB percentage. But we also have to look at board texture.
We notice that the A76 board from the first example is a very definitive board texture. Our opponent either has a hand that he likes (AA/AK) or has a few outs (KK or JJ). There are no overcards that can hit the turn that can be double barreled. The J93 board is less definitive. There are lots of overcards that can hit the turn (Q, K, A) and hands that we beat now, like AK, have decent equity to improve. Also, if our opponent has a hand like KK, he is unlikely to bet the turn again on the A76 board, but very likely to bet the turn again on the J93 board. We want our opponent to check/fold the turn, not bet again at us (either as a bluff or for value).
We’ve talked a lot about not floating against aggressive double barrelers. While aggressive double barrelers will have a non-zero percentage of bluffs in their double barrel range, the issue is our exposure. Take a situation where we float the flop with 66 on a Q83 board. The turn comes a 5 and he bets again. Let’s look at our options:
Fold.
• Calling the flop just to fold the turn a very large percentage of the time is just burning money
Call.
• How are we going to win the pot? We have a pure bluff catcher, and do we plan on calling a likely river bet? If so, we are talking about exposing a very large percentage of our stack to call off with a single weak pair.
Raise.
• We don’t really represent too much as we would probably call a hand like KQ. Thus we rep 88, 33, and very rarely a floated 55. So we represent very few combinations of hands, and any good hand reader will pick up on that very quickly. Couple that with the fact that we have to expose a very large percentage of our stack with no great idea on how often it will work. Whenever it comes to having big exposure with big uncertainty, it is usually best to pass on the opportunity. But if our opponent would fold a ton of the time versus a raise, then we could consider it if we knew that he could fold hands like QJ/KK sometimes/ bluffs/etc. enough of the time.
It should also be noted that floating is much easier in position as opposed to out of position. Being in position we get to see how our opponent reacts to the turn card and we get to close action. Being out of position we allow our opponent to check behind their equity hands. Because of this we usually want to avoid floating out of position unless we have a very good reason to do it. Given all the parameters that make floating a good play, we don’t end up doing it all that often. But doing it incorrectly can be a major winrate (WR) killer, and doing it never can make us very exploitable. So make sure to pay attention and take notes on opponents so we can find profitable float opportunities.