Part: Part Seven - Betting on Fourth and Fifth Street
A blocker bluff
Turn
You raised pre with A♠K♦ and c-bet the Q♠ 8♠ 4♣ flop; the big blind called. Turn 2♥ - you have only ace-high, but you hold the A♠ (the nut-flush blocker). He checks.
Ace-high, no pair, but you hold the A♠ on a two-spade board. Best on the turn?
WhyYou have ace-high and nothing else, so a second barrel just bloats the pot as a bluff into a station and folds out the hands you already beat. Check, keep the pot small, and - the real point - save the A♠ so that when a spade completes you can tell a story he has to believe.
What happensYou check behind; pot holds at 3,000 (15 BB), and your best weapon is still loaded for the river.
River
River 7♠ - a third spade completes a possible flush. He checks. You missed everything, but you hold the A♠.
The flush completes, he checks, and you hold the nut-flush blocker. Best?
WhyThe third spade is exactly the card you were waiting for. With the A♠ in your hand he can't hold the nut flush, and his pairs and busted draws are in a miserable spot facing a big bet on a three-flush board. This is the credible bluff - even when it doesn't work.
What happensYou bet 2,400; he tank-calls with K♠J♠, the king-high flush he'd been drawing at, and takes it. The bluff had the right blocker and the right story - run it a hundred times and it prints. Losing this one changes nothing about the play.
You banked the A♠ by checking the turn, then used it when the flush came in - holding the blocker meant he rarely had the hand you represented. And note how it ended: the bluff was still the right bet even on the day it got called. Correct plays lose sometimes; that doesn't make them wrong.
The card that makes your bluff believable is the one you're holding. Keep the key blocker alive for the street where the scare card lands instead of firing it away early.