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Article has been taken from PokeriInfo website with their permission.
Bluffing is the tactical concept people stay with in poker through thick and thin. As usual, truth is stranger than fiction. Although bluffing often forms the climax in poker tales, it is seldom successful in practice.
Bluffing has two goals:
| * Win the pot. |
| * Create an image. |
Bluffs are not needed to be successful every time. It is enough if bluffing pays for itself. As an additional benefit, there comes a looser image, and it will pay later on. A player who never bluffs reveals his hand in practice. Every time he is betting, the opponents can place him with a strong hand and fold except with their very best cards. Therefore, a failed bluff can indeed be successful by creating uncertainty. A threat is, in fact, a much more powerful tactical weapon than bluffing itself.
The image factor may be far too overrated in online poker. The players usually change so fast that the new image seldom gets the time to pay back. In loose games, tight mathematical poker is the winning strategy. On the other hand, in tournaments - especially in mini-tournaments, where the same players sit at the table to the end - the image factor can play a crucial role in the final rounds.
Bluffing can be successful, if:
| * There are at most two opponents. |
| * The opponents are able to fold. |
| * The pot is small. |
| * The game has been passive. |
| * The bluffer is betting first. |
Success depends on the number of opponents. If we suppose that all the opponents are shaped after the same mold - because we can't estimate more exactly either - and a bluff will succeed 50% of the time against one opponent, it will succeed only 1:3 against two opponents and 1:7 against three opponents at the same time. The opponents have to be able to fold. Bluffing is meaningless, if the hands are regularly played to showdown.
It is proportionally much easier to bluff a small pot, because the opponents don't get correct pot odds. Bluffing a big pot in a fixed limit game is nearly impossible, because curiosity costs only one single bet, and the alternative is to lose the whole pot. Checking or passive betting can also give a tip - but only a tip - about a good bluffing situation. The risk is that a checking could, in fact, have been an attempt to check-raise. Also, the new, seemingly harmless card can fit into someone's small pocket pair and give him a set.
Late position has normally a big advantage, but bluffing is more successful from early position. If all players have checked and the last man bets, it is very obvious to everyone that he can be bluffing. On the other hand, an early-position bettor usually has a very strong hand. Fear is the bluffer's best friend.
Profitable Bluffing Situations
As stated above, bluffing is very seldom profitable in loose, fixed limit games. One situation worth a try is when a pair flops. Normally, there are 9 cards the flop can help. When the flop is paired, there are only 5 cards fitting the flop. Therefore it is more probable that the flop has not helped anyone while the threat of a set - fear is the bluffer's best friend - is glowing on the board.
Bluffing is most profitable in early position (the blinds can have anything) when the flop contains only small cards without a draw. For example 2-2-7 will do, because the cards help only some few starting hands. 6-6-7 is already more dangerous, since suited connectors are playable starting hands in loose games. Big cards are even more threatening, because they can make a correct starting hand unsuited and unconnected, too.
In tournaments bluffing is necessary on the final rounds. If you have created tight image during the first rounds, take advantage of it when the bets are bigger and the threat is a powerful weapon. When finally playing heads-up, bluffing is inevitable. If the opponent is an extremely tight player keen to fold, bluffing is an effective measure to pick up blinds. Also, if you yourself have had to fold many worthless hands in a row, you have got a psychologically correct moment to test a bluff.
It's difficult to introduce profitable bluffing situations in a systematical way. They just suddenly pop up in most different kind of situations. Anyway, knowledge of human nature is vital in bluffing decisions. Without it one is better off turning to tight mathematical poker.
Disclosing a Bluff
Is the opponent bluffing? The answer is easy: most often no. Curiosity is in the long run as expensive as too frequent bluffing. Anyway, if you appreciate "honest play", you have to remember the fundamental rule of bluffing: a bettor and a raiser may be bluffing, but a player who calls is not. In other words, if the first player bets, he may be bluffing. If the next player raises, he may be bluffing, too. If the third player just calls, he is not bluffing.
In some situations, bluffing demands more guts than the Creator can have donated. For example, you have raised with a pair of aces preflop and then bet all the way when the opponents have checked it to you. On the river, one opponent suddenly bets or check-raises. Fold your hand without any hesitation. Only a few have the courage to bluff in this kind of situation. In other words, a good opportunity for a bluff? Not really. Only a few have enough self-discipline to fold in cases like this.
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