It's social online poker. Play with your friends, not random Internet donkeys! Host private online poker games: you set the stakes, you choose the rules! Integrated TableTalk VoIP voice chat—talk while you play! Play cash games, tournaments (up to 90 players), and sit & go's; Choose from Texas Hold'em, Omaha., even Dealer's Choice!
A certain, relatively small category of no-limit hold'em players never bluff. It's true. Whether because they are afraid to get caught or just have some sort of mental block preventing them from betting without a good hand, a certain, small percentage of players genuinely never bluff.
However, the majority of hold'em players do bluff. Most of these players understand that in order to win at no-limit hold'em, you can't simply wait for good hands and expect always to profit from them when they finally come around. Bluffing enables you to win hands without having the best cards. Bluffing also enables you to create an image that increases the chances you will get called when you are betting with the best hand.
Meanwhile discovering how to sniff out bluffs and make correct calls is also a desirable skill for no-limit hold'em players. In fact, figuring out the art of 'bluff catching' might be one of the most challenging lessons to learn, especially for new players.
An Example Bluff... Viewed from Both Sides
Learning how to bluff well is not a simple task, but players generally get practice bluffing early on in their poker development — sometimes out of necessity.
Finding yourself deep in a postflop situation without a good hand, you realize a bluff is your only way of winning a hand and fire away. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and by trial-and-error you learn what tends to work when bluffing and what does not.
Hopefully (eventually) you learn how to make your bluffs believable, with smart bet sizing and/or giving the appearance of logical 'lines' or sequences of action leading up to your bluffs. The well-made bluff comes after having established credibility, usually through 'telling' a believable 'story' that starts with your image and extends through the actions in a particular hand.
Let's walk through an example.
Having shown yourself to be a tight-aggressive player, you decide to raise from the button with and get a caller in the big blind.
You continue with a bet after the flop and are called. Then after the turn your opponent bets, you decide to raise with your big draws, and you get called again. The river is the , and when your opponent checks you don't wait long before confidently firing a two-thirds pot-sized bet as a bluff.
It's a credible story. You appear very likely to have the strong hand you're representing, and not just the ace-high you actually have.
Now imagine yourself on the other side of this situation. Say you're the one in the big blind with . You check-call the flop with second pair, then decide to lead on the turn only to get raised. You warily call that raise then check fifth street, then watch your opponent fire a big river bet.
Whether or not you are able to build up the nerve to call the bet, you should understand that holding on a board is what is called a 'bluff catcher.' That's a hand which by definition (probably) can only beat a bluff.
A player with a medium-strength hand on this river — hands like like , , — probably will check behind. Even players with stronger hands like two pair or a set might check, fearing the third diamond might have made you the flush you appeared to be chasing by calling the turn check-raise.
That leaves very strong hands (like a diamond flush) or bluffs (like busted straight or flush draws) as hands with which the player would bet. As you have a bluff catcher, you can call if you believe the bluff to be more likely than the very strong hand.
Three Necessary Criteria for Bluff Catching
Looking at this example, we can isolate the necessary elements that need to be in place in order to call a bluff with such a 'bluff catcher' hand:
- your opponent has to be capable of bluffing
- your opponent's bet size makes it inviting to call
- you have to have a hand that can actually beat a bluff
First off, your opponent has to be capable of bluffing. If the player falls into that small category of never-bluffers, or even if the player has demonstrated extreme tightness and a seeming unwillingness to get out of line, you needn't bother talking yourself into making a thin call with a subpar hand. He's not firing that river with something your second pair, weak kicker can beat.
Typically you're going to target loose-aggressive players who are more than willing to bet and raise with subpar hands — or nothing at all — when calling with a bluff catcher.
Secondly, you need to consider carefully the amount of the bluff and whether your opponent's bet size makes it inviting to call.
If you have some history with the opponent and have recognized any patterns with bets or bluffs, use that information to help you evaluate the bet amount. If the player routinely bets big amounts (i.e., a large percentage of the pot) with strong hands, a big bet will be less inviting to call, but if the player likes to make smallish value bets and then bets big, that might indicate a bluff.
You can also use pot odds to help make this decision. In our sample hand above a player made a river bet of two-thirds the pot — let's say a bet of $60 into a $90 pot. That would mean you have to call $60 to win $150, which is pot odds of 2.5-to-1.
If you estimate your opponent is bluffing more than once every 2.5 times this situation arises, a call would be profitable from a mathetmatical point of view. (See '10 Hold'em Tips: Pot Odds Basics' for more on this topic.)
Finally, you can be almost 100% sure your opponent is bluffing, but you have to have a hand that can actually beat a bluff in order to call.
Bluff catchers tend to be weak pairs (if you think your opponent has no better than ace-high), or even sometimes ace-high (if you think your opponent has king-high or worse). But if the board shows and you have , even if you know your opponent is bluffing you can't reasonably call. (You could bluff raise in such a spot, however.)
Bottom line — if the 'story' your opponent is trying to tell isn't adding up and you suspect a bluff, and the situation meets all of the criteria for bluff catching, consider making that call.
Be smart, though, and not overly paranoid that everyone is bluffing you on those rivers. The fact is, whether playing live or online poker, most players bluff very little. With many opponents you're going to find their bets and raises — especially the big ones — often are not bluffs but made for value.
Also in this series...
Ready to take a seat at the table? Put these hold'em tips into practice at 888poker.
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
Tags
cash game strategytournament strategyno-limit hold’embluff catchingbluffingpot oddshand readingrange readingRelated Room
888poker
Let’s talk about bluffing. It’s the one part of poker strategy that even non-poker players think they understand. Bluffing is, simply put, an act of deception – meant to make your weak hand look stronger than it is – with the intent of getting your opponent to fold.
What makes a bluff successful? You have to know how to pick your spots. There are six general matters you need to consider when deciding whether or not to bluff: your opponents, your image, the betting history of the hand, your position, the strength of your hand, and the size of the bet. Let me address them each in turn.
Your Opponents
Ultimately, your opponents determine whether a bluff will be successful. If you bet and he folds – your bluff works and you win the hand. If you bet and he calls your bluff fails.
So how can you control what your opponent does? You bet your hand; he bets his. What can you do to affect his behavior?
There are many different types of poker players and you need to pick the right opponents to bluff against. Ideally you want to have only one opponent to bluff against. While there are times when your bluff will work against an entire lineup, most of the time you want it to be head to head. Similarly, you want to avoid bad targets for your bluff. You don’t want to bluff a guy who is so bad that he doesn’t think about your bet when he decides to call or fold? You don’t want to try to bluff a guy who is too loose to lay down his hand to your bet – even if he thinks you have him beat. After all, if he’s too bad to think about what your bet means – then he’s too dumb to lay down his hand no matter what you do. So don’t bluff a guy who calls too much. As the saying goes, it’s easier to bluff a good player than a bad player.
Along those lines, the recent history of your opponent needs to be taken into consideration as well. Some players get hammered so badly in a session that they tilt and become fatalistic. They’ll give away the rest of their stack with any kind of draw. They don’t make good targets of your bluff – even if normally they’re a good player. Conversely, if a guy has just won a large pot and is stacking his chips – or if he’s getting ready to leave, or is really close to even, — he’s probably thinking more about preserving his stack – and may make a great target for a bluff – even if he’s not normally too swift. So at that point he’d make a good bluffing taret.
Your Image
Your table image plays a large part in whether your bluff will be successful. You need to be aware of what it is in order to exploit it. If you’re seen as a tight player your bets will more likely be believed as representing strength. Your bluffs will be more likely to succeed. On the other hand, if you’re perceived as a wildman – who throws his chips around like a drunken sailor (or even better – if you are perceived as a drunken sailor) – your bluffs will almost surely fail – since you’re likely to be called. Take your image to others into consideration and make your bluffs accordingly.
Poker Klub Bluff Novi Sad Album
Betting History of the Hand
Bets are not viewed in a vacuum. They are part of a narrative. Your bet, to succeed against perceptive opponents, needs to fit into that narrative to be believed. Your good opponent is not likely to believe that your bet on the river means you hit your flush if your betting up until that point didn’t indicate that you were on a flush draw.
Conversely, here’s an example of your bluff following a believable “I made the flush on the river” narrative. In a relatively tight $2-5 game, your early position opponent with a deep stack raised pre-flop to $20. You, also with a deep stack, called with . The flop came . Your opponent bet $35 and you called. The turn was the – making the board . Your opponent bet $50 and you called. The river was the . Your opponent checked. You bet $100. That story is the story of a flush draw turning into a flush when the river card hits. Your pre-river action made it look like you actually hit a flush on the river.
Poker Klub Bluff Novi Sad Song
Strength of Your Hand
Pure bluffs – when a hand has absolutely no chance of success unless your opponent folds – are less likely to win you money then bluffs that are combined with hands with the possibility of improving as the hand develops. These are generally known as “semi-bluffs”. I think of them as bluffs with a back up plan – a way to win even if they don’t win outright as a bluff.
Here’s an example of a semi-bluff. It’s the flop. You have . The flop is . You bet. On the one hand you have nothing. If your opponent folds you win. It would be a successful bluff if that happened. But even if he calls you have a chance of getting hitting a ten or a heart on the turn or river and winning that way.
As you can see, a bluff with a backup plan, known as a semi-bluff, is better than just a pure bluff. So take that into consideration when pondering whether or not to bluff.
Your Position
The position you are in relative to the remaining player or players in the hand is an important consideration. Generally, you want to see how your opponent reacts to the board before you decide to bluff – making late position more advantageous than early position when bluffing. If he checks you can often presume him to be weak and bet. If you have to bet or check first, you won’t have the advantage of seeing his reaction to the board.
In poker, however, few things are always true. Sometimes, it may be better to bluff from early position. If, for example, you are against a rather sophisticated opponent, who understands that bluffing is generally more likely from late position, you may be more likely to fool him into folding a superior hand by betting in early position.
Bet Size
In no limit it’s important to think about the size of your bet when you are bluffing. Ideally, you will bet the least amount necessary to get your opponent to fold. But what is that amount?
It may seem that the more you bet the more likely your opponent will be to fold. As a practical matter this is rarely true, however. It’s better to think in terms of thresholds beyond which opponents will not call. And you want to get as close to the threshold as you can.
Here are some examples. The pot is $100. The flop has missed you. Your opponent has checked, indicating weakness. As a rule of thumb, knowing nothing else, a bet of 50% of the pot will generally be enough to get an opponent to fold if he hasn’t hit his hand and isn’t on a draw. There’s generally no need to bet more than $50 in this situation to push your opponent off of his hand. Realize, of course, that every situation is different. If you have reason to suspect that your opponent is on some kind of draw, a larger bet, perhaps one the size of the pot, may be necessary to get him to fold. If you know your opponent to be especially tight, an even smaller bet might be sufficient – perhaps as little as $25. Similarly, if your opponent is a calling station, no matter how large you bet you may not induce him to fold – meaning you shouldn’t attempt a bluff at any price.
Here’s another example. It’s the river. The pot is $300. You’ve read your opponent for a flush draw. The river is not suited so no flush is possible. Your opponent checks. If you’ve read your opponent correctly, there’s no way he will call a bet of any size. On the other hand, you have nothing so you can’t risk checking it down. You can safely bet as little as 25% of the pot and expect a fold. Why risk more, in case he has deceived you with a monster? If he comes over the top you can lay down your bluff without having lost more than $75 on the bluff.
Conclusion
There’s a time and place to succeed with bluffing, which is a complicated matter. Yet novice players often fall into the trap of bluffing far too much. It’s important that you consider all the factors in this lesson to before you attempt to pull off a bluff.
Poker Klub Bluff Novi Sad Lyrics
If you’re new to poker and are just starting out then it’s best to avoid the temptation to bluff. By studying the lessons here on Pokerology you’ll learn much more about the concept of bluffing, along with many other successfully poker strategies. When you combine this knowledge with valuable playing experience, the art of bluffing will become second nature.
Related Lessons
By Ashley Adams
Ashley Adams lives in Boston, Massachusetts and has been playing poker for decades. He is the author of two poker books and his specialty is 7-card stud and no-limit hold'em.