Bluffing
Bluffing in Poker
Bluffing in poker is betting with the intention of getting your opponent to fold a stronger hand. It’s a way to win pots without having to have the best hand at showdown.
Poker bluffing is an essential part of the game. Without it, poker would be boring. Bets would be made and the best hand would win.
In the long run, the odds of hitting strong hands is the same for you as it is for your opponents. So, without bluffing, poker would be more or less a game of chance and nobody would have much of a tactical edge.
The fact that bluffing is possible leaves plenty of room for deception at the poker tables. It allows you to win with the better hand, but also by pressuring opponents with a bet or raise forcing them to fold.
Bluffing also makes players much more unpredictable. The possibility you could be bluffing changes how opponents think about the hand. They always have to consider you could be making a bluff raise with air.
When it comes to employing your poker bluffing strategy, it’s all about balance. Your value betting hands should be balanced by your bluffs. You should become impossible to read. That way, your opponents will have to pay you off at least some of the time.
The Importance of Bluffing
Poker bluffing is an important part of strategy because it gives you more ways to win pots. If you try to bluff, you’re no longer reliant on strong hands and hitting the flop.
When it comes to knowing when and how often to bluff, finding the middle ground is important. Bluff too often and other players will be able to call you down light. Bluff too little and they’ll fold when you bet, knowing you’re usually strong.
Think about it. There are some players who never bluff. Once you learn who they are, playing against them is easy. If they bet, you can safely throw your cards away unless you believe your hand is superior to theirs. If you have a better hand, you can call or raise.
Other poker players habitually try to bluff. These players will make real hands every now and then, but the fact they bet and raise far too often makes your decision easy. When they bet, you’ll often have to call as long as you are holding any reasonable hand.
Successful poker players who find the balance keep you guessing about whether they’re bluffing. When you’re forced to guess, you will be wrong some of the time. That’s the way it is and precisely what you’re aiming to do.
By keeping your ranges balanced when you bet or raise, you can force opponents into situations in which they can’t be right all the time. They will lose chips against you by either folding too often or calling too light. It will make your poker bluffing more successful.
Pure bluffs in poker
There are two types of bluff; pure bluffs and semi-bluffs. Whether a bet is one or the other depends on if you have any equity in the hand.
A pure bluff is a bluff you make when you have no equity in the hand. You are behind and don’t have any outs to improve your hand. If the pot goes to showdown, you will almost always lose.
Whenever you have no showdown equity, your only chance to win the chips in the middle is with a pure bluff. This at least gives you some chance in the form of fold equity. This is the equity you gain by betting or raise when your opponent folds to the bet.
Pure bluffs are most common on the river, as by the river you’re either ahead or behind. With no more outs to come, your hand value is set in stone on the river. When you bet or raise, you’ll often have a polarized range including strong value hands and pure bluffs.
Example of a pure bluff:
You have Q♥ 10♣ and have missed everything on a board of 3♣ 5♣ J♥ A♥ . Your opponent’s actions on the flop and turn suggest they have a lot of pairs of jacks in their range, as well as king high hands and small pocket pairs. You will almost certainly lose the hand at showdown. After your opponent checks the river, you make a pot-sized bet. They fold and you win the pot.
Semi-bluffing in poker
A semi-bluff is a bluff made when you have some equity in the hand. Often in the form of a draw on the flop that can improve on later streets. You are still aiming to get your opponent to fold. This time, though, if they do call, there’s a chance you’ll improve and make the winning hand by the river.
This is often a less risky option than pure bluffing. A pure bluff relies on your opponent folding as the only way to win the pot. Semi-bluffs give you two ways to win the pot; by making your opponent fold or by hitting your outs.
This makes bluffing with draws a useful bluffing strategy. One that allows you to win more pots using aggressive betting lines. You can do this any time you have some equity. This includes flush draws, straight draws, and even backdoor draws or overcards if other factors align.
Example of a semi-bluff:
Action is on the flop and you are in position with 9♣ 8♣ on a board of J♣ 10♠ 3♣ . You currently have nine-high, which is likely behind your opponent’s made hands. But you have a straight draw and flush draw. Your opponent makes a continuation bet and you bluff raise. They fold and you win the pot immediately on the flop.
(Note if your opponent had called your flop bet, you could still make the winning hand by the river with any queen, seven or club).
Turning your hand into a bluff
In some cases, you will start out with a value hand. Which you’ll then need to turn into a bluff on later streets when the hand’s equity at showdown drops. For example, let’s say you have a medium pair and raise on a low flop. By the river though, there are several overcards on board.
You’ll need to consider whether it’s worth bluffing the river and weigh this up against your chances of winning at showdown. If you have very little chance to win at showdown, you may want to try to bluff.
Only turn your hand into a bluff if it seems likely your opponent is ahead and there’s a good chance they will fold to your bet or raise.
Example of turning your hand into a bluff:
You have 8♣ 8♠ and the board is 7♣ 3♠ 4♠ J♥ A♠ . You had an overpair on the flop with your pocket eights, which you bet for value. Your opponent calls the flop bet and you both check on the jack-high turn. The ace of spades is a great scarecard on the river, so you decide to bluff.
In this case, your pocket eights have some showdown value by the river. But you suspect you can get your opponent to fold all their pairs of jacks, along with other hands like pocket nines and tens have you beat. You make a bluff raise and they fold.
How to bluff effectively in poker
Poker bluffing shouldn’t be a random process. Neither should it be a knee-jerk reaction to attack weakness every time your opponent checks. A bluff that is profitable in the long run needs to be well thought out, believable, and have a high chance of success.
Here are the factors to consider when bluffing in poker:
Represent a hand
The key to poker bluffing is to represent a hand. Against any thinking opponent, your bluff won’t work if it does not represent a hand in a believable way. You can’t throw chips into the middle and expect your opponents to take your word for it you have the nuts.
Your actions have to tell a story. They have to make sense in a betting sequence, so the way you have behaved preflop or on the flop is coherent with the bluff. This also comes down to hand ranges and betting patterns. If the board texture favors your hand range, then it’s more likely your raise will get through.
For example, let’s say you three-bet preflop from the button and your middle position opponent calls. The flop comes ace-high and they check. You bet the flop, representing a pair of aces or better. In this case, there are plenty of hands you could have three-bet with preflop hit the ace-high board, such as ace-king and ace-queen. The bluff is believable.
When you try to bluff, what you want to do is play in exactly the same way as you would do if you actually had hit it. Same betting line. Same bet sizing. Everything indistinguishable so other players can never know for sure if you are bluffing.
Position and stack sizes
The same factors that apply for every poker scenario can help you to determine whether a bluff is profitable.
Position is very important. When you have position, you’ll be able to see who checks and apply pressure when you see weakness. You’ll also have the option to raise over weak bets, to float flop bets and take the pot down on the turn, and so on.
Stack sizes are another major factor. If your bluff threatens your opponent’s entire stack, they will have to think twice before making the call. If, however, you give them a good price and their stack is very deep, they may be tempted to call and see the next card.
Consider factors like position and stack sizes when determining whether a bluff will work often enough to make it profitable. Otherwise, you could lose chips.
Choosing your opponents
Who exactly you choose to target will have a huge impact on the success rate of your bluffs. We’ve already mentioned targeting players who show weakness during the betting action. If opponents don’t have much of anything, it’s unlikely they can make a call.
But poker bluffing is about more than that. Some opponents don’t know how or when to fold. They either don’t pay enough attention to know what hand you’re trying to represent, or they don’t know how to fold hands like weak pairs. Or they don’t care.
Weak or loose players are not great targets for bluffing. You can and should still bluff these opponents. Just nowhere near as frequently and only in the juiciest spots.
The best type of poker player to target for bluffs are very tight opponents. They will have no problem folding out weak pairs, or top pairs on draw heavy boards. It allows you to push them out in many situations. If they show resistance, especially by raising, you can fold and move on.
Applying the pressure – bubble and pay jumps
Poker bluffing works best when you can apply lots of pressure. There are certain high pressure moments in a poker tournament involving pay-jumps. Chips suddenly have an obvious monetary value.
The first is the bubble. On the bubble of a tournament, the next few players to bust will leave with nothing and everyone else will make the money. It’s not a desirable time to be eliminated, so short and medium stack players tend to tighten right up.
If you have a reasonably big stack on the bubble, you can leverage it to your advantage by stealing blinds and making bluffs on the flop. It’s not really worth it for other players to fight back before the bubble bursts.
The same logic applies later on when the pay-jumps become significant. Every time a player is eliminated, everyone else moves up the pay ladder and secures more cash. For this reason, it makes sense to allow shorter stack players to lose first before taking too many risks.
As an aggressive big stack player, you can make the most of this by pushing others around, forcing them to fold marginal spots to avoid being next to go.
How does bluffing impact table image?
Poker bluffing won’t succeed all the time. Observant opponents will notice when you are betting the flop too frequently or get caught bluffing on the river. Once players realize you don’t have a legitimate hand when you bet, they may start calling more lightly or play back against you.
As your table image becomes looser, you’ll need to know when to shift gears and tighten up against perceptive opponents. Bluffing a little less frequently against them for a while.
But there’s also a hidden benefit to getting caught bluffing and developing a looser image. Your value hands will attract more calls. Opponents will be more inclined to pay off your bets because they will have to consider you could have nothing. It’s the perfect time to pick up a strong hand and get paid for it.
All in all, though, your approach to bluffing should be balanced. That means bluffing when the conditions are right and doing so at a frequency that is profitable.
This will enable you to win pots without the best hand. As far as table image goes, the threat of bluffing, if it is well balanced with value hands, will make you difficult to read. Opponents are more likely to pay off your value hands in an attempt to catch your bluffs.
Bluffing in online poker versus live poker
It’s a common misconception that bluffing and hand reading is not possible in online poker. The only difference between online and live poker when it comes to bluffing is the live game involves physical actions. And the possibility of tells.
Live tells are microsignals players may give off revealing hints about their hand strength. Whether that’s the way they handle their chips, the sweat on their brow, the smile or look of worry in their face.
Microsignals are rarely a reliable indicator of whether someone is bluffing. The main indications, in both live poker and online poker, come from betting patterns. Players are looking to see whether the bet makes sense, whether it represents a plausible hand, and whether they have the right price to call.
So, bluffing is as important and fundamental to the game in online poker as it is in live poker.
