Bluffing.

Posted by Dave on August 4th, 2008 filed in Poker Strategy

The key to winning poker (both online and offline) is changing up your game. It is not possible to simply play perfect poker & expect to always win. Sometimes, you’ll need to change up your game plan and run a bluff.

Pokerphile Rule #2: Bluffing is like telling a story. You do this by telling your opponents a beginning, middle and an end to your ‘story.’

Through your experience, you should gradually pick up on other players’ tells; when they’re strong, and when they’re weak. Up until now, you might have only been using this to help you save money. Now, it’s time to use it to win money at poker.

Bad bluff:
Check, check, check, check… You get the idea. Everyone’s checked every card (flop, turn & river), and now you’re thinking about throwing in a position bet and try to steal the measly 45$ pot. Don’t. Just don’t. Someone will call you, and you’ll have lost money.

Good Bluff:
Good stories always have interesting beginnings. It’s best (and easiest) to try your hand at bluffing by raising pre-flop or by calling when it’s been raised pre-flop (and make your play from there). You should not be bluffing in a hand that has more than 3 players in it, as it’ll make it harder to push them all out in order to take down the pot. If you catch second or bottom pair, try your luck and bluff at it. Remember that 70% of pots are won by the first person to bet at the pot. Here’s an interesting pre-flop move for you to watch…

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