Whether you play online poker tournaments or cash games, bluffing is a central part of a balanced poker strategy. If you never bluff then your opponents will know that you have a good hand every time you bet – making it difficult to get paid off when you hit that monster! On the opposite side, if you are always bluff then you will find yourself getting called so often by observant opponents, that you end up losing the value from the play in the first place.
Balance is the name of the game in bluffing, here I explain 5 reasons why your bluffing might not be working as well as you had hoped that I learned after several sessions of 바둑이사이트 games.
#1 – Trying To Bluff A Calling Station
Some players just do not like to fold. Those who call with any hand (however weak) or some obscure draw to a straight or flush with more cards to come and keep on calling, even when it seems ‘obvious’ that they are beaten, are known as ‘calling stations’. Now, if you are going to get called a huge proportion of the time then bluffing has little value… you might as well just give away your chips and have done with it!
#2 – Playing ‘Backwards’
Some players think of themselves as tricky individuals, they bet big when their hand is weak or they have a draw, and they bet small or check-raise whenever they are strong. The extreme of this is the backward player who plays the opposite of their true strength so diligently, that they are completely predictable. An experienced player will tear these guys apart – after all that could be a worse strategy than putting lots of chips into the pot when you have no hand and none when you have the nuts!!
#3 – Ignoring Flop Texture
Some flops are great for bluffing and some are terrible. One of the determining factors is the presence of an ace (it is hard for someone without one to call a flop bet). Another is the connectedness of the cards in terms of possible draws to straights or flushes. If a couple of people call you pre-flop and the flop comes 9-10-Q with 3 hearts, there is a good chance someone has enough of a hand or draw to stick around and call your flop bet. Contrast this with a 2-7-J flop of 3 suits… the latter is known as a ‘dry’ board and will miss a lot of the hand’s people flat call with pre.
#4 – Not Telling A Consistent Story
This one requires some experience, however, bets before and on the flop + turn can tell a story of what your likely holding is to an observant opponent. A basic example might be if you re-raised pre-flop representing a big hand it is difficult to ‘represent’ a nut hand which would require small straight cards by the river. Look out for players who call with their draws all the way, then shove all in as a bluff when the flush or straight does not get there – this is more common than you think.
#5 – You Ignored Stack Sizes (In tournaments)
In tournament poker you might re-raise as a bluff, only to find yourself called by the most unlikely of holdings. There are several reasons for this, and stack sizes are at the heart of all of them. If you bluff a small stack you might get called out of desperation. Conversely, a big stack might call you just to accumulate chips since it would do them minimal damage to lose the hand. Even more common is someone who raises, gets re-raised (sometimes as a bluff), and then faces odds of 2-to-1 or more on the remainder of their chips. Since that player only needs to win 34% of the time to show a profit, they call with a huge variety of hands – potentially causing your bluff to backfire.
