Bluffing
That there is falsehood in his looks,
I must and will deny:
They say their Master is a knave,
And sure they do not lie.
Robert Burns “On Dr. Babington’s Looks”
Every poker player will assert that bluffing is a very important concept of successful poker. Every book on poker is dealing with this concept. Most of people not playing poker consider bluffing the main and even the only way to win the money. OK, I thought so too.
Maybe this felling is caused by different fiction books and films. Do you remember Maverick? “You’ve hold you breath…”
Online holdem poker gives a player fantastic opportunity to bluff. Look, nobody could see you, nobody can’t interpret your gestures, your style of conduct… Nobody could see if you are glad with your card or not. Nobody looks for falsehood in your looks. Seems you can bluff every worthy hand.
BUT everyone understands this. Every person you oppose knows nothing about you and your habits but they do understand this clearly and have to act in these conditions. The guys in front of you know that you can bluff. And many times they desire to check if it is so.
Micro limits will change your attitude to bluff. I promise. I faced the same problem. Everything that is connected to bluff could lead you to losses while you are playing micro limit table. I spent almost 3 month in vain trying to overcome the situation. I’ve changed the tables and started new limits. But still bluffing shows strong trend to bring losses.
I couldn’t understand that. Is it possible to play poker and not to use bluff?
What do you think?
The right answer for the question is NO of course. Definitely you can play without bluff but if your opponents understand this you’d better change the table. If you are not trying to lie the guys you’re playing against will fold their cards every time you have something worthy so you will not get any money from them ever.
So the right conduct is to bluff. At least sometimes. But be aware to bluff too often at the lowest limits. Your opponents don’t consider their money too valuable comparing to the satisfaction of catching a bluffer. They call this honesty check. And they practice it too often.
Maybe you had known that before playing poker. I didn’t. And thanks to David Sklansky and his Theory of Poker. I like this book much more than Holdem Poker for Advanced Players. It seems more concrete to me. And I’ve got a lot of tricks I’m using now from there.
So David explains why it’s almost impossible to bluff at micro limits tables.
Do you know the main feature of $0.1 - $0.2 tables at Poker.com? I think the same situation is in other pokerrooms. The number of people watching the flop. It reaches 60% at 10-max table (a table that could played by 10 players) and 80% at 6-max. Yesterday I’ve seen 99% number at one 6-max table.
When there are so many people your probability to win decreases in geometric series. The only deserving variant of bluffing that shows positive expected value is bluffing against ONE opponent.
Don’t repeat my mistakes. And don’t believe the guys who haven’t played poker professionally – writers, producers, scenario writers.