Texas Holdem Best Bluffs
Texas Holdem Facebook
Best Texas Holdem Free Online
Texas Holdem Rules
Texas Holdem Bluffing Strategy

Ahh, bluffing in no-limit Texas hold’em…the most incorrectly used and down-right abused facet of most players’ poker game. We’re sorry if we’ve offended you 15 words into this guide, but we’re here to speak the truth. We aren’t here to make you feel like roses and rainbows; we’re here to help you build a stronger poker game.

By Mark Harlan. Part of Texas Hold’em For Dummies Cheat Sheet. What makes any poker game exciting, and Texas Hold’em is certainly no exception, is that players can bluff at any point. Sometimes half the fun of a game is seeing whether you can successfully bluff an opponent out of some money. Texas Holdem – How Bluffing Works. All winning Texas holdem players bluff. But most losing Texas holdem players bluff too. The difference between the winners and the losers is knowing when to do it. You’ll find there are different types of bluffs and to be a long term winning player you. Jul 20, 2016 Continuing a 10-part series of 'hold'em tips' for new players, we discuss 'bluff catching' & what criteria need to be present in order to call down bluffs.

Bluffing tends to be a lot more challenging than some people give it credit for. Knowing how to do it, when to do it, who to do it against, and why you’re doing it are all things you have to figure out and get to work together in perfect harmony if you want to pull off a successful bluff. Sure, you can get lucky with a random and mindless bluff from time to time, but for the most part, it’s basically like lighting money on fire.

In this guide, we’re going to walk you through everything you’ve ever wanted to know about bluffing and then a whole lot more. If you listen to our tips, you’ll no longer be wildly bluffing with no rhyme or reason. You’ll be bluffing with expert calculation and running over the game-winning pots that you should never have.

Bluffs NEED to Tell a Story

While the strategy tips on this page aren’t necessarily in order of importance, this is easily the most important. We want to start with a story to help illustrate our point. This is a true story of a conversation that occurred between one of our staff writers and one of their students.

Student: I can’t believe this guy called me! He raised pre-flop, and I decided I was going to run a bluff on him because he had been opening way too many pots. I 3-bet him to 5x to try and get him to fold, and of course, he calls. The flop came out, and it was A – A – 5. He checked, and I bet 100% of the pot. The guy still called! The turn was a 9, and I went all in. THE GUY CALLED ME DOWN WITH 1010!!! How did he call me there? I clearly had a big ace.

Instructor: Well, what hand were you representing?

Student: I was representing that I had AK.

Instructor: Would you have 5x raised him pre-flop if you actually had AK?

Student: Well, no. I would have bet less to try and keep him in.

Instructor: Would you have bet 100% of the pot on the flop if you flopped three aces?

Student: Well, no. I would have bet less to try and keep him in the pot.

Instructor: Sooooo, you played a hand 100% differently than you would have with AK, but you wanted the other player to magically believe you had AK?

Student: …silence…

This story is beautiful because it illustrates one of the biggest flaws people have when it comes to bluffing. They think that the secret to a successful bluff is pushing more chips in the middle. They think that the bigger the call is, the harder it is going to be for their opponent to make. This may be true against a complete amateur but fails miserably when you try it against a thinking player.

These oversized bets are actually going to make things easier on the other player to call you down. The problem that is illustrated is that the bluff did not tell an accurate story. Imagine if the student has only 3-bet to 3x pre-flop as they normally would with AK. Then, if they bet half the pot on the flop as they would with three aces, their opponent might still call. But, when they shoved all in or bet again on the turn, their opponent would be in a nasty spot. They could still make a hero call with the 10s, but most likely they’re going to fold.

Why are they going to fold? Because you told a perfect story. You told them you had AK and then did everything exactly the same as you would if you had AK.

Your bluffs HAVE to make sense. It might seem counterintuitive to bet less in some spots, but it actually works out better against thinking players. Now, you don’t want to go crazy and bet tiny amounts. If you bet 1/8^th pot on the flop, and 1/8^th on the turn and river in our example hand, you’re probably going to be getting called. You still need to put some pressure on your opponent, but the bet size should be within the range of what you would actually bet if you had the hand you were representing.

What’s the best way to do this? If you’re planning on representing a specific hand, imagine that you have that hand. Make all of your decisions pretending that you have that hand. If our student had pretended in their mind that they had AK, they would not have recklessly slammed chips in the middle with no rhyme or reason.

We wish we could come to where you are right now (in a non-creepy way, of course) and tell you just how important this is to a successful bluff. You can get away with wild bluffs from time to time, but that’s only because you’re lucky. You either are doing it against an opponent who doesn’t think, your opponent happened to have absolutely nothing, or you accidentally told a story you didn’t realize you were telling. Successful bluffs tell the right story at the right time.

Choosing the Right Time

So, we’re all on the same page now that our bluffs need to tell a story. But, that’s just the first piece of the bluffing puzzle. The next step will be choosing the right time to pull the trigger on a bluff. Are there times that are more profitable to bet? Are there times that you should look to avoid bluffing completely? Yup!

While there are a lot of factors including your image and your opponent that we will go into momentarily, we want to talk specifically about game conditions and which are better or worse for bluffing. The rule of thumb is that the more your opponent has at risk, the better the bluffing opportunity will be.

For example, let’s say it’s the first hand of the tournament and you all have hundreds of times the big blind. You have massive stacks. Is this a great time to bluff? Probably not because people have chips to throw around. An opponent can call you down incorrectly and only lose a small portion of their stack. What about late in the tournament when it’s right on the money bubble? Is this a great time to bluff? You bet it is. A lot of players will be tightening down and trying to squeak into the money. They’ll be so concerned about busting out and getting no money that you can rob them blind.

The buy-in of the tournament in relation to your opponent’s net worth also play a big role in choosing the right time to bluff. If you’re playing against a millionaire in a $10 tournament on the bubble, that’s probably not the greatest time to try and run a bluff. If you’re playing in a $10k against someone who won a satellite into the event, that may be a great time to bluff on the bubble.

While this may seem like common sense, you’d be shocked at how many people will just bluff because they “haven’t played a hand in a while” or “they haven’t bluffed in a while.” Please don’t be that guy or gal. Bluff in spots when the timing is for the bluff to work.

Choosing the Right Opponent

We touched briefly on this in the section above, but we wanted to dig deeper into this. While picking the right time to bluff is important, picking the right opponent to bluff against is even more important. If you don’t choose wisely, it doesn’t matter how great of a story you tell; you’re going to get picked off.

So, what makes an opponent a good candidate to bluff? They have to be bad, right? Not the case, actually. When you run a bluff, its success is contingent on your opponent believing the story you are telling. If your opponent is not a good hand reader or is too much of a novice to pay close attention to what you’re representing, then they’re never going to believ

Texas Holdem How To Bluff