Bluffing on the Fly

Many players think that bluffing involves spontaneously picking a garbage hand and getting aggressive with it. What they don’t understand is that most bluffs don’t start out that way. Bluffing situations usually pop up when you play a legitimate hand and your opponent has a better one, but neither of you end up making a strong hand. That’s when you need to recognize the situation for what it is, and “bluff on the fly.”

You started out hoping to make the best hand. Once that doesn’t happen, you need to make your best possible play. Sometimes that means just giving up and moving on to the next hand. But sometimes, you gotta kick it up a notch. From time to time, you have to put in a big bluff and downright outplay your opponent, especially when his actions have defined his hand and you pretty much know what he has.

To illustrate, here are two examples taken from a recent $5-$10 blinds no-limit hold’em game:

1. I open-raise to $35 from the cutoff with J-J. The button cold-calls, and the blinds fold. We’re both about $1,000 deep. The flop comes A-6-4. I continuation-bet $50, and he calls. The turn pairs the 4. I check, he bets $80, I check-raise to $200, and he calls. The river is a king. I bet the pot (about $580), and he folds.

The check-raise told me exactly where I stood. Once he just called, I knew that he had an ace, but was not thrilled with his kicker. Also, with a big ace, I could have expected him to reraise preflop in position against a cutoff raiser. There was the slightest chance that he was slow-playing A-A, but it was far more likely that he had an A-J or A-10 type of hand.

The king on the river helped my cause. Assuming that he had A-Q or worse, his kicker now wouldn’t play. It also made my large river bet more believable, because if I had A-K, betting big with top two pair would be legitimate. But even without the king, I felt confident that the river bet was worth making. I would need it to succeed more than 50 percent of the time to show a profit. And assuming that the river card wasn’t an ace, 4, or the card that hit his kicker, I was confident that was the case.

Once he bet the turn, I could have just said, “OK, he’s got an ace, he’s got me beat, I’m done.” That’s oftentimes the correct thing to do. But given the other factors at play here, specifically his decisions not to reraise preflop and not to raise on the flop, I liked my chances of taking him off his hand. He showed a lack of confidence in his hand, and it was my job to take advantage of that.

2. An early-position player raises to $35. Two players call in position, the small blind calls, and I call from the big blind with 9-9. Five-handed, the flop comes 10-7-2, and everyone checks. The turn is a 6. The small blind leads out for $110. I raise to $300, which clears the field, and he calls. The river pairs the 6. He checks, I go all in for about $750, and he folds.

Similar concepts were at play here. The main difference is that my opponent’s hand was somewhat less clearly defined. He could have had something like a pair with a straight draw, in which case I actually had the best hand, but his most likely holding was a 10 with a decent kicker. Either way, he couldn’t have been too happy with his hand, since he would have reraised me on the turn.

If somehow the 6 had improved his hand, he probably would have led into me on the river rather than risk having the action go check, check. He called the turn bet to see if I would slow down on the river, but once I kept my foot on the pedal, he had to reassess his hand. In the end, he wasn’t going to risk his stack on what was most likely a big 10, or some other medium-range hand.

In both of these hands, their reaction to my check-raise or raise on the turn really defined the situation. If my opponents folded, great. If they reraised, I had an easy fold. But when they just called, that was the signal that a large river bet could probably get them out, assuming that the river card didn’t help them.

In both cases, I started out playing my hands based on their strength. My original goal was to win by having the best hand. At some point after the flop, I realized that I probably had the worst hand, but I was still able to give myself two more chances to win the hand. I put in a raise on the turn, and when that didn’t work, I put in a big bet on the river. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that you make this play indiscriminately. But if you make this move only when your opponent has defined his hand as being good but not great, you should be able to make this high-risk/high-reward play show a long-term profit.

In the same session, I tried a similar play a third time, and it failed. I had 8-8 and put in a turn raise on a K-4-2-6 board after we had checked the flop. But this time, my opponent reraised me, and I obviously had no problem folding. However, this play was not as big a failure as the other two plays were successes. If I had made a large river bet and gotten called, that certainly would have been a “failure.” But folding on the turn was just a minor setback. I wanted to know where I stood, I found out, and it didn’t cost me much at all.

Of course, some cagey opponents will flat-call on the turn with a monster. But that’s just an occupational hazard. Sometimes opponents will show up with monsters and play them well, and you’ll get stacked, or close to it. But as long as plays like the ones I described work often enough to put you ahead of the game, you’ll just have to take your lumps along with your profits.

Matt Lessinger is the author of The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker, available everywhere. You can find other articles of his at www.CardPlayer.com.