Head Games With Cole South, Andrew Robl and Ryan Hall

Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer from a professional poker player. Ask three players a question and you’re liable to get three different answers. Why? Because It depends: on the situation, opponent, stack sizes, table image, tilt, metagame, etc.

Head Games will peer deep inside the twisted minds of today’s top players. We’ll reveal why they do what they do in sticky situations, especially when it comes down to making a critical decision for a major tournament title or calling a check-raise all-in on the river holding only ace high for a $500,000 cash pot. Let the games begin.

Craig Tapscott: Let’s start with some bluffing basics. What are a few situations that are clearly green lights for you to attempt a bluff?

Cole South: Bluffing should be an extremely important part of your poker game. Of course, bluffing allows you to pick up pots when your opponents are weak; just as importantly though, bluffing provides a balance to your game that will keep your opponents guessing whether you have a strong hand or a bluff whenever you bet. My number one rule of bluffing is don’t try to bluff people off of big hands. If I think my opponent is likely to have a strong hand, I’m not going to run a bluff. Instead of trying to bluff people off of strong hands, focus your bluffs towards situations where your opponent is likely to be weak. If, for example, you know your opponent never slowplays big hands, then they are on the weaker part of their range when they flat-call your bets. In this situation, I would consider firing multiple bluffs if the community cards ran out unfavorably for their range (for example a board of 278QK).

Andrew Robl: To successfully bluff someone you first must figure out how they think. Weak players only think about their hand in relation to the board. These players are good to bluff when a scare card hits. For example if you raise the button and they call from the big blind. The flop comes 872 rainbow and they check call a bet. If the turn is an Ace, then this is a good spot to bluff them as they will fear you’ve hit an ace and are very unlikely to have one themselves. This is a bad spot to bluff a very intelligent player, as they will realize you are raising the button with a very wide range of hands and many of your hands that contain an ace will have checked behind the flop. Spots where I like to bluff an intelligent player are spots where only a very low percentage of your hand range can be bluffs. For example I recently played a hand in a tournament where I limped from the small blind with A 9 and the big blind checked. The flop was K J 9 and I check-called a bet. The turn was the Q and it went check-check. The river was the 3 and I bet 3/4 pot. In this hand it’s very hard for my opponent to call me without a flush (and hard for him to have a big one). I had to have a pair or a draw to check-call the flop, and most people will not bluff with a pair. My 9 may sometimes have been good, but he will have been forced to fold all better pairs.

Ryan Hall: One situation that is ideal for bluffing is when someone bets weakly when a scare card comes down. Let’s say it’s heads up to a flop and you call a continuation bet with bottom pair. On the turn, an overcard ace comes down. The Villain then bets 1/3 pot. At that point, unless it’s an advanced player trying to induce a bluff, there’s a pretty good chance that they didn’t like that card and you can raise them, likely taking the pot away from a better hand or potentially even charging a draw if there is one out there. Another time to bluff is when you’re drawing live even when called. At the WSOP Main Event I had a hand against an aggressive player where I had a flush and straight draw on an Ax 8 3x T board. He bet the turn for 2/3 pot after checking the flop into two players. I raised holding K Q, being aware of my tight image. It would be a bad result if he reraised all-in, but it would have been a pretty big raise and he would have to have had a very good hand to do so. He folded and showed AK after a lot of thought. I, of course, showed the bluff! Be aware of your image when you’re considering a bluff, and make sure your opponents are paying attention to your image.

Craig Tapscott: Can you share a few tells, either physical, situational, or within a betting pattern, that set off alarms that your opponent is bluffing?

Cole South: The most common tell that someone is bluffing is when their play throughout the hand doesn’t make any sense. I call these “desperation bluffs,” where my opponent is trying to represent one hand before the flop, another hand on the flop, and then another by the river in attempt to win the pot at all costs. If their betting doesn’t add up, they’re likely up to something. Let’s take a look at an example hand against an opponent who does not like to play his draws fast. I’ve got Ax 10 and open for a raise that is called by my opponent out of the big blind. The flop comes A 2 4×. He makes a large check-raise when I bet the flop. The turn brings the 5. He follows up with a large bet. The river brings the 7, putting four hearts on the board and he bets the pot. From past experience with this opponent, I don’t think it’s likely he would check-raise the flop with a king high flush draw on the flop. Not only does he not like to play his draws fast on the flop, but his king high hand is sometimes the best hand when I’m bluffing and he won’t want to face a reraise and be pushed off of a big flush draw. On the flop he is representing a big hand like a set of deuces or ace-four suited. When the turn brings four to a straight, he might slow down with these hands and a large bet is more representative of a straight. On the river he is clearly representing the king of hearts with a full pot bet. There are enough inconsistencies with the way he played the hand that I would be finding a lot of calls on the river.

Andrew Robl: Again this is player and situation dependent. One dead give away vs. weak players is when they ‘donk’ bet out. This is almost always a weak hand. For example let’s say you raise preflop and they call from the blind, and then lead out the flop. This is almost always a weak hand you can raise with impunity. Similarly, if the same type of opponent were to check-call two streets then lead out on a blank river, then I would assume they almost always have a missed draw and are bluffing.

Ryan Hall: In the money at the WSOP Main Event, I had the toughest situation I’d ever faced. My physical reads were telling me to go with my hand, but the board situation was telling me not to. The physical tells that were making me want to call were:

1) At first, my opponent looked too confident. I find some confidence to be strong, but overconfidence to be weak. If the opponent is trying too hard to show to you that he’s comfortable, he’s usually not.

2) After going into the tank for quite a while, he started to display some tells of low confidence. He was rubbing his face and cracking his knuckles, both signs that he was under duress. He also sat back in his chair, which everyone knows is a sign of strength. When you’re playing with good players and someone displays a tell that “everyone knows”, it’s probably a reverse tell. You have to be really careful about using physical tells. I have heard many people say that they use them as tiebreakers, and this is probably wise advice. In this case, I should have gone with my read. I folded and found out that he was semi-bluffing. ♠