Barry Calls a Bluff

In second grade, I tried my first bluff. It was a dismal failure.

I was late for school (again) because I liked to walk very slowly and contemplate the bushes, trees, concrete, and houses on my four-block walk to school. I was instructed to bring a note from my mother, but I decided to bluff instead. I got a piece of notepaper, wrote in big block letters "I oversleeped," and "signed" it "Mrs. Tanenbaum" (again in block letters). Somehow this failed to fool the astute teacher, and I learned my lesson the hard way (which I will not describe any further). The experience left a harsh memory, but it did teach me a thing or two about bluffing.

For a bluff to be successful, it has to be plausible and realistic. You must not only represent a hand, you must also represent the same hand from the beginning of play all the way to the river.

Of course, you also must pay attention to whom you are bluffing. High-quality players fold to bluffs far more often than weak players do. Good players try very hard to read hands, take great pride in their reads, and trust their reads to make sometimes-difficult laydowns. Inwardly, good players congratulate themselves for "getting away from" a hand and not having to "pay it off." Weaker players tend to call more often in general, and, since they play their own hand rather than try to read yours, do not pay much attention to what you are representing. You can get a pro to lay down a very good hand, but a poor player will likely call with anything but a missed draw.

However, there is a catch. For you to be able to bluff a good player, you must provide him (or, of course, her) with a read that is plausible at every point in the hand. Let's look at an example before we get to the hand I want to discuss. Let's say you have the K 9 in the big blind. After three limpers, the small blind raises. You call, as does everyone else. The flop is J 8 3. The small blind bets, you call, and one other player calls, as well. The small blind bets again when the 2 comes on the turn, and only you call. The J on the river completes the board, and the small blind bets again. You cannot have the best hand here, but can you raise to represent a jack and get him to lay his hand down? Not if he is a thinking player. He will reason that if you had a jack, you would have raised on the flop, attempting to eliminate the other three players and protect your jack from overcards. He will therefore call the bluff-raise, so you should save your money.

I faced a similar situation in a recent $60-$120 hold'em game. I was happy to see the A K in the big blind. Darrin, a frequent tourist (with a different real name) who plays well, raised from early position after two players folded. Darrin had been playing tightly for the 45 minutes he had been in the game, and had lost both of the hands he played.

Two players called the raise (they were not the toughest players in the game). Everyone else folded, and it was up to me. I certainly wasn't folding, so it was a choice between raising and calling. If I called, I might have a very good strategic advantage on the flop. If an ace or king came, I could check-raise the field, if any of them remained after Darrin's almost certain bet. If rags came, I might be able to represent them as a guy in the big blind who just called for value. If scary cards came, I could quietly check and fold without any further investment. In fact, I almost always call with A-K offsuit in this situation for exactly these reasons.

But this A-K was suited, and the pot was already multiway (four players is pretty multiway for a typical $60-$120 game). If I raised, I might gain some critical initiative after the flop. It might help me define my opponents' hands. And it would build a nice pot if I hit something, including a flush draw. Finally, I should occasionally raise out of the big blind with something other than A-A or K-K. While this hand would not be exactly a huge variation on my play, it would at least give my usual style a slightly different look.

I made it three bets; everyone called, and the four of us looked at the flop of 9 6 3. Talk about a big bowl of nothing! Now, I had to decide whether to lead or give up. I not only had nothing, I didn't even have a backdoor anything. Just because I raised does not mean I have to bet. I do not relish betting with nothing, especially from out of position in a multiway pot. But I did bet, partly because I almost always make this raise with A-A or K-K, and partly because this flop is so awful that it might not help anyone, and I could have the best hand. If the flop had come queen high or jack high, I would have checked instead, planning to fold if any pressure developed.

Everyone called my bet, which surprised me slightly. I expected Darrin to raise most of the time. Maybe he really was afraid I had the A-A or K-K that I was hoping to represent.

The turn brought the unhelpful 7. I led again, and now Darrin did raise. Both of the others folded without much thought, and it was back to me. Superficially, my holding screamed for a fold. Not only did I have nothing, I was just raised by a good player who had position, and who had raised before the flop.

What did Darrin have, though? This was really puzzling, as I tried to decide exactly what I was supposed to be folding to. Could he have tens, jacks, or queens? I did not see how. With any of those hands, he surely would have raised on the flop to protect his hand from whatever equity was in the hands of the other two players. He normally would try to eliminate them and hope to have the best hand or draw out on me. How about aces or kings? He would not feel as strongly that he had to raise on the flop, but what about before the flop? Almost certainly, he would have reraised, if only to try to get the other players to fold, or to punish me for raising from out of position when he held a true premium hand. He could have a set (most likely nines), but that happens rarely enough that I am not going to make laydowns when the only worrisome hand I can put my opponent on is an unlikely set.

What else could he have, then? In games with clever, aggressive players, my suspicions escalate when a second suited card comes on the turn and these opponents suddenly get active. A hand like the A K is certainly possible. If Darrin was pressing after losing a couple of early pots, he might even hold the J 10 and be raising on his newly acquired straight-flush draw after trying an early and unsuccessful preflop steal.

Having found alternatives, I decided to call. Even if I was wrong, an ace or king on the river would give me a shot at a win, and the pot was large. I can make a good case for raising if you are going to call with ace high, but I could not think of a plausible hand I could hold to make this raise on the river after calling the turn and then checking.

The 9 on the river made it even more unlikely that he flopped a set of nines. I checked, and he bet again. I would certainly rather he checked here, but I reviewed my logic and could not find a truly reasonable hand he was likely to hold. I easily could have been wrong about this, but the clouds of doubt influenced me to call.

Even more to my surprise, Darrin mucked without showing, and I won without turning my hand over. The final pot contained $1,720, a nice reward for my detective work.

Darrin very likely had the J 10 that I had thought was an option, given that he certainly should have turned over the A K. In fact, had he turned over the loser, whatever it was, he would have found out that I called with ace high, and he could have re-examined his play to determine why I did not believe his raise.

It has been a long time since the second grade – but the lessons learned there really do last a lifetime.