Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (23 page)

Bluffing

When you bluff, you are trying to induce your opponent to fold what you are fairly certain is the better hand. You are exploiting what your opponent thinks is a transparent line. If he assumes you will check-raise the flop with only two pair or better, you should check-raise as much as possible until his opinion about that line changes. Many players think that extravagant bluffs define great poker players and make them huge winners. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I only remember two times in the last year when I ran a large, three-barrel bluff for my entire stack in a tournament. Large bluffs are not usually profitable in tournaments because if they fail, you are out. In a cash game, you can re-buy and get right back in the action, but in a tournament, you are just out. Since we know there is a lot of value in just surviving in a tournament, bluffing off your stack is always a big mistake. But not all bluffs are for your entire stack, and some are the most profitable plays in poker.

Before you even consider bluffing someone, you need to know what hands he is willing to fold. Some players will never consider folding top pair, and some will fold the second nuts if you apply enough pressure. In general, you should bluff weak players who always fear that their opponent has a strong hand. Also, if you know a player will call down with hands like top pair every time, you should never run a bluff on him. Instead, take his chips by relentlessly value-betting.

There are numerous types of small bluffs. When you raise from late position and an opponent calls, you should bet the flop with your entire range. You will miss 2/3 of the time, and when that occurs you will be bluffing. This is fine, because these continuation bets will be for small amounts. As the pot grows larger, you will only continue betting if you have a strong hand.

To semi-bluff is to bluff when you have outs to improve if called. I love semi-bluffs because they balance your range while allowing you to bluff and put pressure on opponents.

Here’s an example. You raise K
-Q
to 2.5BBs from middle position and your opponent on the button calls. You both have around 50BBs. The flop comes J
-10
-3
. You make a continuation bet of 3.5BBs and he raises to 10BBs. This is an excellent spot for an all-in semi-bluff raise. Your opponent will fold a wide range of hands, and if he calls, you still have around 40-percent equity, even if he only calls with sets, A-J, K-J, Q-J and J-10. So, after he raises to 10BBs, there are 20BBs in the pot and you are bluffing around 34BBs more into it.

If your opponent calls you 50 percent of the time, which may or may not be the case, you will win 20BBs half the time and you will have around 40-percent equity the rest of the time, so you have

(20)(0.5) + (0.5)[(50)(0.4) - (50)(0.6)] = 5.

You profit 5BBs on average by semi-bluffing in this spot.

Clearly, you should rarely pass up a bluffing opportunity here.

Again, you must know your opponent because if he will always call your all-in re-raise after he raises to 10BBs, which some opponents will do, you have no fold equity and your expectation is now

(20)(0) + 1[(50)(0.4) - (50)(0.6)] = -10BBs.

The key to bluffing is fold equity, which is simply your equity due to an opponent’s folding.

Suppose you have no equity in a hand if called, which occurs when you bluff on the river with a terrible hand. For example, you have 5
-4
on an A
-7
-6
-K
-J
board, which gives you 5-high. Your opponent bets the 10BB pot on the river and you go all-in for 50BBs. What percentage of the time must your opponent fold to make your bluff profitable? You can use the same formula as above. You win the 20BBs in the pot when your opponent folds, and you lose 50BBs when he calls. Divide the pot by the sum of the pot and your bet to solve for how often your opponent must fold to make your raise break-even. So, 50/(50+20) = 0.71, which means you will profit if your opponent folds more than 71 percent of the time. You must be significantly better than break-even in a tournament because if you are wrong one time, you are out.