Poker Room Introduction

Bluffing in Online Poker Rooms

The bluff is one aspect of poker all must understand if you want any chance of being successful in poker and especially Texas Hold’em. Without the basic knowledge of this skill a player will quickly get lost in the fine game of poker and can also lose a lot of money.

Even conservative players who don’t tend to bluff very much at all need to be aware of this skill in order to tell when others players are bluffing and how to get someone trapped and empty their chip stack trying to bluff out a pot when in fact you have the winning hand.

Bluffing is misused a lot on beginner tables and that knowledge alone can make you the master of your table when you start to recognize which players you’re a playing poker with are bluffing.

Basically all a bluff is when you are trying to deceive the other players into believing your hand is stronger than theirs. There are many instances when one should bluff, let’s take a look at a couple.

Tight or conservative players.

Knowing someone is a tight player is extremely useful. Using the bluff in the early stages of a game will help spot a player that tends to play close to the bone. This bluff made pre-flop or on the flop will act as information gathering so that in the later stages of a game you can read when the tight player actually has something.

The River bluff.

When you get accomplished at reading players you will easily see when a player who has been praying the river will fill his poker hand didn’t get his draw he was looking for. The bluff on the river will weed out those players and win you the pot.

Late position check bet.

This bet is when all players have checked and you are in late position betting just to see how strong other players believe their hands are. Even though this will force some players out, this type of bluff is very common and many players will simply bluff back to see the draw and try to keep you honest trying to determine if you yourself are bluffing. Use this sparingly.

Few players.

As Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people some of the time. In other words, When there are fewer player still in a hand you can control the betting by bluffing. Again as above this is a very common bluff and can easily be spotted if abused.

Bad flop bluff.

A bad flop that doesn’t look like it helped anyone can be a good time to bluff. For example non-suited low cards like a 2 of clubs, 4 of spades, and a 9 of hearts is on the flop. It more than likely did not help any players still in the hand and bluffing in this position can fool others into thinking you hit when they missed.

When in the zone.

When you start to get the “nice hand” from other players they are starting to respect you. When this level is reached, especially after a good winning hand, a bluff played exactly as you played the previously winning hand can work very well to winning another pot. Players fear the player on a roll and you can bluff your way into consecutive pots.

These are just some situations when to bluff. As always practice makes perfect. Learn your strengths and use them to bluff and you’re on your way to large profit at the poker tables.