Bluffing

One of my strengths is my ability to bluff...
But, no recklace bluffing that can hurt me, i make small bluffs aswell as big bluffs but MOSTLY small bluffs..

It is what gets me very far in a tournament, i play tight, but when i do go into a hand, i rarely go out without chips, whether it takes a bluff or a trap or whatever.

Here are a few examples of good ways to get pots.. small pots that is, these small pots all accumalate into big pots!

In position i.e BB, SB or right behind sb i.e last to play excluding blinds, heres something to try...

If everyone limps in /folds and you are in one of those positions, act as if you are looking at your cards, but dont look at them..

Then raise the pot to 3 /4 times the big blind.. if you get a caller thats great, if not theres your first small pot...

Now if someone called, they are on a marginal hand, or are a complete donkey, because anyone that had a strong hand in that position would reraise you unless they are slow playing a monster...

One the flop comes, and its your turn to act, fire out another bet, without looking at your cards, make sure the bet is pot sized (u still havent looked at your cards)

I find atleast 30 percent of the time this is where i take the pot down, if you get reraised or called, nows a time to look at your hand and see what you have and then start playing your actual cards..

This strategy alone, in position can get you a nice amount of chips over time..
Keep in mind you also need to know who you are playing against, is it an aggressive player or a weak or tight player... these all help ofcourse.

Good luck!

(1 last thing i care to share is what i did last week and the reason i wrote this article, i was small blind and extremely short stacked (around 8 times bb) and BB was chip leader with around 25 times the big blind, i looked down and did not look at my cards, but, i knew that BB was a tight aggressive player, so i fired out 4 x raise he opted to fold then decided to call) flop came A K K, action was on me, i raised to pot size and he folded, i looked at my cards before mucking and had 2 - 5 offsuite, if i had looked at my cards, i probably would have folded pre flop and would certainely not have raised with that flop)

You're playing kamikazee poker my friend. You will lose all your money. Playing without looking at your cards is retarded. I was at a table with a guy who was doing that, he'd only look at his cards if he got reraised... needless to say he stacked off about five or six times before leaving the poker room completely broke.

THat is about the dumbest thing i ever heard, can we play heads up on fulltilt. or can u come to the west coast and play me at commerc e live. I don't care how good ur are if u don't look post flop i will take all ur money in the long run. lol

WildCard_QQ said:

One of my strengths is my ability to bluff...
But, no recklace bluffing that can hurt me, i make small bluffs aswell as big bluffs but MOSTLY small bluffs..

In position i.e BB, SB or right behind sb i.e last to play excluding blinds, heres something to try...

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This is pretty bad advice.

There is nothing wrong with bluffing, but position is when you have the button. Routinely bluffing from the blinds is going to get you into trouble because you don't have position.

I think bluffing is important but not in this way. I better like half-bluffs when theres chance to win with a developing straight or flush or drill. Bluffing with nothing is not wise.

WildCard_QQ said:

(1 last thing i care to share is what i did last week and the reason i wrote this article, i was small blind and extremely short stacked (around 8 times bb) and BB was chip leader with around 25 times the big blind, i looked down and did not look at my cards, but, i knew that BB was a tight aggressive player, so i fired out 4 x raise he opted to fold then decided to call) flop came A K K, action was on me, i raised to pot size and he folded, i looked at my cards before mucking and had 2 - 5 offsuite, if i had looked at my cards, i probably would have folded pre flop and would certainely not have raised with that flop)

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How do you bet 'POT' on the flop here when you say you only had around 8bb's prior to the start of the hand and you raised 4x preflop. Wouldn't there then be 8bb's in the pot and your remaining stack is only 4bb's??

I do believe what you've described here is a 'Go & Go'. When on small stack in SBvBB... raise up a portion of your stack that will leave behind enough to make a flop bet of a size that is big enough that bigger stack on BB won't just call you with automatically (unless they're hip to a Go&Go and just put you allin preflop or call your flop shove). An alternative to pushing allin preflop on 8bb's when a bigstack on BB might be autocalling. To do so on a super weak holding like 5-2o. Seems like a bad idea.

First description of bluffs in your post. Am I getting this right??.. .so you want to raise it up 4x from BB or SB (out of position) to try to take it down preflop... but if they call you, you're going to auto-donkbet the flop with a POT-sized bet?? Might work once (or twice) but also if you stop to think about it... what kind of hand is going to be calling a BB rs. after having only limped in preflop? Maybe some med. pkt. prs., SC's, etc.,... the types of hands that if they do hit a flop you're going to be way behind.
OKay.... so they call your POT-sized donkbet on the flop... now comes the turn... so now what??? Give up on the hand? Maybe the guy who calls your flop bet is a former donk-bet king and is now just floating you here on the flop w air... ready to take it away from you on the turn.

I don't know. Personally I don't care for your bluff strategy here at all. But hey.. if it's workin' for ya.... go for it!
I do believe that Annette_15 played an entire $10 MTT on Fulltilt while never looking at her holecards... BUT I believe she won via 3-betting in position & stealing blinds, re-steals, c-bets, trn c-bets, etc. I could be wrong... maybe it was Annette who first ruled the tables with the 'O.O.P. pot-sized donkbet on the flop???

OMG!! Something just dawned on me. Maybe you are actually Annette_15 and now I'm lookin' like a total azz????

ah you guys are getting this completely wrong...
i dont do this with every hand, i mean that i do this once or maybe twice in a tournament.. sheesh

HAHA im not suicidal, im just trying to prove that every now and then you can take down a pot without having the best hand, and if you look at your hand you wont be as brave as you would be if you implant a hand into your head and play that hand...

Maybe the example i gave threw you guys off...
But i really think you might have interpretted this wrong

WildCard_QQ said:

HAHA im not suicidal, im just trying to prove that every now and then you can take down a pot without having the best hand, and if you look at your hand you wont be as brave as you would be if you implant a hand into your head and play that hand...

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Yeah, it's called a continuation bet...which is the most standard kind of bluff, and usually you are actually in position...button, not blinds, and you base your bet on board texture, not your cards. And you usually don't have to risk a pot sized bet to take the hand down.

I remember reading that advice in CardPlayer or some other poker mag. They weren't advocating a style of play, they were recommending it as a way to force yourself to learn to play the player not your cards. It had a few rules too. You have to be the first in, late position and none of the people yet to act should be on a short stack. The point of the exercise is to learn to recognize when your opponent likes the flop and doesnt. If they like it you don't bet, if they do like it, then you bet. If they call your bet, you read them wrong. If you are doing this consistently, you are very predictable and players will be trapping you at every opportunity. Therefore, your reads better be spot on.

I see people try to play this way often. Sure, it helps you start to accumulate chips and build a stack. However, as soon as you run into someone that has an actual hand which you will. You're gonna end up losing a large chunk of your stack. It's always comical to see someone do this at the start of a tournament starting with an abnormally high raise and they get one or two people to play along with them and then push all-in immediately on the flop.

I'm not going to over analyze or criticize the hypothetical table set up.


But I do understand his point.

First take note he is playing live.
The point is he makes it look like he is looking at his cards but really is not.
This is very important to note, he is not being a Donk and letting on that he's doing it.
This is allowing him to make a situational play by both having the courage and not giving off a tell.
Then on the Flop he is not looking at his cards (displaying confidence) and not giving any tells away then C betting to take it down.

If used as a situational tool theres nothing wrong with that.

Please don't criticize others ideas or opinions.
I am at fault as many of us are at times.
This is a forum of free thinking poker players coming from all levels of play.
You may disagree as many of us do, but try to do it in a constructive manner.

Weather you agree with it or not it works for him.

Thanks for the advice.

Good Luck


We are all CC Brothers and Sisters ............

Not looking at your cards?! HARDCORE DUDE!
Take it to the top



www.mobwarrior.com

If they dont like it, bet. If they like it, dont bet.

Snowmobiler said:

Wolfe said:

If they like it you don't bet, if they do like it, then you bet.

This is a bit confusing

Snow

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Sorry. By the time I realized i left a crucial word out I could no longer edit it. Plus, this was my seventh post of the day.

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awesome thanks for the responses..

It also depends on the type of player you are really, i mean, i know im not a donk, i won last seasons poker league, and usually make it to the final table every week.

Sometimes, you play against donks, that will call that with bottom pair or chasing an ace, so it depends on your opponent, also, giving off false tells doesnt always work on donks...

For example on my live tourny on tuesday, i had pocket 10s, raised up the pot got one caller, board came queen rag rag, he raised, so i knew he had the queen, coz he is very tight, next one out was an ace, he looked at me and i snap raised and leaned back with a slight smirk on my face, so he says 'ah so the ace finally came for you did it' and then i focused..

he then called my raise, and my raise on the river, he did infact have the queen, and when i asked him why he called if he thought i had the ace he said, well, i was taking a chance..

totally depends on your opponents, everyone else i play live with would have folded..