Bluffing Protocol

I've minimized my frequency of bluffing.
My question is: How important is bluffing in the game of poker? and, Can you be a solid poker player without bluffing?


I understand, a continuation bet, an opponent's range, sometimes stealing blinds, a logical turn and river progression merits a bluff. Would this be the full extent of the bluffing logic?

Bluffing is a must.

Queenlimp said:

I've minimized my frequency of bluffing.
My question is: How important is bluffing in the game of poker? and, Can you be a solid poker player without bluffing?


I understand, a continuation bet, an opponent's range, sometimes stealing blinds, a logical turn and river progression merits a bluff. Would this be the full extent of the bluffing logic?

Click to expand...

Thank you for posting.

You cannot be a solid poker player without bluffing. We must take pots away from better hands that will fold in order for us to succeed.

If you are minimizing your bluffing it should be because your villains do not fold anything.
In low stakes games villains fold second pair only 20% ish. Bluffs are ineffective vs this wide a calling range unless it is a big bet 2x pot and very scary board.

I am attaching a video in which Jonathan Little uses a range analyzer tool to discuss balancing his ranges. I hope it helps you understand the overall concept of balancing with bluffs.

https://pokercoaching.com/sneakpeek/webinar1/

:top:

eetenor said:

Thank you for posting.

You cannot be a solid poker player without bluffing. We must take pots away from better hands that will fold in order for us to succeed.

If you are minimizing your bluffing it should be because your villains do not fold anything.
In low stakes games villains fold second pair only 20% ish. Bluffs are ineffective vs this wide a calling range unless it is a big bet 2x pot and very scary board.

I am attaching a video in which Jonathan Little uses a range analyzer tool to discuss balancing his ranges. I hope it helps you understand the overall concept of balancing with bluffs.

https://pokercoaching.com/sneakpeek/webinar1/

:top:

Click to expand...

I agree with this. If you don't have bluffs in your range, you will not succeed in poker. You will become too predictable, too tight, and too exploitable. Opponents will know that you only bet and call with very strong hands, and you will overfold when you miss, allowing opponents to easily bluff you off of your equity. Bluffing is a must-have. Balancing bluffs is what seperates a good player from a great one.

There's no poker without bluff. At the other hand, one of the biggest rookies mistakes is bluff too much.

Queenlimp said:

I've minimized my frequency of bluffing.
My question is: How important is bluffing in the game of poker? and, Can you be a solid poker player without bluffing?


I understand, a continuation bet, an opponent's range, sometimes stealing blinds, a logical turn and river progression merits a bluff. Would this be the full extent of the bluffing logic?

Click to expand...

I would rather ask you the following question to answer your question: why not bluff when we are facing a player who is very careful and especially when we are sure he does not have much in his hand compared to the flop? bluffing is very beneficial because you get free chips and it would be great. it's poker we have to increase our chips whatever the way however, be careful not to exaggerate bluffing because we can trap you when we notice you

bluff poker gives a special gloss. without a bluff, poker will lose an important component.
but bluffing is also a terrible weapon in capable hands and must be used deliberately. otherwise it will turn against you
The art of bluffing is part of the skill of every successful poker player. bluffing and the ability to see him against himself is a delicate, delicate part of the psychology and technique of the game .

Bluffing

Queenlimp said:

I've minimized my frequency of bluffing.
My question is: How important is bluffing in the game of poker? and, Can you be a solid poker player without bluffing?


I understand, a continuation bet, an opponent's range, sometimes stealing blinds, a logical turn and river progression merits a bluff. Would this be the full extent of the bluffing logic?

Click to expand...

It is %100 impossible to be a good or profitable poker player without bluffing. If you don't bluff and play super tight eventually people WILL find out and when you make that quarter pot bet they're gonna know you're either on a flush or straight draw or that you have connected with the board in someway, in other words they will always know when you have got them beat and that's never optimal.

try to do less bluff on microlimits. it basically does not work at this level. better try to recognize the bluff. Recreational players love to bluff often with a 100% hand range

Thanks for the insights everyone.


One more question: How important is a HUD for online bluffing?

Hud is must for multi-tabling

Queenlimp said:

Thanks for the insights everyone.


One more question: How important is a HUD for online bluffing?

Click to expand...

What a HUD does is gather data on betting, calling, raising and folding patterns.

This is the data you use to determine the range you play vs a select opponent. That range determines how many bluffs you will use vs the opponent.

Extreme example:
The HUD data indicates that the villain folds to 90% of 3 bets. We could increase our 3 bet bluff rate to 60% of our hand ranges and still be profitable.

Warning: Using HUD data correctly is difficult and takes many hours of work analyzing what the data is telling you. The data you gather is not effective vs small hand samples.

DO NOT just start using a HUD without the proper study.

Hope this helps

It is essential to bluff in poker, absolutely can not be a good player without bluffing. You have described the most important elements of the bluff, there are many good articles on how to use it in the right position.

Bluff is part of the game that makes the game of poker more interesting. I think it's possible not to bluff in poker, but then maybe poker will not make a profit.

it is important to be able to bluff some spots and when you have the position to progress during a MTT. if you play, tighten and have a good picture at the table. this will allow you to win many hands using bluffing. for me the best bluff is the one we anticipate preflop.il has more passive players than others and it is on them that you must use this strategy.