by Russell HallBluffing at the poker table is an art form. The pros you see on television raising a pot with 6-4 off-suit against a board of K-9-5 take this artistry into the realm of apparent insanity. The problem for the common poker player is that the plays that make great television can lead to a greatly diminishing bankroll, particularly at low-limit online poker tables. Many people fail to realize that not only are the tournaments you see on television edited to show the best hands, but more importantly, the pros are there for a reason. Not only have they received thousands of hands of experience at the poker tables reading opponents and calculating odds, but in any particular tournament, players are up against opponents they have played against for hours upon hours and have developed a good sense of the type of game they play. Online players, more often than not, don't have the experience against the opponents they are up against and, therefore, can not make the same calculated decisions they see the pros making on television. Too often I see low-limit players make misguided attempts to bluff at pots they should not be playing in the first place and/or bluffing into players that will call anything. You should be able to dominate low-limit poker tables with a large dose of solid play and very little trickery. The players at those stakes tend to be very weak and will make so many mistakes that a solid player will reap the benefits; however, as you move up in stakes, bluffing and trickery become more necessary. I hope to share with you some concepts that will improve your ability to bluff, thereby adding a vital money making aspect to your online poker game. Know your site and the types of players at your table Before you start bluffing with reckless abandon, get a feel for the types of players at your table. If you are new to a site, this may take some patience and tight play, but it will save you money if it prevents you from bluffing into a table of calling stations. As a general rule of thumb, low-limit games, particularly stakes at $3/$6 or lower, are much looser than at the at higher stakes because players tend to be more novice and do not understand the value of their hand as well as they should. You also find players at the lower limits that have very little compulsion against calling a $1 or $2 bet with marginal hands so attempting to bluff these opponents is often a foolish exercise. You will attack these types of players in a different manner, but that is a topic for another article. Another rule of thumb is that online poker sites connected to online casinos tend to have very loose and "un-bluffable" players, usually online blackjack and craps players that know very little about poker except for what they see on television or at their home games. Stand-alone online poker rooms tend to have tighter and,
one might argue, better players where bluffing actually stands a much better chance of working if done properly. Pacific Poker, Bodog
poker, and Sporting Bet poker are examples of the "loose" casino-affiliated
poker rooms, whereas,
Poker Stars and
Full Tilt Poker are places where tighter play is more the norm. Don't try and bluff several opponents Bluffs have a greater tendency to fail when tried against more than two opponents. The more players still in the hand, the greater the chance that one or more of them has hit a piece of the board and will stick around, so limit your bluffing attempts to when you are heads-up or against only two other players. When up against several players after the flop, you might bet at a pot in an attempt to garner information that clues you in on other players holdings or runs some people out so that you can end up heads-up and possibly employ a bluff later in the hand. This strategy can get very costly and is an aggressive style of play that takes experience to master. The common poker player will be best served by a conservative approach at low-limit tables. Let the texture of the board tell your story A good bluff tells a believable story and the primary elements of the story are your betting patterns and the community cards on the board. If you raised pre-flop in late position with KQ and the flop contains an ace, if the remaining players all check to you, it makes sense for you to bet. Many opponents will give you credit for holding an ace since you raised pre-flop. You are telling a believable story. You may be able to get players holding middle or low pairs to fold. If you are check-raised, though, your story should probably come to an end unless you have some other outs. Another good opportunity to bluff is when you believe an opponent holds high cards and the flop comes out rags (all low cards). Especially, if you are in the small or big blind, it may be worth a bet, since you could conceivably have any two cards in the blinds and a low-card flop may be just what the doctor ordered or so you want the others to believe. In low-limit poker, it is very common for players with overcards to call a small bet into a low-card flop in hopes of hitting their cards on the turn, so if another non-face card comes on the turn, you will likely need to fire the big bet to keep your bluff going and many players will fold with no pair at that point. Representing straights and flushes is another common bluff, but one that I find does not work often enough in low-limit poker to even bother using. As a reminder, learn the type of players you are up against before aggressively bluffing. If you are at a table of "un-bluffables", the above examples will do nothing more than serve to shorten your chip stack. Use the semi-bluff instead of the stone-cold bluff A semi-bluff is usually one you attempt when you are on a draw and have chances to improve to the winning hand on later rounds. An example is when you find yourself with a flush draw or open-end straight draw and bet or raise the pot knowing full well that you likely do not hold the best hand at that time, but if you hit one of your outs it could win you a sizable pot. In low-limit poker, I will almost never stone-cold bluff. There is very little need to do so. I will use the semi-bluff a great deal, though, either to win the pot outright, or to receive a free card on the turn in an effort to hit my draw for as cheap as possible. As an example, you are dealt Ad-9d on the button and two players call, so you call and both blinds stay in leaving five players with you last to act on each round. The flop comes Kd-Td-4s. With four opponents, you probably do not have the best hand, but you do have the nut-flush draw which you will hit by the river about one out of three tries. If all four players check to you, you should semi-bluff bet or if a single bet has been made with callers, you should bluff-raise. In both cases, you will likely have all the players check to you after the turn, allowing you to either take a free card or bet depending on the turn card. Suppose the turn is a 8c. If the remaining players check to you, you could simply check and see the river card which, if a diamond that does not pair the board, assures you of victory. If no diamond appears, it allows you get away from the hand for the cheapest price possible. A stone-cold bluff leaves you with almost no way out if players decide to call it which occurs frequently in low-limit poker, but semi-bluffs, even if called, could lead to big payoffs if the turn and river fall your way, so keep your low-limit bluffing to semi-bluffs and you will do fine. Know when the ruse is up Poker players often let their egos get the better of them and when your bluffs get called you must not let ego or the fear of being caught force you to keep throwing good money after bad. Not every bluff you make will work, so learn to realize when you are beaten and throw the hand away. Your opponent may beat his or her chest knowing they caught you bluffing, but you can now use that to your advantage later, which leads us to our final point. Be aware of what the other players think about you One very important aspect to being a good poker player is knowing how your play is viewed by the other players at the table. If the only times you have had to show your cards to the table, you've been holding monster hands, then your image is probably one of a good tight player and your opportunities to bluff will increase since players will respect your bets and raises. On the other hand, if you have tried bluffing a few times and been busted on every one, then you may have an image as a reckless player and it is an opportunity for you to tighten up and wait to trap your opponents when you do receive the monster hand and they still believe you are simply making a play again. Being unpredictable is a vital key to poker success. Hopefully these hints will assist you as you begin the necessary transition from playing strictly by the book to adapting to the players around you and making plays based on your perception of them and their perception of you. Bluffing is a vital tool to becoming the best poker player you can be, but if done improperly and without forethought, it can lead to significant losses, so study your opportunities and review what worked and what did not and learn from those experiences. As you make the decision to whether or not to begin moving up to higher stakes, this is one aspect of your game with which you must be comfortable. | 
