How To Bluff. Poker Player

Turning a made hand into a bluff can be a useful move, says Joey ‘jcl’ Lawrence, so long as you pick the right time and opponent…

When you first started playing poker you probably learned that you shouldn’t value bet the river if you can’t expect to be called by worse. This line of thinking is fine, but it causes many players to overlook their other option: turning their hand into a bluff.

Turning your hand into a bluff means betting with a made hand, not with the intention of getting called by worse, but in the hope of getting some better hands to fold. This is often more profitable than just checking behind.

In a recent CardRunners video, I played a hand at $2/$4 NLHE where I open-raised from the button for $10 with 5s-2s. The small blind – a good regular – called, as did the big blind. The flop came Ac-Tc-3c, and we all checked. The turn brought the 4h, giving me a straight. The small blind bet $20 into the $30 pot, the big blind called, and I raised to $72. It was conceivable that one of the blinds had a flush, but that was unlikely, so I raised for value and protection.

The small blind called and the big blind folded. The river was the 7c, putting four clubs on board, and the small blind checked. This was obviously a bad river card: it was now virtually impossible for me to bet the river and get called by worse, and if my opponent had a single club in his hand he had outdrawn me. Here, most players will utter a bunch of expletives, complain about running bad, and quickly check it back.

I thought differently. Checking back would win the pot often, when my opponent didn’t have a club, but I wanted to win even if he did have one, and turning my hand into a bluff let me do that.

Clubbed To Death

The critical thing to note here is that my opponent was a good regular, so he was capable of folding weak flushes. Thus, I just had to make sure that he didn’t have a good flush with the Kc or the Qc too often. I was pretty confident in this, because a good player like him is not calling my turn raise out of position with a naked King or Queen-high flush draw.

He needs to have at least a pair with it – probably a pair of Aces or tens, since he wouldn’t call me with K-3, K-7, Q-3 or Q-7 preflop. Hands like A-Kc, A-Qc, Kc-K and Qc-Q I could easily rule out because he would have reraised preflop. Hands like Kc-T or Qc-T are possible, but very unlikely, because they are not strong enough to call my raise preflop and he was good enough to know that.

Thus, the only way my opponent could ever have the Kc or Qc is if he flopped the nut or second nut flush and slow-played it on the turn, which is an unlikely parlay. So I bet $160 into $190 as a bluff, and sure enough my opponent folded. Now, I certainly might have had the best hand, but if I did manage to fold out a hand with a random club, that was a huge bonus.

You must be very careful in turning your hands into a bluff, though. Some people will never fold two pair or better, no matter how bad the board looks. But against the right opponent, knowing when to turn your hand into a bluff is a powerful tool and one you definitely want to have in your arsenal.