Inducing Bluffs

Inducing a bluff is not rocket science. It is simply a clever way of extracting value ? for example, from someone who will interpret a particular line as weak or someone who imagines they can only win by making a big play. Bluffs can be induced on every street, but the principle only works against aggressive players. Passive players simply won?t bluff you.

This article focuses on inducing bluffs in six-max in order to tackle tougher aggressive players ? against whom higher-level plays will work. It will outline the fundamentals of inducing bluffs in short-handed aggressive cash games, although the principles are transferable to all poker variants, notably MTTs.

Bluff Skills

To induce a bluff you need to be adept at hand reading and understand how to combat different player types. Bear in mind that poker is essentially a simple game ? going out of your way to cultivate high-variance situations is often just fancy play syndrome, not optimal play.

As you develop your style, it will become clear that there are several, +EV lines. However, for any given situation there will always be one optimal play, no matter your opponent.
For the most part, I am concerned here with inducing bluffs when you have a hand. Inducing a bluff so you can re-bluff is beyond the scope of my knowledge. I have seen examples of high-stakes players using the sickest lines to virtually stack people with just six-high, but I?m not convinced this tactic works against run-of-the-mill players at small- to medium-stakes. That doesn?t mean you can?t try it, but remember, complicated poker can be hard work.

Bet-Sizing

When playing decent players you need to understand about pot-to-stack ratios and how your bet is likely to be viewed. An incredibly common leak from players in six-max is that they fail to understand how keeping bet-sizes flexible can lead to many different results depending on what you want from the hand, session or (at the extreme) lifetime.

For example, in a live cash game a couple of months ago, the game was relatively deep at £200 £1/£2 and there was a lot of action pre-flop. The super loose-aggressive button ended up three-betting pre-flop to £80 and the action was folded round to the original raiser who made it £400 out of a £700 stack. I almost choked. The button, after some deliberation, folded Q-Q face-up and the original raiser showed A-A along with the words, ?I wanted to show I was committed.?

The problem with making excessive raises is that you shut out action from strong but inferior hands, denying them the illusion of fold equity. You make it clear you won?t be folding, and guess what? Even the biggest spew-monkey in the world won?t be reshipping A-10+ suited. A couple of other things become apparent, like what an enormous bet-sizing tell you have. If the villain had made a much more reasonable four-bet of £180-£240, he would have maintained ambiguity. He could have A-A and K-K for sure, or he could be bluffing to protect against a perceived squeeze. So the next time he wants to protect against a probable squeeze, he can bluff cheaper, as his opponents know he will make the same bet with his entire range.

Other examples of awful bet-sizing leaks include ridiculous four-bets online. A lot of online players press pot after being three-bet, which makes your four-bets way too big for an aggressive player to jam over. Say in a $200 no-limit game our hero, Captain Conservative, opens A-A from the cut-off for $7 and gets three-bet from the aggressive button to $24. Our hero gets excited and raises to $72. The TAG sensibly folds. The problem the Captain has is that his bet-sizing is impossible to balance well. Unless he wants to three-times every three-bet he is subjected to, he has a problem. He can?t start four-bet bluffing as he is giving himself a terrible price on the bluff. So what happens is he four-bets his monsters, calls with his marginals (probably like A-Q suited) and folds his junk. This will usually result in a long and expensive exercise on how to become incredibly exploitable and burn money.

At a recent festival event, there was some heavy betting pre-flop between two incredibly out-of-line (yet respected) players. With blinds at 25/50, the action pre-flop went something like limp from under the gun, limp, limp and a raise to 300 from villain 1. Action folded round to the under-the-gun limper (villain 2) who raised to 850. The limpers folded and villain 1 called. The flop came Q-7-3 and villain 2 checked, having 5k back. The action returned to villain 1, who thought for a while, then announced that he was ?committed? before betting 3k into 2k. I was flabbergasted, given the guy still to act was one of the spewiest I?d ever seen and this guy has got involved in a three-bet pot, flopped/held something and now wants to eradicate any chance of an incredibly aggressive player making some sort of move with little-to-no equity, which he was entirely capable of ? I know this because he still reshipped and 5-7 outdrew Q-10. LOL donkaments.

Inducing bluffs requires this pseudo-fold equity. When an aggressive player knows that his victim will be getting greater than 3/1 on a call, he won?t (usually) spew! Go figure. Keep in mind in all of your poker to keep your bet-sizing in keeping with the range of hands you could have. Don?t get pigeonholed by good opponents who are researching you. Stay open and try not to be exploited.

Pre-flop

As we have seen, keeping bets reasonable is generally far more profitable, especially in six-max cash when you will be developing relationships with opponents and need to maintain flexibility. For example, if you make your four-bets in the region of 2.5 times your opponents three-bet, you give them options. If they know you are capable of bluffing with this four-bet and can have a range as wide as K-2 suited to A-A, they might decide to jam A-10+ and 7-7+, which will be immense for us over a large sample. They might also end up jamming air, although in my experience this is still incredibly rare without deep history at anything below 600 no-limit.

Squeezes

In some super-aggressive games, you will be astounded at the sheer amount of pre-flop squeezing and aggression going on. In some games it is possible to have five players with a three-bet percentage of 10 or higher. In these games, pots will often be three-bet and it?s important to understand how to induce action. You can induce squeezes (bluffs) pre-flop by flatting more with big hands in position. If you play a straightforward TAG game, experiment with inducing squeezes from aggressive opponents, especially when you are in position. If you do this sparingly, you will be amazed at the action you can get on occasion. In super-aggressive games, your hand will often look like 8-8 to 10-10 and you will be amazed at how light good LAGs will get it in against you when they think you have a polarised range against which they have good equity.

Flop and Turn

In my experience, inducing bluffs works better in three-bet pots, when the units involved are bigger. You need to have a good feel for where you are in a hand and how your range will be weighted in your opponent?s eyes. Let?s consider a variety of examples where you can induce action from opponents who are smart enough to hand read you accurately, but not able to combat battles on higher levels.

Let?s assume you three-bet pre-flop 200 big blinds deep in the small blind against a very aggressive opponent on the button. You have $800 at a 2/4 table and your opponent covers. The pot is $40. You hold 3-3 and a flop brings 3h-9s-10s. You lead $30 and your opponent calls, which you assume he will do with a really wide range, floats, draws and marginal hands. Let?s say he called you pre-flop with a broad range of A-2+ suited, K-8+ suited, 2-2+, 4-5+ suited and 7-9+ offsuit. The majority of his range, as you can see, consists of a whole heap of one pair, no pair and air. The turn brings the Ks. You understand that he is likely floating you with a huge range, attempting to represent hands on the turn or river and take the pot away from you.

On the turn, you could check but you realise that the pot is only $100 and you really want to stack him. You bet again, praying he opts to go crazy. You keep your bet size ambiguous ($60) and he obliges by raising to $170. This is a spot where you can take high-variance lines, but bear in mind that you are occasionally outplaying yourself. The best probable play against a very aggressive player here would be to call, representing a one pair+ or a draw hand, with the intention of check/calling or pseudo-blocking almost all rivers. With this line, you are taking a chance that he doesn?t spike a hand that has between 0-15 outs, in the hope that he views your weakness and defensive line as a marginal hand that wants to reach showdown.
If he bluffs the river, you will make an additional $300-$400 (including his turn raise). Of course, sometimes you are going to value-town yourself against a flush/straight/higher set, but generally you will have gone broke against those hands anyway and the free card shot at between 0-30% is worth the risk.

The trick is to know your player well and recognise good spots to crush them. In a spot like the one described, you would need detailed notes and have studied them well. The hand above would be a great line to take against someone who was regularly four-betting (reducing the likelihood of 10-10 and almost discounting K-K) and who played his draws aggressively (as if he has flopped a flush draw here ? in a three-bet pot he will raise this at least some of the time). Once you know your hand is similar in relative hand-strength to the nuts, you can attempt to widen your perceived range as much as possible, allowing your opponent to hand read you wrongly and make plays at you that he otherwise wouldn?t.

Understanding how to induce spew takes a long time to master. It?s about getting into the head of your opponent, understanding how he thinks, rattling him around till he?s ready to jump, then giving him just enough rope to hang himself. You should look for signs that your opponent is tilting, because when opponents play with disregard for money, inducing bluffs can prove devastating.

Squeezed/Three-bet Pots

Against active squeezers and light three-bettors you can sometimes go out on a limb with a line that simply begs to be bluffed at. Let?s assume you call a three-bet pre-flop against a very aggressive player who has just lost a huge pot against the table star at 200 no-limit. You hold 8-8 and the flop comes K-7-3 rainbow. The villain continuation bets and you see your chance to induce a bluff. If we take a look at most LAG and TAG villains? range, by raising small here we will probably get it all-in against A-K/K-Q and A-A when he has those holdings. We will have a tiny bit of equity when we get it wrong, which makes a slight difference. Almost all other holdings will not bet or three-bet jam the flop. Some of the time, he will just call anyway, in an attempt to get value from our bluffs on later streets when he is almost always ahead.

What we can do is raise very small to induce a shove from air. So the pot is $45 pre-flop, he c-bets $27, we can min-raise, knowing that our line looks bad. There are incredibly few hands being represented by most regular players with this sort of line. It looks like we have some junk and are trying to bluff cheap, or we are taking some donkey line with a medium pair. If a LAG villain is holding A-Q in this spot and is in the right mood, he will ship on you all day long. He will three-bet jam the flop here a lot of the time.

Paired Boards & Yeti Theory

Some players will try to outplay you, but they lack the foresight to recognise that you know about ranges and that when people are representing narrow ranges, they are usually bluffing. This can lead to some fantastic spots to induce.

For example, let?s say you?re on the big blind with 9-9 and it?s folded to the button who raises it up. You call and the flop is 6h-2d-2s. You check, your opponent bets, and then you check-raise him a standard amount. Now, if your opponent re-raises you, this is where the ?Yeti Theorem? comes into play. If your opponent had a 2 or 6-6, they would not three-bet on this flop. Instead, they would be more better off just calling your re-raise in the hope of profiting on the later streets from a range that is perceived to be heavily weighted towards air and hands against which they are way ahead.

Let?s look at an example of Yeti Theorem in action on the UK circuit. The table was a typical English affair, with the majority of players either on day release from the local nuthouse or in need of their pipe and slippers after waiting for Aces for the fourth day running. But I was less than impressed to find I had two thinking players on my table.
Early on, some nit limped under the gun and I elected to call with 10-10 on the button (yeah I know, debatable). The small blind completed and the big blind checked. The flop came down a pretty nice 2-2-8 rainbow. The nit bet out small and I called, the small blind folded and to my surprise the big blind check-raised.

The nit muttered something and folded but I was unconvinced and called. The turn came a 7 and he checked, so I checked behind. The river came an Ace. He paused for a minute or so, then checked. I was confused, but luckily had made other plans for later that evening, which meant I had to bust out soon. I made a play that I didn?t really understand at the time but which now seems like genius. I bet small for value and he jammed. I wanted to see, and so called. He had 4-5 suited. I induced spew! A couple of hands later I was out, but a few years later, it dawned on me what had happened. The player was a thinking player, and was going out of his way to represent a narrow range. My perceived range was weak (the Ace giving him even more of an excuse to check-raise) and in combination, inducing a bluff was the best play possible at that time.

In six-max you come across this situation all the time. With three or more to the flop, some wise guy almost always has trips on a board like 7-7-10 board. When this happens, think about ranges and actions. Usually, a red flag waves when I see something that doesn?t add up, like some 18/12/4 serial slow player somehow having a 7 in his under-the-gun opening range. However, be wary of over-analysing situations. Very good players can sometimes take lines that look as bluffy as possible in order to capitalise on your preconceptions, or take lines for ridiculously thin value that leave you gobsmacked.

River Plays

Pseudo-stopper/thin value

This is one of the more standard inducing spots. In situations where you think your opponent has a marginal made hand, and your hand also looks like a marginal one-pair type hand, use it.
You raise from under the gun with Q-Q at 600 no-limit. A good tricky TAG calls you from middle position (where his range is not at its widest). You c-bet a J-7-5 rainbow board. The turn is a 4, which brings a flush draw and you check for some pot control/deception and he checks behind. The river is a King and you put out a bet that looks like a blocking bet, say 50 into 100. In his eyes, your hand range looks like some sort of one-pair hand, which he can probably get you off, and so he raises. You call. The thing is, your hand is pretty much face-up, but that shouldn?t change anything. You bet on the river to give the impression of weakness and give him rope. This way, you get value from hands you would otherwise be unable to get value from conventionally. If you bet a standard amount, you would not normally get two streets of value from his marginal holdings.

Action from missed draws

Same story as before, except you can get value from more standard aggressive fish and TAGs. You know that the range they had for calling the flop and turn (let?s say the board is J?-5;-6;) was weighted towards marginal Jacks and whiffed draws (the turn and river blanked 2-10).
On the river, if the bulk of your opponent?s range is missed draws, a check call is preferable to a value bet against an aggressive fish or bad aggro regular. If the villain is super aggro, you can bet small and hope to induce a big move, but these big plays are generally made by good thinking players ? aggressive fish get scared when they see how much they will have to bluff to win the pot. Think about your opponent?s tendencies and his likely hand range before going for a check/call, bet/call or just standard value bet (which is often the best play).

Conclusion

Inducing bluffs is a great way of beating the better players. Using your skills, you can engineer situations where you can take a player out of his comfort zone, spewing chips in all directions. Almost as important, however, is to know when you are not inducing anymore, but are simply having a bad dose of fancy play syndrome, where the only one you are crushing is yourself. There are very specific times when you might look at inducing a bluff and when they occur you want to be certain of your reads and how your opponent thinks, both normally and at this specific time.