Bluffs
When There are More Cards to Come
When there are more cards to come, your bluffs should rarely
be pure bluffs - that is to say, bets or raises that have
little or no chance of winning if you are called, even taking
into account the cards you may get on future rounds. Instead
your early-round bets should be semi-bluffs, those powerful,
deceptive plays. It is important to bluff occasionally on
early rounds to keep your opponents off-balance. But why
do it when you have only one or two ways of winning? For
a pure bluff to work, your opponent or opponents must generally
fold immediately. However, semi-bluff has three ways of
winning. It may win because your opponent folds immediately,
and it may also win either because you catch a scare card
that causes your opponent to fold on a later round or because
you make the best hand.
Nevertheless, while you should usually restrict your early-round
bluffs to semi-bluffs, there is still nothing to prevent
you from trying a pure bluff if you feel there's a good
chance of getting away with it. If you think your chances
of getting away with it are greater than the pot odds you
are getting, then you should go ahead and try it. Ante structure
we mentioned playing in a game where certain players played
too tight for the ante. There was $10 in antes, and if these
players were the only ones in the pot, I knew I could bet
$7 with absolutely nothing and have a good chance of stealing
that $10. My pot odds in that instance were less than 1/2
to - 1, but I knew I could get away with the bluff about
60 percent of the time. So it was a profitable play.
If you do make a pure bluff on an early round and someone
raises you, don't try to tough it out. You've been caught.
Since you have no out, you don't even have to think about
continuing. Give it up, and get on with the next hand.
When you bluff with more cards to come, you often get called,
and then you are faced with deciding whether or not to continue
the bluff on the next round. Thus, when you bluff with a
hand that probably can't improve to the best hand, you need
to compare your chances of getting away with it to your
effective odds if you are planning to continue betting on
future rounds even when you don't improve.
For instance, if there is $100 in the pot in a $10 - $20
games with two cards to come, you may have to bluff twice.
If you think you will bluff twice, you are risking $40 to
win $120 - the $100 in the pot plus the $20 your opponent
calls on the first round. So when you make that first $20
bet, you cannot think you are getting 5-to-1 from the pot.
Rather you are getting 3-to-1 ($120-to-$40). For the play
to be profitable, there must be a better than 3-to-1 chance
your opponent will fold after the second bet. This is especially
true of pure bluffs where you have no way of winning by
improving to the best hand.
Deciding whether to continue with a semi-bluff really depends
on how the next card affects your chances and how your opponent's
card seems to have affected his. Each individual round should
be evaluated separately. Suppose you make a semi-bluff raise
in seven-card you get called by a 9. Whether you should
give up the bluff on the next round depends on what you
catch, what your opponent catches, and also what kind of
player your opponent is. If with your A,K,5 you proceed
to catch a queen suited with the king and your opponent
catches a deuce, you ought to bet again; but if your opponent
catches, let's say, an 8 suited with the 9 and you catch
a 3, give it up. Check, and if your opponent bets, throw
the hand away. Your chances have not improved, and it looks
as if your opponent's have. He may have a flush draw, a
straight draw, or simply a pair of 9s, but whatever he has,
he looks like too much of a favorite for you to call when
he bets.
It takes experience to know when to give up on a bluff and
when to pursue it. When your first bet is called, presumably
your opponent has something. If you sense he's getting stronger
and you don't improve, give it up. If you sense he's weak
and staying weak and if you think he thinks you're strong,
continue the bluff and hope to drive him out.
