Bluffing and semibluffing basics

The bluff is probably the term in the specialised vocabulary of poker most well known to people in general. In regular speech, in the movies and such, it is the phrase “I’ll call your bluff” which most sums up the image of the canny poker player with his devastating read on his opponents. Bluffing shows balls, calling a bluff shows shrewdness, and these two characteristics in the right proportion are the makings of the successful poker player. So well-known is the image of one cowboy type peering at another and deciding that they’re bluffing that I have seen beginners at a £5 tournament take several minutes to stare down their opponents, asking the rather pointless question, “So, are you bluffing?” It’s not terribly surprising that people come to the game with a rather distorted view of how often people actually do (or should) bluff, and what the point of doing it is in certain situations.

If you play with the same people for more than a few hours, you should pay attention to how many bluffs (successful or unsuccessful) each of them runs. It is helpful that players are often so pleased with a successful pure bluff (pushing an opponent off a winning hand with no made hand and no draw) that they’ll give the table a peek at the end, sometimes serving the double purpose of tilting the bluffee. If you never bluff, it is as noticeable over time as if you’re always at it. By watching others you will get a reasonable idea of their patterns (and thus characterise them quickly) and, habitual creatures that most of us are, you will be able to pick them off when the situation is right if they bluff too much, or push them around if they bluff too little.

Consistency is your enemy – bluffing at a basic level is a way to stave off that devil predictability. If you always raise preflop with AK, for example, and always check-fold the flop if you’ve missed it, other people will eventually catch on. Simply playing your hand according to its value won’t just make you a break-even player, but a losing one, as other people will be using the full set of poker tools, as it were, and will find out that you’re not.

So when to bluff? If you’re talking the total move on the river with nothing on the basis that your opponent is weak- then almost never. There are lots of reasons why, as a beginner, this is potentially costly – the most obvious one being that if you’re playing other beginners, you’re just as liable to be called with any old thing than find your opponent folding like you want them to. You must have heard the old saying, “Don’t bluff a mug.” Well, if you’re trying to represent a hand you don’t have, it’s a good idea to be sure first that your opponent is paying the slightest bit of attention to anything outside his own hand.

Of course, we’ve all seen players like Gus Hansen ‘playing the player’ where the player is usually pretty sophisticated. Televised final tables are not an accurate gauge of correct play in regular tournaments, or, in particular, cash games, especially ‘no fold’em’ low limit games. Top level players are already familiar with the basics of hand selection and experienced in flop play, and they’re usually playing the end stage of a no-limit tournament. To begin by disregarding the value of your own hand and bluffing based on situation alone, regardless of what game you’re sitting in is going to equate to an expensive set of lessons.

But what situations could you find yourself in to pull off a pure bluff? If you’ve decided that an opponent is pretty tight (and pays attention to the board) and you’re heads up with two of a suit on the flop, calling his bet may give you extra bluffing ‘outs’ if a third suited card pops up. A tight player will be able to fold, say, top pair if convinced that he’s been ‘outdrawn’ and so bluffing when a scare card shows up is one of those standard times to give it a go. Less likely to work (well, to be honest, you’re less likely to find yourself heads up on the flop) in a limit game, this kind of thing will tend to fare better in no-limit or pot limit games where you can put some actual pressure on. It cannot be emphasised enough that straight up bluffing is not a hugely important factor in small limit cash games – what’s the point of bluffing into a 5-way pot in the situation mentioned above when the bare Ace of the suit will be getting odds to call your bet anyway?

Position is very important when considering bluffing. If raising preflop is usually a type of semibluff, doing it from or near the button is much stronger, for many reasons. You’ve had a chance to see what everyone in front of you has done, you’ll get everyone’s reaction to the flop and their action in front of you, and you’re far more likely to be able to steal the blinds (in tournaments) when they’re the only ones left to act after you. As a general rule, starting hand requirements go down proportional to proximity to the button – so while your A9 under the gun goes in the bin, it’s a probable raiser in late position. There are no hard and fast rules in poker, so it’s almost contradictory to say “mix it up” and then “play x cards in y position” but it’s true that most of the time your options are wider open when you’re last to act.

Consider this standard semibluff: holding Ac10c, you’ve seen a flop of 7c 8c Qd. With two other players in front of you, and a bet from the second one, you are in a position to raise holding what is a very sizeable draw. What defines a semibluff is the existence of the possibility either to win the hand there and then (the real idea behind betting with what is likely not to be the best hand at the time), or to win by improving to the best hand (here to the nut flush). Sometimes having bet the draw you’ll increase your chance of being paid off when you hit it too. If in this case, you get a call from one of your opponents, on the turn there’s a chance he’ll check, leaving you the option of taking another stab at the draw for free, or betting again.

How about holding 9h 10h on the same board (7c 8c Qd) with the same action in front of you? If you semibluff with the open-ended straight draw, you may find yourself with extra bluffing outs if the flush comes, and a less visible actual draw. The implied odds of hitting something like this make players’ eyes go glassy occasionally, and much pressing of the Self-Destruct button goes on in the name of semibluffing. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched – take a step back from your hand to see if you sense real strength in your opponent, or alternately if he is a stubborn calling station.

Semibluffing is a relatively recent term defining something poker players have been doing for years – bluffing with a Plan B. The near common knowledge about semibluffing nowadays adds more layers to an already complex game. “I know that you know that he knows” kind of thinking can tie you in knots and make decisions that much tougher when playing against experienced opponents. However the semibluff is a very useful tool to become familiar with, but not fall in love with. Remember that to count as a semibluff there has to be some chance that your opponent might fold – against multiple loose players in a low-level limit game this becomes slim-to-none.