Bet types - the bluff bet
Introduction
In this article
- The purpose of bluff bets
- When does a bluff bet make sense?
- Position does matter
You will often find yourself in a situation where, based on the strength of your hand, you can hardly expect to win the pot on the showdown. Fortunately, there is another way to win the pot that doesn't require a showdown. A bluff bet can make you win pots with unimproved hands.
A bluff bet is a bet you make for the sole purpose of getting your opponent to fold. Your assumption is that your opponent holds a better hand and you're currently behind and the following streets probably won't help much either.
Your aim is to get the opponent to give up his better hand. This means the bluff bet relies entirely on your fold equity and is thus heavily dependent on your opponent's playing style. It's decisive whether your opponent is even able to fold a better hand than yours.
Parallels to other types of betting
Of course, a bluff bet can be expressed as a number of different bets. First of all, you should take a look at the continuation bet, which, quite frequently, is a bluff bet.
PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed)
Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25)
Hero ($25)
Preflop: Hero is BU with 4
, 5
3 folds, Hero raises $1.00, 1 fold, BB calls $1.00
Flop: ($2.10) A, J
, 6
(2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.50, BB folds
A continuation bet is mainly defined as a bet on the flop after being the last aggressor pre-flop and thus the last player to have bet or raised.
In our example, the hero completely misses the flop and bets only because of the fold equity; there is hardly any chance to get a hand with showdown value on the following streets.
Position bets are comparable to bluff bets as well, since they also rely on your fold equity by exploiting your position. The bluff bets relatives are the semi-bluff bets, although they follow ulterior motives; contrary to pure bluffs, they can still turn into a very strong hand on the subsequent streets. That's why we will deal with them in an article of their own.
Obviously, bluff bets stand in stark contrast against the usual value and protection bets. While you want to make more profit from your opponent's weaker hand with your value bets, your bluff bets aim to force a stronger hand to fold.
Why even bluff?
An essential question is probably: why should I even bet when I've got nothing? Your opponent needs to let go of his hand, but as you never really know what hand he's holding and are mostly limited to rough estimates on whether he is even able to fold, you could consider to simply give up bluff bets completely.
Of course, you like betting best when holding a hand with showdown value. It's even better if you hold a strong made hand or a monster hands like a set, a straight or a flush; you don't have to fear a call as you want to get it all-in as fast as possible. Why not just restrict your betting to these hands and give up your weak hands?
The problem here is the essence of the TAG playing style: in order to balance your hands and take advantage of deception, you play quite aggressively pre-flop. On the bright side, this leads to your strong hands being paid off really well, so you play weaker hands, like draw hands, the same. On the bad side, though, you will happen to find yourself on a missed flop with a pocket pair or suited connectors quite often.
Unfortunately, this happens quite regularly. For instance, we know that a small pocket pair improves to a set on only one out of 7.5 flops, meaning you will find yourself on the flop with a middle pair or even an underpair too often. In those situations, you can't just assume you're still ahead.
The same goes for suited connectors or other drawing hands, though it's possible that you at least hit a draw with those, putting you into a semi-bluff situation.
Basically the flop poses a number of problems for you:
- You don't hit and will hardly improve your hand by the river.
- If you check/fold every time you don't hit, you give up way too many hands and thus lose money.
- You become readable if you check/fold every time. Your opponents will try to bet you out of the pot more and more.
- Whenever you start betting with a strong hand, your opponents will realize it. Your hits won't be paid off anymore.
It should now be obvious that you often have to bet on the flop to win the pot immediately, even if you didn't hit. If your opponent folds, you can count it as success, but if your opponent raises, you have to give up on your bluff, of course. But what if your opponent just calls the flop?
You will find yourself on the turn, in front of a decent pot with an unmade hand and no possibilities to improve. You can either give up now or try to bluff a second time.
The important factor here is to determine with which hands the opponents would call the flop. He stayed in the pot, but didn't show aggression for the second time (the first time being his pre-flop call that left you being the PFA). The question now is: do you get the opposing player to fold with a 2nd barrel?
Think about why the villain could have called the flop:
- Villain sits on a draw and hopes for a hit on the turn.
- Villain has a strong made hand and decides to slow-play.
- Villain has a semi-strong made hand and plays way ahead / way behind, meaning he will call your bets, but won't bet himself.
- Villain has a very weak made hand, like a small pocket pair which turned into a middle pair now. He calls once on the flop, hoping to get to the showdown cheaply.
- Villain has trash and is trying to float. This means he will call your flop bet in order to steal the pot with a small turn bet after a check from you.
If you take a closer look at these five points, you can establish that villain should find a fold on the turn in cases 4.) and 5.); he will probably not want to take his weak made hand all the way to the showdown, especially if he can expect another big bet on the river. In case he wants to float, you foil his plans with a turn bet. He would have to bluff raise you then, which is hardly ever the case.
Point one is the most problematic. Even if you bet in order to give villain incorrect odds so he can't call a potential draw, there is no way to know he will really fold it. In case the villain holds a strong made hand or is way ahead / way behind, he will of course never fold either.
Accordingly, you should realize which hands you can get to fold on the turn. If you can assess your opponent's play in this aspect, for example by means of a HUD delivering values like "fold to continuation bet", "fold to flop bet" and "fold to turn bet", you can already decide on the flop whether a bluff bet makes sense. In case villain calls most flop bets, it only makes sense to bluff if he folds often on the turn, where the pot gets too big for his taste and you can take it down with 2nd barrel.
As you can see, we start digging into some more complex stuff now. This is a good place to pause for a second and look at a couple of examples that deal exclusively with how your bluff bet should look and whether it is appropriate.
PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed)
Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25)
Hero ($25)
Preflop: Hero is BU with 7 , 8
3 folds, Hero raises $1.00, 1 fold, BB raises to $2.00, Hero calls $2.00
Flop: ($4.10) A, K, 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks
Turn: ($4.10) K (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.00 , BB folds
Hero gets terrific odds to call his suited connectors pre-flop. The villain's check on the flop is suspicious: he is either giving up, trying to trap you or he wants to play way ahead / way behind with a mediocre hand, calling you down. You now have the possibility of making a bluff bet in order to make your opponent fold.
Hero thinks that villain will call too often in this spot though, so he passes. On the turn however, villain shows another sign of weakness by checking again. Being the only way he can possibly win this pot, hero bets out - he will hardly ever be ahead with his 8 high here, so even getting a weak hand like QJ to fold is a success. Maybe you can even get rid of a couple of small pocket pairs.
PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed)
Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25)
Hero ($25)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Q , T
2 folds, CO calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.25, BB checks
Flop: ($0.75) 3, 3, 3 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.75 , BB calls $0.75, 1 fold
Turn: ($2.25) A (2 players)
Hero bets $1.50 , BB folds
Hero decides to just complete pre-flop and bets out on the flop with Q high. It's more than possible he is ahead here and is able to win the pot right away. It's more probable, though, that he gets hands like Kx or Ax to fold.
After the call, things look different, but the turn brings the perfect scare card. If villain has an ace, you will notice soon enough, but if he doesn't, he will basically have to fold now. Even a pocket pair - which would constitute a full house - would get out of the way here most of the times.
So hero bets and villain folds.
But you're left wondering: is this really necessary? An alternative could be: hero doesn't bet the flop.
In the following example, he bets the flop, but gives up on the turn.
At the end of the hand, CO folded A 4 and BB had 5 5 .
PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed)
Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25)
Hero ($25)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Q , T
2 folds, CO calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.25, BB checks
Flop: ($0.75) 3, 3, 3 (3 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $0.75 , 2 folds
PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed)
Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25)
Hero ($25)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Q , T
2 folds, CO calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.25, BB checks
Flop: ($0.75) 3, 3, 3 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.75 , BB calls $0.75, 1 fold
Turn: ($2.25) A (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $1.50 , Hero folds
As you can see, hero will lose the pot both times and that makes sense of course. Not taking into account the fact that you're rarely ahead with Q high against two opponents, it's obvious no one can fold if hero doesn't bet.
These two examples should make two things clear:
- Bluff bets can also be successful in unraised pots: in this example, hero manages to get two better hands to fold. Although the pot looks marginal, you should consider how often you find yourself in this kind of situation.
- The decisive factor is, however, that it's hero who makes the decision on the flop: "I bet the flop and will give up to any resistance. If there's only one opponent left on the turn (and my fold equity therefore increases), I will bet/fold again".
If hero check/folds the turn, there is no point in betting the flop.
How often does a bluff bet have to work?
Considering odds, the question about how frequently a bluff bet has to work in order to be profitable comes up.
Hero bets $1.50 in order to win $2.10.
If hero bets potsize ($2.10), he needs a fold equity of exactly 50%, meaning the opponent has to fold 50% of all cases (if he folds, you win $2.10, if he doesn't and you give up the hand thereafter, you lose $2.10).
In our example, hero bets significantly less than potsize, so the bluff has to work less often. In this case: $1.50/($2.10+$1.50) = 41,6%.
This means a bluff only has to work one out of three times if you bet half the pot ($1.05/$3.15 = 33,3%).
What you have to take into consideration here is that the fold equity will also decrease with smaller bet sizes. Again, bet sizes of about 2/3 potsize are a guideline to balance these two aspects.
The position
Bluff bets are especially suitable in position, as you were already able to collect some information about the opponent and his hand. In the third example, hero acts out of position, making it harder on him. Were he in position, the bluff would be a lot easier to execute (=> position bet).
Nevertheless, bluff bets are also a good tool out of position, as you will often have no other options if you don't want to give up the pot every time. This difficulty is yet another reason why it is always desirable to act in position.
Conclusion
You now know why and how you should bluff. Your aim is to get stronger hands to fold. At the same time, it is a good tool to balance your strong hands, and you won't need to give up every pot unimproved.
As it happens quite often, position always plays an important role here, as does your opponent's playing style, which only allows you to roughly estimate your fold equity.
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