Without bluffing, poker wouldn’t be poker. Bluffing is a deliberate, elementary deception. Describing the flow of your positive emotions when you bluff to win the big pot your opponent should have gotten is tricky.
Poker bluffing is heavily embellished by the media, broadcasting primarily on television big bluffs performed by individual players and winning huge pots as a result (both during the WSOP and in the movies). So let’s find out what bluff is in idn poker and how best to use it in poker.
How often should you bluff?
If you ask an amateur or just a beginner poker player what is a fundamental aspect of playing Texas Hold’em, they will most likely say that bluffing is the key to success. However, this statement is far from true.
The object of the poker game is to win money. There are many ways to win without bluffing, so if you’re sitting at a 6-max table, every player has an equal chance of getting good or bad hole cards. According to simple math, every player should have the best hand once every 6 hands, so if all players played by the same standard, none of them would lose or win money in the long run.
You shouldn’t start a hand with the intention of bluffing. You should only bluff when you have a high degree of confidence that you can win the pot based on how your opponents have played their hands up to this point.
Does this mean that players are losing money trying to bluff each other?
Not necessary. An experienced player can identify the weakness of opponents and thus win a number of extra pots, increasing his stack and winnings over the long run. But identifying suitable bluffing situations is not easy for beginners or even more or less experienced players. This requires a lot of experience playing in situations like this, as well as knowing your opponent’s play in order to know when to bluff to be successful.
Additional benefits of bluffing in poker
The more and more you play poker, the better you will develop an understanding of when to bluff and when to just give your opponent the pot. However, there are more advantages to bluffing than just winning one single pot.
By bluffing, you create a loose image for yourself.
If you constantly bluff against your opponents, because of your table image, they will try to catch you bluffing when you bet. They will start to overestimate their mediocre hands and pay you when you have a really good hand.
Bluffing can tilt your opponent
Players do not like to be deceived with their own money. If you bluff a player successfully and show your bluffing cards, they may become frustrated with you and play worse against you, trying to get their money back. Such actions on the part of poker players are called “playing tilt”. However, it is not recommended to often show your cards to opponents, as the players at the table will be able to guess your game strategy and are more likely to know when you are bluffing, which will complicate your future play against these opponents.
