Overbluffing
If you’ve just gotten into poker the last few years, chances are what’s gotten you interested are all the poker shows on TV. This is both a good and bad thing. Good because it adds a lot of new players to the sport, bad because the type of play depicted on a lot of these shows is misleading. TV producers and editors will always air the exciting bluff over the well-played hand, and this had led to tons of bluffs shown on national TV, which instinctively leads a lot of new poker players to believe that bluffing is easy and is something that they should do a lot of.
Here’s the truth. The ability to bluff pretty much relies on just a couple of different factors, including the skill level of your opponent, the limit that you’re playing at and your table image and the way the other players perceive you. Here’s why each of those factors matter
Opponent Skill Level
In a lot of cases, you actually want your opponent to be fairly skilled and knowledgeable if you want to bluff him. The reason being is that bad players are hard to bluff. They will often call when they’re not suppose to, simply because they don’t know the math or just like to chase cards endlessly. Decent players will know when it is not worth calling, and can be pushed off hands a lot more often.
Limit of the Game
In low level limit hold’em, such as $1-$2, $2-$4, $3-$6 and even higher, it’s almost impossible to bluff. It’s just too cheap to call and you can’t raise enough money in low limit games to scare someone off their hand. If your opponent needs to catch a heart on the river and you bluff $4 at the pot, chances are very likely that he’s going to call that $4, simply because the price is right. But take the same scenario in a $200 buy-in no-limit game and you’ve now put out a $80 bet for that person to see the last card, it’ll be a much harder decision for them to make.
Table Image
Against decent players in less than optimal conditions, you’re going to have a hard time bluffing if most of the table has no knowledge of you or the way you play. In can work to your advantage in some scenarios, but part of bluffing involves having the rest of the table afraid of you and your hands. A table image can be achieved in a single session if you play against the same 8-9 players for a number of hours. If you’ve won a lot of hands and constantly flipped over great cards, you have now built enough credit in the eyes of your opponents to bluff at a few pots. Calling a big bet against a stranger is easier than calling against someone who has been winning a lot and always seems to have a good hand. Being able to bluff is a reward for good image building. Play badly, chase pots and lose a lot of hands, and good players will call your bluff every time.
