Firing The Bullet
Firing a bullet, also known as taking a stab at the pot and a billion other silly names, is when you are making either a semi-bluff or full bluff at a pot. Bluffing is considered the hardest part of poker to master, because you really can’t master it. No matter how great of a player you are sometimes you are going to get called no matter what, so rule #1 when bluffing is to understand that even under optimal conditions, there is no guarantee that your bluff will work.
Then the question becomes, how many times should you bluff at the pot? If you’re heads up against a player you don’t know anything about and you miss the flop completely, pretty much the only way you’re going to win the hand is if you bluff at it (fire a bullet). There’s a great saying among poker pros, and that is if you want to fire a bullet at the pot on the flop, you should only do so if you’re prepared to continue to fire on the turn and on the river. Bluffing at every stage in the hand is incredibly hard to do, especially when you’re opponent is calling your bets quickly. Could they have you dominated already? Are they drawing at a gut shot straight? All of these questions are ones you should try to answer in your mind before firing that first bluff.
In my opinion the hardest players to make continuation bluff’s against are aggressive beginners. These are the players that think that constantly calling and trying to catch their card is a sound strategy, and they’ll only fold on the river after they’ve called off a bunch of their chips and missed their hand. Experienced players will tend to call a bet only if that is the correct play, such as knowing whether or not it’s worth calling a large bet to try and catch a flush, and at the same time good players could also re-raise someone they think might be bluffing. Still, no matter what type of opponent you’re playing against, you must make sure that your bluff can induce a fold. Did you’re opponent raise before the flop? If they did and the flop comes all low cards, it’s likely that they didn’t flop a pair, and despite the strength of their hand pre-flop, their cards are now very weak. Now would be a good time to fire a bullet, whether you hit your own cards or not.
Bluffing shouldn’t be done often, but the ability to do so will allow you to pick up chips when you are card dead, keep your opponents guessing and help build your nerve and confidence in your personal game.
