Smack Dog Blog

In the first part of our series on bluffing we covered what bluffing is and how to use it to your advantage when playing online.

The Limit to Bluffing: Bluffing works best in No Limit scenarios, because you can go all the way with it – go All-In- bet the farm and (hopefully) scare the bejeezus out of your opponents. In Limit games, however, the highest you can bet or raise is the limit. When the ceiling is a finite number, your fellow players are a lot more likely to call it just to see how the hand plays out. Therefore, bluffing is not as powerful a tool in limit games.

Get Caught: A particularly stellar bluffing strategy is to let yourself get caught doing it, even at the expense of losing a pot to do so. The reason? Because once you’ve established yourself in your opponents’ eyes as someone who bluffs, people will call your outrageous bets more often, giving you a greater chance of pulling down enormous pots when you do get dealt the Nuts.

Representing the Flop: This is a particular type of bluff, distinct from the “Stone Cold Bluff” occupying the bulk of this article. “Representing the Flop” is pretending that whatever cards you needed to have the Nuts just came up on the flop. Many players are keen to this trick, though, so watch out when you use it. You might find someone else trying the same racket at the same time as you, in which case you may want to back off. In some instances, that other player may actually have gotten the Nuts on the flop, and here you’re just faking it. It’s a trcik to be aware of, but not to abuse. Get a read on the other players at the table and note your position in order to decide if now is the right time to represent the flop, because sometimes it’s the perfect time.

Beating a Bluff: Lastly in this intro to bluffing is one final word of advice on how to act when you believe your opponent is trying to bluff you. Look at your cards. Can you win the hand? If so, play on. If not, let him have it. Don’t call someone just because you think they’re bluffing. Only stay in a hand you think you can win.

One way to learn more about how and when players bluff is to watch them very closely when you are not playing. In fact, some of the best jobs to do this is to work as a Vegas Poker Dealer’s Salary. When you become a poker table hire, you get to watch all the action without having to take any of the risk.

To bluff is to try to convince your fellow players that you have the Nuts (or at least a fantastic and probably unbeatable hand) when really the cards you’re holding are garbage. The objective of bluffing is almost always the same – to get the other player to fold. (There is an exception, elucidated further below).

Bluffing successfully requires a great deal of calm, poise, cunning, and acting ability. It is an inextricable part of the game of poker, a necessary skill without which you’ll never earn or amount to much in the game. Without bluffing, poker really would be solely about the cards and you could
therefore play every hand open (with your hole cards showing).

Bluffing Online requires a craftier use of a much smaller set of tools than poker players in live, land-based settings have at their disposal for bluffing. For example, online your opponent cannot see you Carey Grant-esque poker face. Online your bluffs will come mostly in the form of your bets. Therefore, an online bluff cannot be a half-hearted bluff. An online bluff has to be large enough to look like it would hurt badly to lose. In fact, the gutsiest online bluff is going All-In. Just be sure you use it wisely – because (rebuy tourneys notwithstanding) you only get one chance to be wrong about that.

The Exception:
To Slow-Play is to try and trick your opponent into thinking you have a weak hand and are playing it poorly, making you ripe for the taking. Essentially you’re playing weak in order to get your opponent to throw more chips into the pot in the hopes of wrangling more of yours away from you before they supposedly move in for the kill. Little do they know, however, that you’re holding the Nuts – the prime time to Slow Play – and will be the one dining on a pound of their flesh this time around.

A form of slow playing is the Check Raise, when you Check the right to bet first in a round to entice your opponents to detect weakness in you and therefore bet just enough, they expect, to get you to fold out the pot. Often this is done in the first round of betting as a method to “steal the blinds”. However, when the bet comes back around to you, you don’t fold – as they had hoped for – and you don’t merely call their bet – but you raise it. Now your opponent is on to you. They know what you’re up to, and all they have to decide is if you’re Check-Raising them because you truly have a killer hand or if your Check-Raise is itself an elaborate bluff.

Bluffing is a great strategy to use at online poker rooms as the physical aspect of bluffing is eliminated. Check back in the next few days to learn more about bluffing in part 2 of our Bluffing series. Use this Pokerstars Marketing Code or our favorite Carbon Poker Coupon Code to start bluffing your way to the top of the online poker world today!

To bluff is to try to convince your fellow players that you have the Nuts (or at least a fantastic and probably unbeatable hand) when really the cards you’re holding are garbage. The objective of bluffing is almost always the same – to get the other player to fold. (There is an exception, elucidated further below).

Bluffing successfully requires a great deal of calm, poise, cunning, and acting ability. It is an inextricable part of the game of poker, a necessary skill without which you’ll never earn or amount to much in the game. Without bluffing, poker really would be solely about the cards and you could therefore play every hand open (with your hole cards showing).

Bluffing Online requires a craftier use of a much smaller set of tools than poker players in live, land-based settings have at their disposal for bluffing. For example, online your opponent cannot see you Carey Grant-esque poker face. Online your bluffs will come mostly in the form of your bets. Therefore, an online bluff cannot be a half-hearted bluff. An online bluff has to be large enough to look like it would hurt badly to lose. In fact, the gutsiest online bluff is going All-In. Just be sure you use it wisely – because (rebuy tourneys notwithstanding) you only get one chance to be wrong about that.

The Exception:

To Slow-Play is to try and trick your opponent into thinking you have a weak hand and are playing it poorly, making you ripe for the taking. Essentially you’re playing weak in order to get your opponent to throw more chips into the pot in the hopes of wrangling more of yours away from you before they supposedly move in for the kill. Little do they know, however, that you’re holding the Nuts – the prime time to Slow Play – and will be the one dining on a pound of their flesh this time around.

A form of slow playing is the Check Raise, when you Check the right to bet first in a round to entice your opponents to detect weakness in you and therefore bet just enough, they expect, to get you to fold out the pot. Often this is done in the first round of betting as a method to “steal the blinds”. However, when the bet comes back around to you, you don’t fold – as they had hoped for – and you don’t merely call their bet – but you raise it. Now your opponent is on to you. They know what you’re up to, and all they have to decide is if you’re Check-Raising them because you truly have a killer hand or if your Check-Raise is itself an elaborate bluff.

The Limit to Bluffing: Bluffing works best in No Limit scenarios, because you can go all the way with it – go All-In- bet the farm and (hopefully) scare the bejeezus out of your opponents. In Limit games, however, the highest you can bet or raise is the limit. When the ceiling is a finite number, your fellow players are a lot more likely to call it just to see how the hand plays out. Therefore, bluffing is not as powerful a tool in limit games.

Get Caught: A particularly stellar bluffing strategy is to let yourself get caught doing it, even at the expense of losing a pot to do so. The reason? Because once you’ve established yourself in your opponents’ eyes as someone who bluffs, people will call your outrageous bets more often, giving you a greater chance of pulling down enormous pots when you do get dealt the Nuts.

Representing the Flop: This is a particular type of bluff, distinct from the “Stone Cold Bluff” occupying the bulk of this article. “Representing the Flop” is pretending that whatever cards you needed to have the Nuts just came up on the flop. Many players are keen to this trick, though, so watch out when you use it. You might find someone else trying the same racket at the same time as you, in which case you may want to back off. In some instances, that other player may actually have gotten the Nuts on the flop, and here you’re just faking it. It’s a trcik to be aware of, but not to abuse. Get a read on the other players at the table and note your position in order to decide if now is the right time to represent the flop, because sometimes it’s the perfect time.

Beating a Bluff: Lastly in this intro to bluffing is one final word of advice on how to act when you believe your opponent is trying to bluff you. Look at your cards. Can you win the hand? If so, play on. If not, let him have it. Don’t call someone just because you think they’re bluffing. Only stay in a hand you think you can win.

The statistics displayed in the lobby of online poker rooms helps you to determine the best table to sit down at. This may not sound like much, but it’s actual your first line of defense in your ongoing objective of making your bankroll grow. Therefore as a fundamental part of your poker strategy should be a careful and intelligent determination as to which table to join. Without a doubt, your odds of winning will improve by sitting down at the right table.

First take a look at your bankroll and comnpare it with those of the players at the table you’re considering joining. You don’t want to sit down at a table with the smallest bankroll. You’d rather have close to the largest, an amount that allows you to take the power position when you have it and attack weakness when you sense it.

Next take a look at how many players are sitting in at the table as compared with the number of seats at the table. The more Short-Handed the table (meaning the fewer players there are as compared to the total seats) the greater your overall odds are of winning any given hand. The pots may be smaller, sure, but you’ll likely win more of them.

Beyond that, there are 3 statistics most commonly posted for each table in an online poker lobby:

• Flop Percentages/Players-per-Flop: This details how often players stay in to see the flop. Experienced poker players will often fold frequently before the flop, only staying in to see it if they have a great starting hand or are planning a big bluff. Therefore, a table with high flop percentages implies loose players who are prone to place, call, and raise outrageous bets. You can take advantage of these players by playing the cards (even so far as giving greater weight to lesser hands – like 2 pair and 3 of a kinds) and not letting yourself be bluffed out of following through with a half decent hand. Low flop percentages, by contrast, imply tight players who are loathe to call any bets but those they think they can win. Take advantage of these players by stealing lots of blinds, bluffing often, and whittling down their chips stacks one fold at a time.

• Hands-per-Hour: Lots of hands per hour can be read two ways – either it implies tight players who are folding out of most hands before the showdown or it implies fast-moving, quick-acting players who play more by instinct than analysis. Observe a few rounds of the action to decide which is the case before sitting down, and you’ll know how best to play to win.

• Average Pot: Large average pots equate to heavy betting, lots of raising, lots of calling. These pots are vastly more rewarding, but also harder to win. Lots of bluffing tends to go on at tables with high average pots. In these cases, choose which hands to play very carefully. Plan to leave most hands before they get too costly and plan to earn your fortune winning fewer larger pots. To compete against tighter, more conservative players, less prone to bluff and therefore more vulnerable to it, sit down at a table with a low average pot and then just plan to win lots of pots.

All the poker strategy in the world isn’t worth a dime if it’s inadequately used. To win at poker you need to start out doing everything you can to put the odds in your favor, and that includes knowing something about the types of people you’re playing against and how best to beat them.

Discuss these poke strategies and others at this great online poker forum.

Sorry for the delay, but here is the final install of the tournament strategy posts I started a week or so ago. If you missed the first two posts you can find them here:

Beginning Tournament Strategy
Middle Tournament Strategy

Enjoy!

At the End of a tournament, when it’s down to just you and one other player, nothing helps more than having the bigger chip stack. The more you can force your opponent to put everything they have at stake in order to have a chance of winning the hand, the more reticent they will be to do it. Unless that player has the better cards – a big unless – it’s a lose-lose proposition: if they fold, their short stack is getting significantly shorter, if they stay in, it’s game over – you win!

But in heads-up poker the power dynamic can shift in a single hand, giving a player forced to go All-In just to stay in a shot at doubling their pot with every win. Therefore, the advice for the player at the end of a tournament with the short stack is to go All-In before you’re forced. Because if you don’t increase that stack shortly, you’re set to lose anyway.

Now two of my favorite poker rooms to employ this tournament strategy are Unibet and Everest Poker. Both of these rooms have great tournaments running daily as well as some good guaranteed cash tournaments where you can sometimes sneak into the tournament with a small field and big cash prizes.

Let’s Gamble!

Well, last night was a night of ups and downs, well mostly downs at FT that was topped off by a horrendous beat down at a .50/$1 no limit hold’em table. The hand went down like this:

- I start the hand with around $50 and am delt KK in the big blind. I raise to $7 and am reraised all in. I call and am happy to see I have the player dominated as they only have QQ.

The joy doesn’t last long though as the flop comes down 10 9 K. Of course the turn is a jack and I am just drawing to a King to make quads. Well we all know how common quads are and I come up short.

On another more common front I was also playing at a $2/4 table last night and started with $40. I immediately ran this up to $120, which is of course the kiss of death, and kept playing. Five times I had my stack down to under $15 and each time I came back to keep playing.

I had several suck outs on other players, but there were many hands were players sucked out on me. After all was said and done, I ended up dead even on this table.

The rest of the night had me taking 15th place in a $1 super satellite to the FTOPS main event. and getting sucked out of two $11 sit and goes that cost me a chance at the money both times. Just brutal beats as well.

Better luck next time!

Let’s Gamble.

I used to think that Full Tilt Poker players were a notch above the average poker player, however, tonight proved I was wrong… dead wrong.

How many times must I be called down playing $3/6 limit hold’em only to find some joker chasing a hand from preflop? It is so frustrating to find players willing and trying to give their money away only to be the one they suck out time and time again.

I am going to be done with Full Tilt if this continues. I will however give them one more chance this weekend at their sit and go tournaments and multi table iron man challenge.

However, if you want to check out how to maximize your poker bonus, read about this Full Tilt referral code.

Let’s gamble.

Well, i finally had a night that I would like to quickly forget at the poker tables at Absolute Poker. The $5/10 limit holdem table was unkind to me at last and drained my bankroll at AP down to a big fat zero!

Well, the poker table sucked me down to $45 and the blackjack table finished me off.

The night started out strong though. During the first 20 minutes of the session I had KK, QQ and 10’s as my hole cards and was able to take down some good size pots with those hands. However, they weren’t as large as the needed to be to keep me from going under. One risky play on a marginal hand and a suck out beat on the turn later and I was toast.

The $5/10 limit table, although limit, still takes a toll on you quick if you let yourself lapse. Who knows maybe next time I will have to find some Badugi Poker Sites and take up a new game.

I tried some $5/10 limit hold’em at Ful Tilt Poker the other night and found that there were some of the best games on the web there! I have been missing out not playing these higher limit games. One, you can play very conservatively and wait for your big hand, less bluffing. Two, there are less donks playing at these higher limit games so you experience far less suck outs.

Now, with this being said the key here is that you must remain patient and not try to bluff to much at these upper limit games. Players at these limits will make you pay as usually everyone here has a big enough bank roll to eventually call you down. Plus, they are generally better players as stated above.

If you haven’t yet played at Full Tilt Poker you should check out Full Tilt Poker Bonus Code to make sure you get the best possible deposit bonus when you sign up.

So I started the night at one $3/6 table on Stars and one on AP. Both tables were doing well for me right from the start and I immediately ran up my $120 at each table to around $160. However, this was not going to last long at AP as I had a run in with one of the worst players I have ever seen online.

I should have seen this coming as this player called several other players down to the river only to suck them out on many occasions. So I am holding QQ in my hand and this guy reraises me preflop and I call. Flop comes a bunch of rags with 2 diamonds. Turn comes a blank and we bet to the max. River comes a 3rd diamond which causes me to slow down. He bets and I call. He turns over pocket 3’s with one of them being a diamond which makes his flush over my Queens.

This sent me on an immediate tirad of course. I stewed on this as it cost me over $100 and put my money at the table down to $30. This, however, gave me a challenge and I started grinding out the table.

Soon I had brought my bankroll back up to $70 and was able to once again take on my normal aggressive table persona.

Mean while at Stars, my bankroll during this grind session was steady between $120 and $160. However, it too took a couple beats, not bad, but beatings all the same. One hand featured my playing an Ace / crap hand, flopping 3 aces and then getting beat by a better 3 aces.

While another hand saw my top pair go down to a river suckout.

Overall, I ended up about even for teh session after some serious grinding was able to bring me back to even on both rooms. Good lesson learned here is that if I would have just played solid poker and maybe had a little luck to avoid that one bad player I can remain in the positive at the tables.