Fundamentals of Bluffing Part I

Bluffing is two parts science and one part art and it is important to know how and when to use it, otherwise you could see your profits sink faster than your credibility after being caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

The first thing to realise is that there are essentially two types of bluffs: pure bluffs and semi-bluffs.

Pure bluffs are bets made in which you have very little expectation to win the pot if you are called; essentially your hand is worthless and you are trying to buy the pot. For example, if you held 7-2 off suit on an A, 9, J flop and you thought your opponent had a pair of sixes and would fold to a large bet then you could justifiably try and push your opponent off their hand.

In this situation it’s important to realise that if you are called or raised you’re effectively done with the hand because at this point you have no pair or draw and it’s very unlikely your hand is going to improve.

In contrast, a semi-bluff is when you make a bet without the best hand but you have some equity in the pot in the form of a draw. In essence you are still bluffing but you have some insurance, or back-up if things go wrong and you get called.

Let’s assume you have 7-6 of spade and the flop is As, 4s, 8d. In this situation you have a gutshot straight draw and a flush draw which gives you 12 outs (9 flush cards and three 5s). If you assumed your opponent had a weak ace or a high pocket pair and they might fold to a bet, then it would be extremely profitable to semi-bluff at the pot.

The reason for this is two fold: firstly because the small % of the time they fold the best hand you gain money and secondly, even if they call your bet you have a strong chance of hitting one of your draws on the turn. Understanding the difference between pure bluffs and semi-bluffs is crucial and it will dictate how you proceed with the different hands you play.

Now we’ve established what a bluff actually is lets examine a little further what factors we need to consider in order to be a successful bluffer.

Whenever we make a bet/bluff we need to establish the risk versus the reward or more accurately the amount you’re bluffing versus the amount you stand potentially win. So if the pot currently stands at $100 and you decide you’re going to make a pure bluff of $100 then you’re risking $100 to win $100.

Now to work out whether this bluff will be profitable we need to understand how often it needs to be successful in order to win us money in the long term. To do this we can calculate a minimum success rate (MSR) for how often we need our opponents to fold to be profitable.

Below is the calculation for obtaining a MSR:

Quotient of bet ÷ (pot + bet)

Now for those of you like me who shudder at the mere thought of mathematical equations take your hands from over your eyes and breathe. This equation is actually pretty simple to understand. Let’s take our example above and see how it fits into the formula:

100 ÷ (100+100) = ½ or 50%

Or in plain English:

There is $100 in the pot and we want to bet $100 as a bluff. Thus, $100 + $100 = $200. When then take the $100 initial bet and put it over $200. This gives us the quotient, 1 over 2 or ½ = 50%

So our minimum success rate for a pot sized bluff needs to be 50%. Therefore, if we think our opponent will fold more than 50%, our bluff will be a profitable one.

If we don’t think our opponent will fold more than 50% of the time then we should reconsider bluffing. If we consider than same scenario but this time we only want to make a bluff bet of half the pot or $50 then we get a MSR of 33%.

In this situation, we need only need our opponent to fold around 33% of the time to earn money from our bluff. Taking some time to commit a few vital figures to memory, such as 50% and 33% MSR for full and half pot bluffs, will help you pick your bluff spots a lot more effectively.

Moreover, simply getting a general feel for the types of % you need will improve your bluffing success dramatically. In part II, we will explore the art of semi-bluffing.