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PKR Induce the bluffs and reap the rewards
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Induce the bluffs and reap the
rewards
Getting your opponent to put money in when they have nothing is a dark art,
but one that is well worth learning
By Nick Wealthall on Friday 22 Jan 2010 10:00
1Recommend
Value-betting when you re sure you re ahead isn t always the best line
of play sometimes feigning a little weakness and catching someone
at it will get you more chips
When you have a winning poker hand the idea is to make as much money
from it as possible. This may sound basic, but it s one of the skills that
separates big winners from breakeven players. Most of the time you ll achieve
the best results by value-betting your winning hand. However, in order to
extract the maximum from your hands and beat thinking players you ll need to
have more strings to your bow than that, and being able to induce bluffs is an
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PKR Induce the bluffs and reap the rewards
essential one of those strings. The idea is that rather than making a value bet
you take an action that encourages your opponent to bluff at the pot in a spot
where, had you bet, he would have folded.
Inducing bets can be achieved in several ways. The most common and
obvious is to feign weakness by checking when you re sure you have the
winning hand and you reason that a large part of your opponent s range has no
showdown value, so he ll be more likely to bluff. But against some more
aggressive or reckless players the same result can sometimes best be
achieved by making a weak-looking bet that may pick up a bluff-raise.
Pla it cute
A typical situation where you d look to induce a bluff is where you ve had the
lead in a hand and no draws complete on the river. So for instance you hold
As-Qc and raise preflop. You re called and the flop comes Qh-7s-6h. You bet
and are called by one player; the turn is a blank and you bet and again are
called, so you can put your opponent on a draw a large part of the time. The
river is another blank not completing any draws and you re fairly certain you
have the best hand (a better hand like two pair or a set would usually have
raised before this point to protect against being outdrawn). Here you may
make more money by checking and inducing him to bluff his missed draw
instead of betting, as he will fold all his missed draws and some of his weaker
made hands to a bet. Another option is to make a bet that will look weak to him
say around 3040% of the pot to try to induce him to make a bluff shove.
Obviously this should be done against aggressive observant players and
make sure you call when you get raised!
This principle can also work if you check on an earlier street to induce a bluff
or semi-bluff by your opponent. Let s say your villain knows you c-bet a lot and
you hold a big pair like K-K. You reraise out of position and he calls. The flop
comes T-7-4. You know you re miles ahead of his range here so if you think
he s overly aggressive and will see a check as weakness you can do so in
order to check-raise (all-in if stacks allow). This way you extract a bet when
otherwise he would have folded. Similarly if you flop a big hand on the flop
against an aggro villain you can just min-raise, or raise small, in order to try and
get him to rebluff you by putting in a three-bet.
Picking when to induce
It s important to recognise the type of opponents and hands where you can
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PKR Induce the bluffs and reap the rewards
get someone to take that bite at bluffing. The key thing to recognise is that the
more aggressive an opponent is the more likely they are to bet and so the
more often you should be inducing bluffs against them. You must have an
awareness of the board and how it influences your opponent s range, for
instance, how often he has made hands, marginal hands and draws.
It s absolutely vital to remember that if you have a winning hand and don t bet
when your opponent would have called it s a disaster for you. Allowing players
to freely check down a losing hand isn t great, so as good as it is to have the
ability to induce bluffs in your arsenal if you are in doubt you should usually
value-bet instead.
1Recommend
Sha e
Commen
I like the bluff element in poker? So i can grasp alot of poker isnt cards!!!!!!
Comment by Dickidee - 23/01/10 (Report)
I like the bluff element in poker? So i can grasp alot of poker isnt cards!!!!!!
Comment by Dickidee - 23/01/10 (Report)
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