The long bluff

Published on Monday, May 25, 2009 9:56:00 PM

You have a simple goal with your bluffs, to get your opponent to fold. But have you ever thought about WHEN you want them to fold? Many of your readers will probably say "directly of course", but that isn't always the best thing.

Here are the factors you need to know to be able to hands this. First of all you need to be relatively sure that you opponent has a medium strong hand, a hand which the opponent can put money in with, but folds when you put pressure on him. Secondly your opponent has to see you as an aggressive player, but not crazily aggressive. Finally the effective stacks needs to be at least 60 big blinds.

In this hand I played a few days ago, all these factors were alive in symbiosis :-)

The games was $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em 10 handed game, the player I had set my aim at was a tight and pretty common player, who made a few bucks but no one to be afraid of. From here on I will call this player HERO.

The player under the gun (UTG) limped $4, UTG +1 folded, and my HERO had a stack of $400 and limped $4 as well. I could immediately determine that the HERO had a hand which wanted to see a cheap flop, since I know he never limps with good hands. For this reason I put him on a range including several cards in sequence, hands of the type Ax (x is 9 down to 2) in the same color and any pair from 88 below. The probability that he only would call with 99 or 88 is pretty small if not impossible.

I had Ks Qc on the button. I had more money than my opponents but the effective stacks were 100 big blinds. I could just have called hoping to hit a pair, and thereby getting 7:2 in odds, but instead I decided to raise to $24 and go heads up against the HERO. The player that limped UTG, folded and so did the small and big blind but my HERO called the bet. At this point I thought he mostly would have folded Ax suited and all cards in sequence with color and therefore I had an even better read on him. He must hold a small or medium size pair.

Flop came Jh 3s 2c and didn't give me the best hand, but now I knew he would call a small or medium size bet with all pairs between 44 to 77 and even with a hands like J 10 suited. None of these hands would be able to call all the way through the flop, turn and river, unless he would have improved to hold a monster hand. I made a continue bet of $32 into the pot of $58, a bet I knew he would call. As expected he called and turn came 8d. This card didn't mean anything to my hand and I didn't think the risk of the HERO holding 88 would be big. Once again I thought that relatively many hands could call another bet to get a free showdown. Therefore I only bet $72 in a pot of $122. He called again and river came neutral, card 9c. It was time for my final move, now when he was incapable of calling another big bet with a hand like 66. The pot was $266 and I made a bet of $160 and as I thought, he folded his cards.

Already from the beginning my intention was to force my opponent to fold on the river. I had a bit of luck that the cards on the board came as favorable as they did. I wouldn't recommend this kind of play without a very good read. But when the read is perfect, some creativity and courage will pay off!