Picking Off Bluffs

Don't miss one article! Subscribe to the Full Feed RSS or get NPA in your inbox.

Your no-limit hold’em opponents bluff. I know it may shock you, but it’s true. Are you just going to let them get away with it, or are you going to do something about it?

If you don’t have a good plan for dealing with your opponents’ bluffs, you may want to just let them get away with it. While nearly all players bluff sometimes, most of them don’t bluff often enough that you can call randomly to keep them honest. If you don’t pick your spots with some thought, you probably should just concede the occasional bluff.

But I’m not satisfied with that answer, so I’m going to help you to develop a plan. Your opponents aren’t going to get away with it! At least sometimes they won’t.

Here’s the first principle to picking off bluffs. Your opponents will, by and large, not bluff hands that have showdown value. They will bluff only with hands they think have no chance to win a showdown. In other words, your opponents might try to bluff with 9 7 on a K 8 6 2 A board, but they likely won’t try to bluff with 9 7 on a K 8 6 2 9 board. Most players would try to check the latter hand to showdown.

Suspect bluffs when your opponent could have a wide array of worthless hands, and avoid calling when he has few such possible hands. Here are a few example hands where we can use this technique to pick off possible bluffs (or to avoid a bad call).

 Print :: Trackback :: Respond ::