Q&A #61: Semibluffing in a No Limit Tournament

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

Semibluffing plays a major role in any tournament strategy. One of the main differences between good tournament players and not-so-good ones is that the good ones attack “unattended” pots vigorously. They recognize situations where bluffs and semibluffs are more likely than usual to work, and they put their chips in.

But many players don’t appreciate the role that stack sizes play in any potential bluff or semibluff. Bluffing is predicated on instilling a fear of losing in your opponent, and if the stack sizes aren’t right, there’s nothing you can do to create the right amount of fear to get the job done.

Here’s today’s question from Sean,

This occured last night in a small live 14-player NL tourney I was invited to for the first-time last night. I have no strong reads on most of the players given the short time we’ve been playing, but as you will see below, I did pick up a tell throughout the course of this hand.

At the final table, 8 players remaining. I came in with 8 7 in the CO for 1200 seeing as how four players were already in the hand, so I recognized a big pot was brewing, and I was only a medium stack, just above average in chips. I knew I was going to make a move on almost any flop. Blinds were 300/600. Pot size going to the flop: 6300.

Flop came down 356, two hearts. The big stack, whom I’d tangled with before and read as an unimaginative player who overplayed one-pair hands, bet out for 2k after both the SB and BB checked (he was also the initial min-raiser pre-flop). The pot is getting large, and I have about 10k in front of me. I raise to 6k, leaving 4k behind for a turn bet. All fold around to the villain, who thinks and thinks for a couple of minutes, and calls.

Turn card is 8 . Villain is giving off a palpable sense of unease, frowning as he sees the new card. I know he doesn’t like the board now that the flush draw made it and more straights become possible; since I represented a strong hand on the flop and a scare card came giving me more outs to the best hand, I know what I’m about to do. Villain checks. My read is that villain probably has a hand in the 99-QQ range. As I’ve planned, I push my last 4k in the middle. He thinks for a long, long while and calls with K K (he’d cheekily min-raised with a monster pre-flop and gotten himself into a whole mess of trouble).

Unfortunately for me, the river blanks out, and I lose the pot. [By my calculations I was a 45% dog with one card to come, but obviously villain can't know that.]

Several players complimented me on how I played that hand even though I came out on the short end, and expressed some surprise that the other player couldn’t find a fold. They agreed that a major reason my semi-bluff didn’t work is because my target was a relatively unsophisticated player.

Would it be fair to generalize and say that this is another example for the proposition that the target of a well-planned bluff needs to be a strong player capable of laying down a good hand?

Thanks a lot for submitting your hand, Sean. But to be honest, I think you’re off base. And the reason has to do with the stack sizes.

 Print :: Trackback :: Respond ::