| Bluffing in Tournaments
 Lessons From My Last Tournament, Part II:
Bluffing in Tournaments
Joel and I were invited on March 26th to an online poker room's $1,000,000 Poker Tournament. It brought in over 1,600 participants competing for a total prize pool of $1 million. First prize was $210,000, and all the way down to 250th place was paid money. I finished 348th place. So, why listen to an also-ran who didn't quite finish in the money? Because I still have some great lessons to pass on. Enjoy part two of this series on my last major poker tournament experiences, both good and bad. And when you're done, say your piece on this article in the HomePoker.com Discussion Forum.
Check out Part I: Go To More Flops
The Blinds
The last article started off by talking about the importance of the blinds. If the blinds are low relative to your chip stack and there isn't much pre-flop action, you can take more chances.
Where bluffing is concerned, most sensible poker players will be harder to bluff out of a large pot. Most sensible players use the size of the pot to determine when to swallow their pride and let you have it. I was in a home game recently where a player celebrated that he bluffed me out of the pot. We were heads-up, no pre-flop action, and his bet on the flop doubled the size of this tiny pot. I hummed and hawed and let him have it. He was ecstatic that he pulled it off. Did I care? Absolutely not. Just like your opponents are letting you steal small pots, so too must you sometimes release mediocre hands to your opponents.
If the pot is big, you can only bluff a sensible player out of it with a big bet. A big bet means risking more of your stack. And in a tournament, your stack is your only survival. Bottom line: be freakin' careful when you bluff for a large pot because you're either throwing your money away by not betting enough...or you're betting too much. Survival is everything in a poker tournament, and failed bluffs cost money.
Two Bluffs
We'll go over two kinds of bluffs that you'll use in these tournaments. The first is the one that you use the most often. It's in late position, it's what poker theorists call a 'semi-bluff', and it steals many small pots.
The second kind of bluff is the one that you use the least frequently. In fact, you might only use it a few times in a tournament. It's the one that wins a decent pot, but requires that you bluff a substantial amount of money. Substantial enough to affect your place in the tournament depending on the outcome.
Late Position Semi-Bluff
Most of your bluffing will be out of late position, so on the dealer button or not far to the right of it. Remember that if your bluff doesn't fold everybody or set up a bigger bluff later, then you've just wasted some money. Everybody else has to fold from the hand for your bluff to work. For that reason, you do it out of late position so you've had a chance to see what other players have decided to do.
If you bet as a bluff, but your hand stands to improve given the right cards on the board, then it's a semi-bluff. When you semi-bluff, you hope to fold your opponent right away. If you don't, at least your hand has a chance to improve and become the best hand.
Your bluffs don't always have to be semi-bluffs. Sometimes, your hand can't possibly improve but you know full well that your opponent doesn't have anything. An aggressive enough bet will fold him. Semi-bluffs just happen to be the ones that you will use more commonly.
This is especially true of short-handed poker when there are less players left. The less players, the less great the winning hand needs to be. Sometimes, the fact that you can semi-bluff at all means you probably have the best hand between two players.
The Big-Kahuna Big-Money Bluff
Use this one sparingly. I wrote in a recent article about how I was knocked out of a previous tournament from trying to intimidate by betting big. When you bet big, you risk your place in the tournament by wagering a big piece of your stake. When you bet big as a bluff, you risk running into an opponent that has a hand. Against a sensible opponent, you need to bet big to win a big pot.
How to manage? If you intend to bluff to win a big pot, remember that a small bet will not fold a sensible player unless he has absolutely nothing for a hand. Against a player that isn't so sensible, it's different. You may find that a relatively small bet does the trick in folding some opponents. When that's the case, it's fantastic. Otherwise, you need to bet big. You want to be sure your opponent isn't baiting you by slowplaying a great hand. If so, you've lost that big bet. If not, you watch and hope that your opponent folds.
From the Pacific Poker tournament, I made such a bluff. I had a Jack-two offsuit and went to the flop with three other callers. A Jack fell on the flop, the first man bet, two callers, I raise, everybody calls. Nothing concerning on the turn. The first man checks, I bet, he and one other caller. Nothing concerning on the river, and the first man checks.
I make an assumption that the first player has a Jack like me, and that the second player has missed a draw. I have a Jack-two, so his kicker is either as low as mine or else I'm clearly beat. So into this $1,400 pot, I bet $1,000, approx. a quarter of my stack at the time. Stone cold bluff. It worked. The player with the Jack and likely better kicker folded. So did the player with the busted draw. I took out a better hand than my own with a very risky bet. For all I knew, the busted draw was still a better hand than mine, but it's easier to fold a busted draw since a player usually loses hope in the hand when they see it hasn't improved by the end.
Tale of Two Bluffs
You only need to remember two kinds of bluffs: the frequent late-position semi-bluffs that steal small pots, and the big, bad bluffs that you use sparingly and only for a substantial chunk of money. Say your piece on this article in the HomePoker.com Discussion Forum.
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