Some players never bluff, these people are few and far between. Once you have figured out that someone never bluffs playing them is easy. If they bet, you fold, its that simple. You can safely throw your hand away unless you believe that your hand is a monster. If it is, you should raise.
Other people are bluffers stations or betting monkeys. When they bet, you have to call as long as you are holding any decent poker hand or good draws. Although bluffers will also make real hands every now and then, the fact that they bluff far too often makes your calling them not only correct but easy. By calling, you'll win far more money in the long run than you would save by folding.
Deception and Elusive
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The tough decisions are when someone bluffs some but not all of the time. Opponents who bluff on occasion are better poker players than those found at either end of the bluffing spectrum. You should strive to be one of the better players and of course keep your opponents guessing about weather or not you are bluffing. The same is true of your opponents and their skill level. When you're forced to guess or make a logical deduction, you will be wrong some of the time, and that is poker. |
If you can pick up a tell or possible tell and track that persons behavior over dozens of hands then that will help you in reducing your variance on calling a bluff. But the sad truth is that players who keep you guessing are going to give you much more trouble than predictable opponents, and as solid players they are not going to be giving off to many tells.
In most low-limit games, players bluff much too often. The reason for this is simple, players are priced in, when you play fixed-limit poker, and all it costs is one additional bet to see someone's hand. And the pots are usually large enough, relative to the size of a bet (priced in), to make calling the right decision.
The threat of bluffing
The threat of a bluff is just as important as a bluff itself. Good players can use this to their advantage cause they know that they are hard to read and their opponent is debating is this person bluffing or do they have the nuts. The stress involved in these decisions can often lead to your opponent folding and or losing a large sum of money to you. Bluffing is an art and its main paintbrush so to speak is timing. You need to know when your opponent is weak and will fold to your bluff, or for any other reasons you can predict a fold on their part.
The threat of a bluff combined with the bluff itself, is designed to help a player win some pots that they would otherwise lose and to win more money in pots where they actually have the best hand.Simply put, if you have the nuts and come out betting, other players won't always know you're bluffing or not. If a lot of money is in the pot, they will probably call so don't bluff you have to make it worth while for them to fold. Calling a small bet in a large pot is the less costly error. After all, if they were to throw the winning hand away and give up a big pot, that's a much more costly than calling one additional bet.
Bluffing and the threat of bluffing go together. A bluff can enable a player to win a pot they figured would lose if the hand went to show down. The possibility that you might be bluffing allows you to get callers and when a larger to than if your opponent thought you never bluffed.
