Don’t Bluff! — Bet on People Folding

There’s a difference, but at the same time I am talking about the same thing.

I’m into my Zen so I like these koan-style, bitesize chunks of perspective. What I’m talking about is a different way of looking at the same action — betting without the best hand.

Sometimes you make a bet and it feels like you’re trying to force people off a hand, and that’s usually when it doesn’t work. They call with one pair and like a prat, you roll over 8 high with a busted draw for everyone to see.

This isn’t good. But a “bluff” doesn’t have to be an adrenaline fueled “holy shit I hope he doesn’t call” moment. A proper bluff shouldn’t be any more or less comfortable to make than any other bet — like say, shoving with kings.

Yeah but I’m not shoving with kings, I’m betting with fuck all into a guy with a pair!

An astute observation.

Thanks.

You’re welcome. But! — that’s only a quarter of the first part of the story. The other 15/8ths of what’s actually important is what they perceive and what they’re going to do with their pair based on what happens next. If there’s an 80% chance that they’ll fold to a decent bet, then you are “shoving with kings”.

But how do I know?

The problem is how you actually determine that you’re an 80% favourite to take down a pot in the first place. Where does the information come from to tell you that 80% of the time, the right move is to bet? Obviously it doesn’t come from your hole cards so… where?!

This is the real realm of poker.

And of course, when I say “real” realm of poker, I’m talking about the table’s intangible outer stratosphere where mystical clouds of psychic hippy stardust float around, waiting to be channeled into your brain to tell you “this dude’s weak — make a bet.”

Some people call it your “unconscious mind” but I prefer my description.

It basically comes down to how much experience and general awesomeness you have and how good you are at putting the two together to construct a big picture of the overall hand. But that isn’t really the point.

My point is that if your poker skills are up to it, and you can reliably determine that you do, in fact, have an 80% chance of taking the pot without going to a showdown, then you can make this kind of bet as confidently as you would if you were betting with a made hand that’s 80% likely to be ahead.

You’re still pushing good odds, just in a different place.

The only difference when you shove on the flop into what might be but 80% of the time is hopefully Queens or Jacks, is that the odds you’re playing with there are more visible because they’re based directly on the cards — which are concrete, verifiable things.

What I mean is…

When it comes to the cards, they “are what they are” — you’re either right or wrong about them and one way or another, you’ll find out which.

But when you make a judgment like “most of the time, this guy’s folding to my river bet” and the idiot that you’re betting into calls, you can never know whether your judgment was accurate or not. You may have been right on the money but, just like getting outdrawn with Aces vs. Kings, it turned out to be that 20% of the time where you were just plain unlucky.

It’s always difficult to believe that you were right after shipping $100 across the felt to some one-pair-river-calling-bellend, but at the end of the day, you have to trust your own judgment — especially since you can’t use anyone else’s.

When it comes to your ability, you have to balance confidence with critical analysis and hope to come out somewhere in the middle — with 80% more right judgments than wrong ones.