When Should You Fold In Texas Holdem

4/4/2022 admin

The friend said, 'You should fold 4/5ths of the time, but that's boring.' Nixon took that simple advice to heart and became a tight/aggressive poker player. Being willing to play in fewer poker hands was the key to his success. Texas Holdem Starting Hands.

The majority of Texas holdem strategy you find in books and
on popular web sites focuses on the offensive side of play. The
offensive and aggressive side of the game is important, but it’s
also important to learn when you need to fold.

If they are so powerful, should you ever fold aces preflop? You will be dealt a pair of aces in the hole while playing Texas Hold’em a mere 4.5 percent of the time, or approximately once in 221 hands. When your starting hand is eventually pocket aces, you are almost certainly thinking about how many chips you are going to win during this hand.
If you decide you don’t want to play for your entire stack you should fold to the pre flop raise. Ace King Suited. One of the biggest problems Texas holdem players have, especially in no limit play, is overvaluing ace king suited and ace king unsuited.

Every bet you can save is a bet you can use to win more money
in the future. Of course you don’t want to fold when you have a
good chance to win, or when you’re receiving the correct pot
odds to call, so it’s important to find the line in every hand
between folding and continuing with the hand.

Like every other area of your Texas holdem play, you need to
base all of your decisions about folding on the play that makes
the most money in the long run, or the play that loses the least
amount of money.

The two places where you make the most important folding
decisions are your starting hands and on the river. These two
areas are covered first, and then the flop, and finally the
turn, is covered. We finish the page with a section about
folding decisions in tournament play because it’s different than
cash game play.

Bad Starting Hands

Some Texas holdem starting hands should be folded all of the
time, some should never be folded, and many should be folded
some of the time. One thing that’s hard to find is exact advice
on which hands to play and which ones shouldn’t be played.

In this section we list a group of starting hands that should
be folded all of the time. Then we look at most of the hands
that should be folded sometimes and can be played sometimes. You
may or may not agree with all of our suggestions, and that’s
fine. If you play in a game where one of the hands we list as
unplayable can be played for a profit, feel free to play it.

But if you’re a beginning player and / or aren’t turning a
regular profit at the Texas holdem tables you can safely fold
all of the hands in the first section without worrying about it
costing you any money in the long run. These hands should even
be folded in the blinds. If you see the flop for free with one
of these hands and don’t flop a solid hand you need to check and
fold as soon as an opponent bets.

Always fold these hands:

Any hand with a two except a pair of twos and an ace two
suited.
Any hand with a three except a pair of threes and an ace
three suited.
Any hand with a four except a pair of fours and an ace
four suited.
Any hand with a five except a pair of fives and an ace
five suited.
Any hand with a six except a pair of sixes and an ace
six suited.
Any hand with a seven except a pair of sevens, an ace
seven suited, and a seven eight suited.
Any hand with an eight except a pair of eights, an ace
eight suited, a seven eight suited, an eight nine suited,
and an eight 10 suited.
Any hand with a nine except a pair of nines, an ace nine
suited, an eight nine suited, a nine 10 suited, a nine jack
suited, a nine queen suited, and a nine king suited.

As you can see there’s quite a large list of hands that you
can fold every time you see them. By folding these hands you’ll
make more money in the long run because they all lose money on
average by entering the pot with them.

Even many of the hands you can play should be folded most of
the time. Low pocket pairs can be dangerous in many situations
and aces with suited cards below face cards can be trap hands
that cost you a great deal of money as well. The suited
connectors with a seven, eight, or nine are bad in many
situations too.

In other words, just because you can play it sometimes
doesn’t mean you can play it for a profit often.

Most of the hands you should be playing are high pairs, high
suited cards, and high unsuited cards. These hands give you the
best chance to win by completing high pairs, flushes, and high
straights.

Position has a great deal to do with what hands should be
folded. In early position and in the blinds the only hands you
don’t fold are the absolute best ones. Pocket aces, kings,
queens, ace king suited, and possibly ace queen suited are the
only ones that can usually be played from early position.

You can add a few more pocket pairs and a few more suited
high card hands in middle position but you need to continue
folding most hands. As you move into late position you can play
the other hands that aren’t listed on the fold list above, but
only in some situations. The smaller pairs and lower suited
connectors need to be folded in raised pots most of the time and
are dangerous in most cases so you end up folding most of them
after the flop when you can play them.

The River

One of the most surprising revelations most players come to
understand on the way to profitable play is if you’ve made the
correct plays to get to the river, it’s rarely correct to fold
on the river. Of course if you completely miss your draw and
don’t have any chance to win you should fold when facing a bet,
but if you have even a small chance to win it’s rarely the
correct play to fold.

Here’s a simple example that helps illustrate why a call is
usually correct.

Example:

You’ve been calling with a flush and straight draw, have
missed both draws, but paired your top card on the river, giving
you the second highest possible pair. Your opponent is
aggressive and could have been betting a draw or semi bluffing
throughout the hand.

The pot has $200 in it and your opponent bets $20.

Before we continue analyzing the hand recognize how small
this bet is in comparison to the size of the pot. This either
screams weakness or a monster. If your opponent has a monster
she may be betting small hoping to get a little extra out of
you, but most of the time it’s a feeble stab at the pot trying
to get you to fold for as little as possible. This is clearly a
calling situation.

You have to call $20 for a chance to win $220. This is a
situation where you’re being offered 11 to 1 pot odds. You only
have to win the hand roughly 9% of the time to break even. Is
there any chance you don’t win the hand over 9% of the time?

You’ll find that most situations that come up on the river
that don’t involve all in bets offer odds that are favorable if
you can win 25% of the time or less. You’ll find that even many
all in situations offer favorable odds if you can win a third of
the time.

Once you start factoring in the chances of an opponent
bluffing and of your hand being best you rarely find a situation
on the river where it’s best to fold.

If you’ve never thought about it, it may come as a surprise,
but when you miss your draw the only way you can usually win on
the river is by betting and hoping your opponent folds. So don’t
be surprised when an opponent bets on the river, even if you
think they’re weak. It might be the only way they can hope to
win the hand so instead of giving up they bet.

Do you bet on the river when you miss your draw? The short answer is yes.

The long answer involves some of the same thinking that we
just covered about calling bets on the river.

If you miss your draw and find yourself in a situation where
the only way you can win is if your opponent folds you need to
determine how often they need to fold for a bet to be
profitable.

Example:

You miss your draw and have a jack high hand with a board
that has an ace, king, and queen. The pot has $200 in it and if
you see the show down you have no chance of winning. How many
times, or what percentage of the time, does your opponent need
to fold if you bet $20 for the play to be profitable? What about
if you bet $40 or $50 or $100?

This is fairly easy to determine with a few mathematical
calculations. Practice figuring this out at home and you’ll find
that you can quickly make an accurate estimate at the table.

In the first example, you risk $20 to get back $220. If you
do this 100 times your total cost is $2,000. Divide your total
cost by the $220 you get back when you win and you find that if
your opponent folds 9% of the time you break even. So out of 100
times you make the bet they only have to fold 9 times. This is
such a small number that you have to bet in this situation
unless you’re 100% sure your opponent will call every time.

Here are the calculations for $40, $50, and $100.

When you bet $40 you only have to win 16.67% of the time
to break even.
If you bet $50 you need to win 20% of the time to break
even.
Betting $100 makes the break-even point 33.33%

As you can see betting in this situation is almost always
profitable. A $100 bet into a $200 pot on a missed draw may seem
dangerous, but look at it from your opponent’s point of view.
They have to make a large commitment and if they aren’t
convinced their hand is best you stand a good chance of
pressuring them into folding. It can easily look like you just
hit a set instead of missed your draw when you make a strong bet
like this.

And as you can see from the numbers above, you only need to
make them fold a third of the time.

Our Advice: Unless you’re clearly beat, you should rarely
fold on the river. You should always try to determine if a call
is a positive expectation play, but if you have a doubt you
should usually call. And even when you’re beat a bet may be the
best play instead of a check and fold.

The Flop

After you see the flop you’ve seen five out of the seven
total cards that will make your hand and you should be able to
make a good decision about where you stand at this point in the
hand. While almost anything can happen before the flop, the
lists of possible outcomes for the hand are greatly reduced
after the flop.

At this time you need to decide if you’re going to fight
until the end or exit the hand. You see player after player
chasing a hand, seeing one more card on the turn before folding.
This habit ends up costing players enough to wipe out any
possible profit.

Players call a bet on the flop so they can try for that
inside straight or try for a higher pair, even when they’re
clearly behind in the hand.

You have to base all of your decisions on the long term
profitability of your hand.

Don’t ever take a card chasing a hand that doesn’t offer the
correct pot odds. Folding a losing long term hand here saves a
bet. Any bet saved is extra ammunition you can use at another
time to win more.

Texas holdem is never just about the current hand or
situation. Everything you do is a combination of the game that
has lead up to the current situation, the present hand, and
everything in the future that’s tied to the current hand.

Just because most strategy advice focuses on aggressive play
and the offensive part of holdem doesn’t mean folding can’t be
profitable. Here’s a list of flop situations where folding is
the most profitable long term play.

Scenario 1

You see the flop with ace king and the flop is jack, ten, and
three. A tight player fires a bet of $20, making the pot $120.
Unless the board pairs you’ll win the pot with a straight and
you may or may not win if you pair your ace or king.

The problem with pairing your ace or king is it makes a
possible straight for your opponent. So in this situation you
can usually count half of the cards that pair one of your cards
as outs. So you’re looking at four outs for the straight and
three more for pairing one of your cards for a total of seven
outs. The problem is if you pair your ace and an opponent hits a
straight how much will you lose before you get away from the
hand?

While the pot odds make a call close, the negative implied
odds make it a situation where you need to fold and wait for a
better situation where you can invest your money.

Scenario 2

You make a pre flop raise with a pair of jacks from late
position and get called by an early position limper and a middle
position limper. The flop has an ace and a king, the first
player bets and the second raises. It’s always good to be
optimistic, but it’s difficult to imagine two hands your
opponents can possibly hold that doesn’t have at least one of
them dominating your jacks.

The truth is you’re probably behind both hands at this point
and instead of throwing good money away you need to fold. You
were the aggressive player before the flop and not only has one
player improved their hand enough to make a bet into you, the
other raises. These are both clear indications of the strength
of the other hands compared to yours.

A single bet may not be enough to make you fold, though in
this case it might, but the bet and raise are just too much to
call.

Scenario 3

In a no limit Texas holdem game you call an early raise with
a pair of eights. The flop is three, four, seven, and the pre
flop bettor makes a continuation bet on the flop. Even though
you have an over pair, when you play for a set against a raise
you have to be able to fold when you don’t hit your hand.

While it’s possible you could have the best hand, the odds
are against it. And if you’re dominated by an over pair, which
is likely, you’ll end up losing a big pot. The best play is a
fold.

The Turn

The turn is listed last because if you’re playing the best
Texas holdem as possible and folding on the flop when you should
the turn generally plays itself.

If you’re ahead on the flop you’re generally still ahead on
the turn and need to continue building the value of the pot.
When you’re behind on the flop but getting the correct pot odds
to call if you haven’t improved your hand on the turn you
usually still have the correct odds to see the river.

Rarely will you find a situation where a call was correct on
the flop and a fold is correct on the turn unless your hand
value drastically changes.

Have you ever read the statement that if you do a good job
selecting your starting hands and make the best decisions on the
flop that the rest of the hand plays itself? This is a fairly
accurate statement.

If you find yourself in a situation where you should have
folded on the flop but wanted to see the turn, don’t compound
the mistake by chasing a bad draw to the river. Of course you
should try to avoid this situation, but never make it worse just
because of your prior mistake.

Here’s a couple of situations where seeing the turn was
correct but a fold becomes correct at this time.

Scenario 1

You have second pair and a flush draw and make a semi bluff
on the flop, but get called by two opponents. Your hand doesn’t
improve on the turn and you face an all in that creates a
negative expected value when you determine the pot odds. A semi
bluff is usually a profitable play, but learn to recognize when
one doesn’t work out and cut your losses.

Scenario 2

You have top pair with top kicker against two opponents and
the board pairs and puts the third suited card out on the turn.
Both opponents seem to come alive and start a betting war. Even
though you may have had the best hand entering the turn it’s not
likely that you still have the best hand. And if you’re behind
to either opponent at this time you’re probably drawing dead.

Tournaments

Everything we’ve talked about so far deals with cash or ring
game play. Tournament play requires a different thought process
when it comes to folding. You often have to fold in a positive
expectation situation to conserve your chips for situations
where you’re the favorite to win.

If that sounds like it is a rare situation, bear with us for
a minute. We’ll show you how you’re often in a positive
expectation situation where you aren’t the favorite to win. When
you see what we mean you’ll realize you already knew this.

In a cash game a positive expectation situation is almost
always one where you want to invest as much money as possible.
In the long run you make money from these situations, even if
you lose sometimes. The wins over time more than make up for the
losses and show a profit. But this doesn’t mean you’re the
favorite to win any single hand.

Example:

You have an open end straight draw and two over cards on the
turn, the pot has $300 in it, and you have to call a $50 all in
bet. You have 14 outs which mean you have over a 30% chance to
win the hand. This is clearly a situation where you aren’t the
favorite to win the hand, but you still have a positive expected
value. You only have to win 15% of the time to show a long term
profit.

Let’s compare this to a different situation.

You have two pair on the turn against a player with a flush
draw. They have a 19.57% chance to win the hand, making you a
favorite of over 80%.

In both situations you’re going to make money in the long
run, but in the second situation you’re going to win the hand a
much higher percentage of the time.

In a tournament you have a limited number of chips so you
have to protect them while trying to make them grow. The only
way to win more chips is to risk the ones you have, but you need
to risk them in situations where you have the best chance to
increase them.

It’s fairly easy to see that even in a tournament the long
term profitability of both examples described above is positive,
but in the first example you’re only going to win a hair over
30% of the time.

So if you’re in a tournament situation where you can play for
all of your chips in a positive expectation hand but only have a
25% chance of remaining in the tournament what are you going to
do?

Online Texas Holdem

Three out of every four times you play the situation you get
knocked out of the tournament but the one time out of four it
sets you up nicely for a run that should help you finish in the
money. Only you can decide which way you want to play, but an
argument can easily be made for both sides.

On the other hand if you have an 80% chance to win a hand in
a tournament you have to make the play. You rarely find a
situation where you have a larger edge and you can’t fold.

The only way you’d ever consider folding in the second
situation is if you’re on the bubble and are in danger of
missing the money if you lose. And even in this situation you’ll
almost always need to call because of the large edge. With an
80% chance to win you’ll win the hand four out of every five
times you play.

Unless something tragic is going to happen, like being
evicted, unless you finish in the money the best play is to
call.

Conclusion

Most Texas holdem players look for reasons to call instead of
reasons to fold. Most Texas holdem players lose money in the
long run.

Do you think these two things could be related?

We’re not saying these two things are directly related, but
they do appear to have some connection. Good players look for
both reasons to call or raise and reasons to fold. Then they
weigh the benefits and long term profitability of each action
and make the correct decision more often than not.

If the only thing you do is look for reasons to call you need
to start looking for reasons to fold as well. Only by looking at
the current situation as realistically as possible and not
through rose colored glasses will you be able to play the most
profitable poker.

Ahh, bluffing in no-limit Texas hold’em…the most incorrectly used and down-right abused facet of most players’ poker game. We’re sorry if we’ve offended you 15 words into this guide, but we’re here to speak the truth. We aren’t here to make you feel like roses and rainbows; we’re here to help you build a stronger poker game.

Bluffing tends to be a lot more challenging than some people give it credit for. Knowing how to do it, when to do it, who to do it against, and why you’re doing it are all things you have to figure out and get to work together in perfect harmony if you want to pull off a successful bluff. Sure, you can get lucky with a random and mindless bluff from time to time, but for the most part, it’s basically like lighting money on fire.

In this guide, we’re going to walk you through everything you’ve ever wanted to know about bluffing and then a whole lot more. If you listen to our tips, you’ll no longer be wildly bluffing with no rhyme or reason. You’ll be bluffing with expert calculation and running over the game-winning pots that you should never have.

Bluffs NEED to Tell a Story

While the strategy tips on this page aren’t necessarily in order of importance, this is easily the most important. We want to start with a story to help illustrate our point. This is a true story of a conversation that occurred between one of our staff writers and one of their students.

Student: I can’t believe this guy called me! He raised pre-flop, and I decided I was going to run a bluff on him because he had been opening way too many pots. I 3-bet him to 5x to try and get him to fold, and of course, he calls. The flop came out, and it was A – A – 5. He checked, and I bet 100% of the pot. The guy still called! The turn was a 9, and I went all in. THE GUY CALLED ME DOWN WITH 1010!!! How did he call me there? I clearly had a big ace.

Instructor: Well, what hand were you representing?

Student: I was representing that I had AK.

Instructor: Would you have 5x raised him pre-flop if you actually had AK?

Student: Well, no. I would have bet less to try and keep him in.

Instructor: Would you have bet 100% of the pot on the flop if you flopped three aces?

Student: Well, no. I would have bet less to try and keep him in the pot.

Instructor: Sooooo, you played a hand 100% differently than you would have with AK, but you wanted the other player to magically believe you had AK?

Student: …silence…

This story is beautiful because it illustrates one of the biggest flaws people have when it comes to bluffing. They think that the secret to a successful bluff is pushing more chips in the middle. They think that the bigger the call is, the harder it is going to be for their opponent to make. This may be true against a complete amateur but fails miserably when you try it against a thinking player.

These oversized bets are actually going to make things easier on the other player to call you down. The problem that is illustrated is that the bluff did not tell an accurate story. Imagine if the student has only 3-bet to 3x pre-flop as they normally would with AK. Then, if they bet half the pot on the flop as they would with three aces, their opponent might still call. But, when they shoved all in or bet again on the turn, their opponent would be in a nasty spot. They could still make a hero call with the 10s, but most likely they’re going to fold.

Why are they going to fold? Because you told a perfect story. You told them you had AK and then did everything exactly the same as you would if you had AK.

Your bluffs HAVE to make sense. It might seem counterintuitive to bet less in some spots, but it actually works out better against thinking players. Now, you don’t want to go crazy and bet tiny amounts. If you bet 1/8^th pot on the flop, and 1/8^th on the turn and river in our example hand, you’re probably going to be getting called. You still need to put some pressure on your opponent, but the bet size should be within the range of what you would actually bet if you had the hand you were representing.

Wikihow Texas Holdem

What’s the best way to do this? If you’re planning on representing a specific hand, imagine that you have that hand. Make all of your decisions pretending that you have that hand. If our student had pretended in their mind that they had AK, they would not have recklessly slammed chips in the middle with no rhyme or reason.

We wish we could come to where you are right now (in a non-creepy way, of course) and tell you just how important this is to a successful bluff. You can get away with wild bluffs from time to time, but that’s only because you’re lucky. You either are doing it against an opponent who doesn’t think, your opponent happened to have absolutely nothing, or you accidentally told a story you didn’t realize you were telling. Successful bluffs tell the right story at the right time.

Choosing the Right Time

So, we’re all on the same page now that our bluffs need to tell a story. But, that’s just the first piece of the bluffing puzzle. The next step will be choosing the right time to pull the trigger on a bluff. Are there times that are more profitable to bet? Are there times that you should look to avoid bluffing completely? Yup!

While there are a lot of factors including your image and your opponent that we will go into momentarily, we want to talk specifically about game conditions and which are better or worse for bluffing. The rule of thumb is that the more your opponent has at risk, the better the bluffing opportunity will be.

For example, let’s say it’s the first hand of the tournament and you all have hundreds of times the big blind. You have massive stacks. Is this a great time to bluff? Probably not because people have chips to throw around. An opponent can call you down incorrectly and only lose a small portion of their stack. What about late in the tournament when it’s right on the money bubble? Is this a great time to bluff? You bet it is. A lot of players will be tightening down and trying to squeak into the money. They’ll be so concerned about busting out and getting no money that you can rob them blind.

The buy-in of the tournament in relation to your opponent’s net worth also play a big role in choosing the right time to bluff. If you’re playing against a millionaire in a $10 tournament on the bubble, that’s probably not the greatest time to try and run a bluff. If you’re playing in a $10k against someone who won a satellite into the event, that may be a great time to bluff on the bubble.

While this may seem like common sense, you’d be shocked at how many people will just bluff because they “haven’t played a hand in a while” or “they haven’t bluffed in a while.” Please don’t be that guy or gal. Bluff in spots when the timing is for the bluff to work.

Choosing the Right Opponent

We touched briefly on this in the section above, but we wanted to dig deeper into this. While picking the right time to bluff is important, picking the right opponent to bluff against is even more important. If you don’t choose wisely, it doesn’t matter how great of a story you tell; you’re going to get picked off.

So, what makes an opponent a good candidate to bluff? They have to be bad, right? Not the case, actually. When you run a bluff, its success is contingent on your opponent believing the story you are telling. If your opponent is not a good hand reader or is too much of a novice to pay close attention to what you’re representing, then they’re never going to believe your story (because they won’t understand it).

A lot of novice poker players only pay attention to what they have. If they have a hand, they call. If they don’t have a hand, they fold. Trying to run over an opponent like this when they have a hand is suicide. They have to be good enough to make a fold. If they aren’t good enough to make a fold, then they will never fold. Yes, it sounds like we’re beating a dead horse, but people constantly try and bluff people who aren’t smart enough to fold a hand.

So if a bad player is not the right person to bluff, then it must be a really good player, right? Well, wrong again. Why would you try and bluff a great player unless you absolutely had to? This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ever try and bluff great players; it just means they should not be your prime targets. Personally, we only like to go after players like this if we don’t have another stream of income at the table. If we are picking up chips at the table without picking on the sharks, we’re ok with that. Don’t poke the bear, right?

So, if it’s not bad players and it’s not good players, then who is the prime target for running a bluff on? The answer is your middle of the pack players. These are the players who are good enough to make a fold, good enough to make a read on a hand they are playing, but not a wizard who can see through your soul.

You also need to make sure that you are only bluffing opponents who care about the game. The drunk guy that is calling everyone down? Please don’t try and bluff him. The rich guy who is playing low stakes for fun? Don’t try and bluff him. There is a reason that bluffs never work at play money tables. If the person does not care about losing the money or if there is no money to be lost, then the bluff has little chance of success. They’ll call you down in a heartbeat without ever thinking twice just to see what you have.

Check Your Image

The last piece of the puzzle here is analyzing your image before you go and run a bluff. If the table thinks that you’re playing crazy, it might not be the time to try and run a wild bluff. If the table thinks you’re super tight, you’re much more likely to get away with a bluff. Notice that we said if the table “thinks” you are playing crazy. This does not have to be you actually playing crazy.

For example, let’s say you get dealt three big hands in a row. You raise and win big pots without showdown. Are you playing crazy? Nope, but what does the table think? All they see is you winning a bunch of pots in a row and players LOVE to assume that you’re doing it by pushing everyone around. Even though you are playing snug as a rug, the table is going to assume that you are a maniac. This is ESPECIALLY true if you start a new session by winning a bunch of hands.

The egos in poker are so strong that people can’t stand ever to think they are getting bluffed or taken advantage of. Because of this, people will be more likely to call you down lightly if they think you might be pushing them around. We’ve had players that we’ve only played the stone nuts against assume that we were pushing them around. They refused to fold to us for the entire rest of the game.

Did we try and bluff them? Heck no! We waited until we had a hand and bet big and they paid us off every single time. Just remember, it’s all about your image and what the table thinks of you. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant. You could win no pots and some guy or gal at the table could make a comment that you look like a maniac. The rest of the table is going to hear that and assume that you are. You need to be aware of this stuff and react and adapt accordingly.

You should also be aware of what players at the table are paying attention. If a player makes the maniac comment, but someone isn’t paying attention, you have to assume that they haven’t passed judgment on you yet. If this sounds like a lot to pay attention to, that’s part of the game!

Pure Bluffs vs. Semi-Bluffs vs. Converted Bluffs vs. Merges

Now that you know how and when to bluff properly, you should just come out guns blazing with bluffs when you can, right? No, no, no. Bluffing is something that needs to be done in heavy moderation. You also need to realize that there are multiple kinds of bluffs that each should be done with differing levels of frequency. The four main types of bluffs are semi-bluffs, pure bluffs, converted bluffs, and merges.

A pure bluff is probably the one you think about when you hear bluff. It’s the hands when you hear about someone going full ham with 7-2 off and winning a huge pot. That is a pure bluff. There is no chance of that person winning the hand unless they get their bluff through. These bluffs are the ones done when the player’s hand does not connect with the board at all. They could have no cards for all they care.

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A semi-bluff is one where you are bluffing with the chance to improve to the best hand. For example, let’s say that you flop a flush draw and elect to continuation bet. While you may not think of this as a bluff, it actually is. You’re betting and all you have most likely is a high card and maybe a pair. It’s not a pure bluff, though, because if you hit your card, you can improve to the best hand. This is the definition of a semi-bluff. A lot of people semi-bluff all day long and don’t even realize that they are actually bluffing.

Semi-bluffs can be less obvious in the form of backdoor draws. For example, if you have AKs on a 10-9-2s board, you may choose to continuation bet as a bluff. Some might think this is a pure bluff, but in fact, you do have some equity in the hand. If you turn a jack or a queen you have a straight draw, if you turn another spade, you have a flush draw, or if you hit one of your overcards, you may have the best hand. While this is still a bluff, it’s a semi-bluff because getting your opponent to fold is NOT your only way of winning the hand.

Converted bluffs are times when you miss your hand or miss your draw and elect to turn your hand into a bluff. For example, let’s say you flop a flush draw and you semi-bluff the flop and the turn, and then you miss the river. At this point, you have a decision to make. You can give up and abandon your semi-bluff, or you can convert your semi-bluff into a pure bluff and try and win the pot.

Merges are interesting. We weren’t really sure where to include them. A merge is a new poker term that came about in the past few years and has been argued back and forth whether or not it is real, or just something people say to cover up that they are not sure what they’re doing. A merge is when you bet a hand that could be the best hand but also could be getting a better hand to fold.

For example, let’s say you have third pair on a board where a flush missed on the river. If you decide to bet the river, you could have the best hand if your opponent missed their flush. You also could be bluffing and get an opponent to fold something like second pair. This is called merging.

Now that you understand all the different types of bluffs, which are the best and how often should you do them? Well, the answer is, of course, going to be that it depends. It will depend on the game, the situation, the opponents, your image, etc.

Here are a few general guidelines that you can use, though. Pure bluffs should be few and far between. Running a crazy bluff with no chance of winning any other way is pretty wild and usually is not a great recipe for success. If you do happen to run one of these, make sure it’s at the absolute most perfect time against the best candidate possible. Semi-bluffs, on the other hand, should frequently be used. They are great because your opponents will fold often, they don’t usually take a lot of money to commit to, and when you hit your hand, you’re going to have a much bigger pot to win.

Converted bluffs are going to always be on a case by case basis. You’ll need to weigh the risk versus the reward and most importantly your opponent’s range. If you think that you are more likely to get away with your bluff or that it is a profitable play, in the long run, you should pull the trigger. If you think the likelihood of success is low or it’s a negative expected value move in the long run, then you should probably lean towards not pulling the trigger.

Merging is something that is very widely debated and is strictly going to be a case by case situation. There will be times that it’s best to check and use your hand as a bluff catcher instead of merging and betting. There will also be times where there are plenty of hands that you can’t beat but will fold to a bet. In these situations, you’re going to want to merge your little heart out.

Hands In Texas Holdem

Finding the right balance of bluffing enough without bluffing too much is going to be a feel thing. It’s going to require you to constantly be vigilant of the game conditions and constantly assessing what you can and can’t get away with.

Getting Caught Is Good

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Umm, getting caught while bluffing is good? If that’s the most insane thing you’ve ever heard, we’ll ask you to bear with us for a second so we can explain. What we are saying is that if you are never getting caught bluffing, then you aren’t bluffing near enough. You need to be bluffing with a high enough frequency that it doesn’t work 100% of the time. Basically, you need to be pushing the boundary as much as you can to make sure that you’re getting away with as much free money as you possibly can.

Imagine the analogy of driving a fast car as a race car driver. Let’s say you go 90 mph and you do pretty well in races. Well, is that the fastest you can go and the best you can do in your races? The only way you’ll know that is if you push the envelope a little faster. Maybe the next race you try going 95 mph. If everything goes smoothly, then you know you can go faster. You should keep pushing things faster and faster until your engine finally blows. Once you hit that point, you’ll know that you’ve found the max speed you can go.

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You need to do the same with your bluffing. Find out how fast people will let you run away with their money without making them blow your engine.

Putting It All Together

Hopefully, by now you are pretty well versed in what you need to do to successfully bluff in no-limit Texas hold’em. While it may seem fun to bluff all the time, it’s definitely not part of a winning strategy. Controlled and calculated bluffs can work wonders, though. Just remember to make sure that you are doing them at the right time, against the right opponents, and with the right image. And for the love of everything on the Earth, promise us that you’ll make sure that your bluff tells a great story and makes sense.