The Art of Bluffing

Are you ready for this lesson!

this one touches on the Topic of Bluffing. Remember that if you were to play with your best hands only you would have no action when you play.

In order to benefit from bluffing in poker, you must know when and when not to Bluff, as doing so can sometimes harm your game. Bluffing in Poker is a simple matter of mathematics coupled with an elementary understanding of how to read Tells (opponents hands). Let's say, for example, that there is a $50 pot and you bet $5 to try and steal the pot when you have basically no chance of winning. This will give you 10-1 on your money. As a result, you need a 10 - 1 chance of winning the pot. Even if you are unsuccessful on the tenth attempt, you will need an eleventh to break even. I have given you an example of a worst-case scenario in order to show that your bluffs need to be successful only a small percentage of the time in order to show a profit from bluffing. Even with the above information, there are suggested guidelines to follow when bluffing.

In our next lesson, we will begin to discuss the dos and don'ts of Bluffing and go through each point in detail.

Okay Class, we have reached the end of this weeks session. For Lesson IV, be sure to come back next week and remember to always keep abreast of Games Theory. Exchange new information with players, and read Poker related literature - it helps!