iPoker and Blackjack:
Texas Hold'em - Strategy - Bluff and Stack
Bluff
The bluff is a prerogative of skilled players. A skilled player can easily bluff avoiding to reveal his real intentions. On the contrary, an inexperienced player usually let on it and so he hardly bluff at the beginning.
The ability of bluffing consists on let the opponents believe you holds a better hand than theirs, especially during the betting, to induce them to fold.
But the point is you have to be able to bluff. First of all, you can bluff only when you’re absolutely sure there is any opponent with very strong cards in his hand because, in that case, bluffing could be a very risky move. Bluffing is helpful only when you want to drive opponents with weak cards to fold so they could no more improve their play situation.
Differently from the traditional poker, in Texas Hold’em you can find various types of bluffing and it can even happen a bluff ends without nobody had noticed it. What is more, during the play, every moment is good to bluff. You can decide to start bluffing during the preflop and to stop it when you realize one of your opponent has gained a point. Although it can sound as a contradiction in terms, the real bluff must be in keeping with the behaviour you have adopted previously as well. If you didn’t reraise during the preflop, then it could sound hardly credible if you start strongly betting with a neutral board.
Another diametrically opposed aspect of bluffing is the already mentioned slow playing. In that case, you hold strong cards but you turn to check or to bet the lowest as possible to persuade other opponents you hold weak cards and so persuade them to bet all their chips. However, you have to remember that slow playing could be a risky strategy to act especially if your opponents’ holding is improved during the play so I suggest you to act it only if you’re absolutely sure of your score. I usually use slow playing only after the flop and when my holding is or a three of pair, or a flush, or a full or a poker at least. In that case, you have to consider if your opponents’ hands get better, that could be turned on your favour because they would persuade to bet receiving an unexpected “surprise” at the end.
The importance of Stack
As already said, the chip leader dominates the play and he has the chance to adopt an aggressive strategy to trounced opponents. Undoubtedly, he couldn’t act inconsistently but using a little of logic and reasoning. He should even hold some points at least. His straight, in fact, comes both from his boldness and from the psychological factor that his opponents know a chip leader has an advantage against them.
If you are a chip leader, I suggest you to avoid to act in a passive way with the intention to preserve your advantage situation. Acting in that way, you surely could lose it. Indeed, you need to raise or reraise trying to eliminate the short stacks and to drive your opponents to all-in.
Unfortunately, you can’t always play as a chip leader and so you need to be able to adopt a defensive strategy specially when you have to face up opponents who hold a medium stack and who act as chip leaders. In that case, my advise is, keep your temper and avoid hazardous moves such as idle raise or all-in! Play in a prudent and reasonable way using the most convenient strategies!
One of the most disadvantageous situation is when you are short stacked, that is when you have little money left, as seem by the puny stack of chips in front of you. For instance, if you have only ten times the big blind and it corresponds to 20 chips then a player who has 200 chips or less is short stacked. In that case, you have to wait for strong cards before adopting a more aggressive strategy.
Actually, you can’t always wait for a better hand as well because you could risk to give the remain stack to blinds. So in that case, you need to come into play even if you don’t hold strong cards if you realize it could be a good opportunity to act. Of course, if you want to prevent the blinds impair your stack, you should play even if you are in all-in and you holding is, for instance, King-3 or such a similar pair.
