Bluffing with a Made Hand

editors note: this article appears in the February 17th, 2008, issue of CardPlayer magazine

I am a high-stakes no-limit hold’em player. I provide exclusive coaching videos for Card Player Pro, powered by PokerSavvy Plus. My columns will center on hands taken from my videos. As a Card Player reader, you have access to clips of these hands and many others. In my columns, I will explore concepts and strategies utilized by the very best players in the world. You can read the columns on their own, but I also suggest watching the videos on CardPlayer.com for a richer learning experience. While the concepts discussed in these columns will focus on heads-up play, many insights will be applicable to all game types. In this column, I will discuss the concept of turning made hands into bluffs.

Thinking Outside the Box

Expert-level poker is all about creative thinking and mixing up your play. Sometimes, this can involve turning a hand that has strong showdown value into a bluff by betting or raising aggressively. To illustrate this concept, I have selected an interesting hand from a recent online match.

This hand took place about one hour into the match. At this point, I was up roughly $20,000. My opponent and I had been playing very aggressively, with a lot of preflop reraising and post-flop bluffing. However, we both had shown up with strong holdings every time we played a large pot. I was dealt the A♠ 10♦ and open raised to $300, and my opponent called.

The flop came 9♠ 5♦ 3♦.

The flop had missed me completely. My opponent checked, and I decided to bet $450, three-fourths of the pot. It is important to bet with a balanced range here (with both made hands and complete air), to keep your opponent off balance. My opponent called.

The turn was the A♥.

I had turned top pair. My opponent checked, and I decided to bet $1,200 for value. My opponent check-raised to $3,550 after thinking for a few seconds. I thought that he would check-raise with a very wide range of hands in this spot, including made hands (sets, two pair, straights, and so on), straight and flush draws, and complete air. I decided to call and re-evaluate on the river.

The river was the 4♣. My opponent bet $5,000.

In this spot, a good player will evaluate his options between calling and folding, attempting to put his opponent on a range of hands and comparing the pot odds to his equity against this hypothetical range. An expert player will take this a step further and analyze how his opponent will react to a raise. In this hand, I expected my opponent to bet most of his busted draws, all of his sets, most of his two-pair hands, and all of his straights. The pot was laying me better than 2-to-1; against this range, calling would have a slightly positive expectation. Given how the match had gone so far, and because I had yet to be caught bluffi ng in a large pot, I expected my opponent to strongly discount the possibility of a bluff-raise. I think it would be strange to value-raise with less than a straight in this spot, so I believed that he would put me on a range comprised almost entirely of straights, either A-2 or, more likely, 7-6. As such, I expected him to fold all of his busted draws, all of his two-pair hands, all of his sets, and maybe even some of his wheels. Those hands comprised greater than 90 percent of his hand range, meaning that raising had a higher expectation than calling, making it the superior play.

I raised all in for roughly $25,000 and was instantly called by the 7♠ 6♦.

Despite the fact that I lost this hand, I believe I played it very well. If my opponent had any hand other than 7-6, I believe he would have folded. High-level poker is about thinking outside the box. It is important to always evaluate all of your options in any given situation, even if it involves playing a hand in a highly unorthodox fashion (in this case, bluff-raising with top pair). In particular, bluffing with made hands can be particularly effective when you believe that your opponent will put you on a very strong range of hands and be forced to fold a large percentage of the time. Good luck at the tables. ♠