Bluffing the unbluffable

One of the biggest leaks in my poker game is giving my opponents way too much credit. Sometimes I put myself in their situation and try to make a play that would work against myself. Unfortunately, however, most players that I am trying to extract money from do not think about the game in the same way that I do. They are not thinking through hands at a high level and are commonly just playing off of the absolute value of what they hold not the relative value based upon the situation.

You run into huge problems when you try to bluff players like this. A lot of people, especially if they are very tight preflop, do not like to fold hands post flop. Recreational players do not come to the casino to get bluffed off of strong hands. Knowing this, as a winning player, you must adjust correctly.

The following are some common hand scenarios where a non-professional player has difficulty folding.

1. Aces and other overpairs--You can extract so much money from people that cannot fold these types of hands. But this lack of folding is why it is so difficult to play suited connectors from out of position in capped no limit games. Usually when you flop well with these hands you flop some sort of draw and when you are up against someone who will not fold top pair or an overpair your semi bluff ability is taken away. That is why you should pound these types of players with value hands.

2. Obvious trips or a set---At the lower levels you should not be trying to bluff people off of trips or a set. People are just incapable of laying these types of hands down even if with the given action they are only just bluff catchers


3. A turned flush that faces a four flush on the river-- When you are fairly certain that a player had a flush on the turn but a fourth card of that suit comes out you should very rarely try to bluff. Your opponent might even call a bet with the weakest flush possible just to show the rest of the table his misfortune. Of course you should use this to your advantage when you happen to make a higher flush and bet big as you will often get paid off.