Re: Bluffing frequency
Yes, you need to pull off many stone cold bluffs.
However, there is a quite a range of when to do this. Here are some examples in order of likelyhood to succeed:
1. Continuation bet - this is a simple bluff that has a high likelyhood of success in the right circumstances.
2. Betting the flop when you last to act - when a rag board comes in a multiway pot and it is checked around, you can have a good chance at picking up the pot with a decent bet. With no draws on board, a call will likely mean somebody slowplaying somethimg big and that doesn't happen very often.
3. Learn weakness patterns of straightforward players - you can pick up a lot of pots by simply being aggressive against someone you have a read on as being weak. The same applies for overly tight players who check to you.
4. Scare card on the turn - against weak and/or tight players you can buy a lot of pots with a big turn bet when a scare card comes.
5. Preflop - you need to occasionaly raise with marginal hands. As well, you can occasionaly 3-bet marginal hands.
6. Bet into a pf raiser when out of position.
7. Multi-barrelling - this is getting more difficult because you really need to know your opponent. And it can get expensive if your reads are off. However, you run over a lot of players doing this and it's a barrel of fun.
Bluffing in position is much more successful. Lots of players are susceptible to this and will only come back at you with a high PP or if they hit the flop with TPTK or better. If you can make your bluffs look like value bets, you will be more successful.
A lot of poker players think the only stone cold bluff is a master plan that ends with a huge raise on the river to move a guy off of a big hand.
You need to pick out the players at your table that are susceptible to being bluffed and beat on them. It's simply a matter of aggression and taking pots where nobody has a hand better than second pair and sometimes even top pair with no kicker.
Finally, it's important to keep a really good handle on what your table image is.
|