After the flop, who normally does the bluffing?
It depends. In an unraised pot, It is often the first person who bets after the flop, usually because he thinks the flop missed everybody else. If the pot was raised before the flop, the play who is more apt to bluff after the flop is the raiser, since people are accustomed to routinely checking to the pre-flop raiser. He may have a legitimate hand, of course, but he runs the risk of getting trapped by an opponent who check-raises him, as some players check a big hand from up front when they are fairly sure that the pre-flop raiser will betting introduction.
What type of pressure do you put on opponents when you bluff?
Getting broke or damaging their stack creates tremendous pressure on tournament players. Always remember that you-and your opponents-need a better hand to call a raise with than you need to bet with. If your opponents are short-chipped and they know that they're going to have to commit most of their chips, it will be more difficult for them to call without a "made" hand. You're putting pressure on them with your bet because they face the danger of going broke or crippling their stack if they call with a marginal hand. Nobody wants to get up and walk extrastuff!
Suppose the tournament will be paying the top 18 spots and the action is down to 19 players. When it gets that close to a payday, players feel a lot of pressure if they must make a decision as to whether to call a raise with their case chips (the last chips they have in front of them). Going broke one spot out of poker gaming money is called finishing "on the bubble. " Or as Brad so eloquently puts it, "You hit the skunk hole!"
How do the changes in today's fast-action no-limit holdem Games affect your ability to bluff?
Today there are a lot more "action" players who are not playing "by the book" than there were in the past. And there are many more very aggressive players who are constantly on the attack. In the old days, many of the top players would never call a big raise with a hand as weak as an A-Q. In today's the game, many players might call you with a hand as weak as an A-10. Some new players think that hands like A-Q, A-J or A-10 are big hands and they will call big raises with them, seven card stud occasionally reraising with them. This tendency is pertinent to bluffing because you should know that in today's tournaments, many players will call you with weaker hands that you would have expected them to call you with in the past.
What is one of the biggest bluffs you've ever seen in a tournament?
"I remember the biggest bluff you ever made, Tom, and it turned out to be the best bluff," Brad reminisced. "It happened at the Hall of Fame $5,000 Championship no-limit holdem event. We were down to twelve players, and guess who you bluffed? Me! And do you know what I had? The top set: Kings. And guess what you caught? A flush. You bluffed on the flop and got there with the hand. "
"That's true," Tom answered. "Sometimes you make the wrong move at the right time and then get lucky. "
"I remember the first time I ever bluffed," Brad re-called. "I was 21 years old, playing in a no-limit lowball draw game. I had about $900 in front of me. My opponent and I got about $300 apiece in the pot before the draw. I take one card-now I'm looking down at a pair of sixes. I know that I can't win the pot unless I bluff at it. I was the first one to act, so I just moved in on him. I wanted that pot because all the money I had in the world was in it. He stalled and stalled and I could feel my stomach turning inside out so badly that I thought it was going to come out my throat. But I didn't move a muscle. Finally he folded. He had stood pat before the draw, so I knew that he definitely had me beaten. If he called, I would have gone broke. "
During the 1984 World Series of Poker game, cowboy Wolford pulled off what many consider to be the biggest bluff in WSOP history when he bluffed Jesse Alto at the Championship table. In three-handed action with eventual winner Jack Keller, Wolford confronted Alto in a big pot. In the small blind, Keller folded before the flop when All to bet on the button. Wolford called from the bigs blinds. The flop came A ? K ? 9 ?. Wolford bet $15,000 and Alto called. The turn card game was the K ?. Wolford fired another $40,000 at the pot. Again Alto called.
When the 2 ? came at the river, Wolford pushed his last $101,000 into the middle. Alto thought about it at length and finally folded. That's when, according to reporter Bobby Bold win, "The cowboy exercised a psychological option in choosing to show his nothing-but-nerve cards. " The Texas calf-roping champion had bluffed Alto, one of the famous old-time road gamblers, with the 5 ? 4 ?. The two men had gambled together on the Texas holdem poker circuit for years, so Wolford knew Alto's style of play and apparently used that knowledge to his advantage in this classic example of the follow-up bluff.