The 4 Times When You Should Not Bluff In Poker

One area where I feel beginners need poker coaching is that of poker bluffing. All too often, beginners see poker on TV, and think the game is all about bluffing. Whereas in reality, the hands you see are the edited ones that look good on TV. What you don’t see are the numerous hands where someone bets, the opponent folds, and the bettor takes down the hand. As you can see, that doesn’t make great TV, nor does it make an for an interesting poker lesson. So, heres my thoughts on when and who you should use the poker bluff against. The following poker secrets should help you out:

- Never ever ever use a poker bluff versus a fish (bad player). Bad players like to call, they are often playing for fun and like to make calls to ‘keep you honest’. Trying to bluff these players is like burning money.

- Don’t poker bluff when the top card pairs. E.g. you bet the flop with AK on a board of Q37. One player calls. The turn is another Q. Never ever bluff this card. No-one with a Queen is folding, and our opponent can legitimately hold one after he called your bet on the flop.

- Don’t use a poker bluff on drawy boards. E.g. TJ9 with two spades. Why? Because most players will hit that flop, i.e. with a pair, flush draw, straight draw etc. And so wont fold when you bluff. Again, this is just throwing money away, unless you have a big draw yourself.

- Lastly, don’t use a poker bluff into more than one player. If 3 people call your preflop raise, don’t bluff on a KQ2 board. Someone will have hit the flop. So its fine to just check and fold if you miss.

This should be a good starting point. My poker coaching course – the ‘zero to hero’ poker apprenticeship program will expand on these ideas, and also show you the great times when we should be bluffing!

If you are interested in more articles on the art and science of the poker bluff, please add a comment below and I’ll see what I can do.

Good luck at the tables, Johnny.