Top 5 Signs That It’s Time to Bail on a Bluff

09 Jan 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

Bluffing is an innate and integral part of poker. When a layman hears «poker», among other things, his imagination immediately draws players bluffing left and right, and then showing their cards to opponents. But this is a very superficial idea of ​​​​this crazy game. He is right in one thing: bluff and semi-bluff bets make up the majority of active actions at the table: from super-light steals to double + barrels into a suitable opponent.

As you read the article, some will remember the well-forgotten old thing that they seemed to know, but began to ignore over time, and someone will update their picture of unprofitable conditions at the bluff table. The main condition for a profitable bluff: real fold equity exceeds the required FE. And it is worth clearly understanding when the opposite conditions exist.

Today, renowned top professional Phil Galfond will share his key thoughts and the conditions under which you need to put the brakes on, even if you are tempted to bluff, in order to continue playing profitable poker, showing stable win rates and growing your income.

The first point is about the river. When a blank comes on the river - a card that was not expected to improve your range - your opponents will expect you to bluff much more often and, accordingly, will try to call you much more often.

For example. The flop is . You check-call.

Turn: , essentially a blank. Check-check.
River: another complete blank: . And you consider a lead bet into the opponent.

All that pile of draws that you had on the flop, did not improve later - neither on the turn, nor on the river (, ,  and much more) remained trash, just like all the flush draws.

There could have been listed more draws, and you could easily figure them out. So many draws have missed that if you keep bluffing with all of them, you will have too many bluffs in your betting range on the river. And since people tend to overcall on busted-draw-rivers, you would lose a lot more money to their bluffcatchers than if you had simply given up in such spots with your draws.

Until you have reliable notes on your opponent that he is inclined to overfold even on such rivers, you should not overbluff.

It is always important to observe your opponents and try to understand what they like to do, what they love to do, what they hate to do, and what they are afraid to do.

It won't take long before you start to think that this opponent is more likely to like to make loose calls where the field usually folds. If it's a fish, it's easier with him, because they all, in general, tend to call often and very wide. And calling fish are usually much easier to spot than calling (semi-)regs, who can simply get hands that are suitable for this. It's a little more difficult with regs, but such a study also doesn't take much time.

Usually, if a person called with a clearly much weaker hand than you expected to see, then his entire calling range will significantly expand. Whether he was in a bad mood at the time that he called, or vice versa - it doesn't matter. We won't know. We just need to expect that the opponent will call us much more often than we would like with a bluff.

Statistics are very helpful in quickly identifying «calling stations». Since many readers of such articles play online and use HUDs, then the WTSD, W$SD and WWSF indicators can immediately tell who you shouldn't bluff at all, and who, on the contrary, you should put more pressure on. Especially WTSD (went to showdown). There is information for a whole group of articles here, and they are available on our website, so we will not go into this topic further within the framework of this material.

If your opponent tends to call the river 3 times out of 4, even on big bets - to hell with all the «solutions» of the game against an ideal opponent, who also plays ideally on all streets, and not just on the one you would like. Your opponent is real, not optimal. And when the opponent does not fold his 57% range to a bet size of 75% of the pot, then stubbornly betting into someone who does not fold enough, you yourself will burn your money. And some reg will later take it away from that calling station . . . It's up to you.

The only significant exception: there is reason to believe that the opponent began to think that you began to bet honestly.

One way or another, the last few showdowns showed that you had a bluff on the river. People remember this especially if the pot is big.

• Big risks = big emotions = better memorization.

This applies not only to the river, but also to all 3 streets preceding it. And since the narrowest ranges are on the river, the frequencies of your bluffs on earlier streets will be perceived by opponents as even higher. Therefore, fold equity will fall and the EV of the bluff will decrease along with it.

First of all, we are talking about auto-profitable spots on the preflop and flop and, less often, on the turn:

• Wide steals and light X-bets on the preflop,
• Wide c-bets and frequent floats on the flop,
• Frequent second barrels and reverse floats . . .

In general, to give a reason to consider yourself an overbluffer, you will have many accumulating situations.

This also includes temporary situations when you have lost several large pots, and even showed ridiculous hands. When a person is noticeably losing in the current session, those who are sitting at the table with him and watching him, most often decide that Hero wants to win back and get back what he lost as quickly as possible. If so, then the frequency of his bluffs will be expected to be greatly increased. => Much more frequent calls from opponents. Especially in position.

Therefore, when you are at a loss and not much time has passed since the last big bluff, you should hold back for a while in order to show good hands at showdown in the next 1-3 spots. Then your opponents will often readjust to the «required wave». Of course, no one can tell you the exact frequencies - each person is individual at a particular moment in time, but in general, in my experience, it's like this: let them think that you are adequate, and they will take your bets more seriously.

An opponent who is either too rich for the amounts of money being played, or who is on tilt and desperately trying to win back. In short, the very fact of winning the pot is now more emotionally valuable to him than the amount of money in that pot.

He strives to play every pot to get his own back as quickly as possible, punish his opponents and then play more calmly when «justice finally prevails». One way or another, while he is in such an emotional state, it will be a big mistake to load money into the pot with his bluffs - the opponent will call with a bunch of A-high and K-high, which themselves beat most of your bluff combinations, and later his hand can improve to something better. Fold equity is at a minimum at this moment.

This means that you should rebuild the ranges in the value direction and value-bet much wider. Bluffs are unprofitable now.

It often happens that the turn or river card devalues ​​the hand you value-bet on the previous street, because now a significant part of the opponent's range has become older than your hand.

For example, you have top pair / overpair on a draw-heavy turn, and you bet 75% for thin value. And on the river comes a card that clearly completes numerous draws in the opponent's calling range. Let's say their share in the calling range on the turn was 25-40%, plus there were also medium-strength hands in it, like top-pair or second pairs with good kickers, but now you hardly have a bet for any kind of value.

You can object: but I myself have enough strong pairs here, as well as dopers and sets. There is some truth in this. But you need to play your hand the same way as your entire range: if your proportion of nuts (specifically nuts, not just nominally strong hands) is now low, then turning them into a bluff is not worth it just for the sake of it.

When with your range, which on previous streets (while draws were not completed) looked strong and in the eyes of the opponent you bet for value, then on an objectively terrible run-out thinking opponent will no longer expect that you will bomb with a doper / set with an abundance of completed straights and flushes. Especially when you are out of position.

You also need to protect your check range - if it's a doper /set, then be ready to call your opponent, even with risk, but so that he knows - bluffing into your check is unprofitable for him. Otherwise, if your check range is empty, you will be quickly destroyed, and they will fold to bets everything they are not ready to continue with. This is somewhat exaggerated, but it reflects the essence of how thinking players see changing ranges.

There are many situations in poker where you should not bet anything from your range at all against a thinking opponent - because he probably realizes that you have started betting suddenly with «nuts appeared out of nowhere» that you did not have on previous streets of betting, and now suddenly have them. =>

• He will call and take money from you much more often.

Now let's step back from these 5 reasons not to bluff and look at the game against the field as a whole.

Over the years of my career, I have worked with different people: some I taught, some I learned from, and some I just talked to. And here's what's interesting: 95% of them underbluff. They look for their own reasons not to bluff at «optimal» frequencies and they really find them.

Use your attentiveness in finding reasons both to stop bluffing and to increase it. Most often, if you are an ordinary person, then you tend to underbluff anyway. The key here is to be aware and realize which opponent is not profitable to overbluff (he is an autocaller), and against which the actual fold equity significantly exceeds that required for a break-even bluff.

Figure out what exactly at the poker table stresses you out, makes you uncomfortable, and even scares you. If you are afraid to bluff big or put a lot of chips in a semi-bluff, then you should realize this and accept it. As you know, the first stage of curing a disease is to make a diagnosis.

If you know how to do it so that it does not stress you out and there are no fears, then this is awesome, because rarely anyone is capable of this. But if you do not know how, then it is not a problem - there is no urgent need.

• The main thing you need is to know your inclinations and prejudices and overcome them

For example. You make a decision on the river: to bluff and try to win or to check and give up the pot. But you are used to thinking «They will easily call me - then I'll better check and next time bomb for value».

But the process of strengthening the poker player's game lies precisely in overcoming his current weaknesses and what is still very unusual for him. Try to look at the circumstances soberly. If they are suitable, but you are not used to bluffing in such and such a spot - just add 1-2 bluff combinations per, say, session. in similar spots.

This will gradually expand your comfort zone and make the game a lot stronger.

The main thing you should have taken away from this material is that when you don't understand whether there is enough fold equity on your opponent in a given spot, or when you clearly know that it is not enough, you should stop bluffing.

Because even if you push an opponent out of the pot a couple of times, over the long run you will still lose more money than you win on bluffing when the real fold equity is lower than required.

• The 5 conditions described in the article when bluffing is unprofitable are enough to stop bluffing just for the sake of it.