Avoiding Bad Poker Bluffs

Sometimes when playing online poker you are going to want to bluff at a pot. There are good times to make a bluff and bad times to make a bluff. Online poker is about making good decisions and many times avoiding the bad bluffs are part of making good choices. Sometimes a short-term loss can turn into a long-term gain at the poker table, just as is the case in other forms of gambling.

No-limit Texas Holdem poker players who play at online poker sites or at casino poker rooms will often get extremely clever and even deliberately lose a bluff bet in order to suck in the other players into thinking that they are loose players that play anything.

Some players will deliberately make an early bad bluff to set up a later good bluff. This is a way to set up your style of play. At the end of losing early poker hands in which they bluffed, such poker players will even show the whole table their bluff to really make it seem like it was a stupid play. Part of good bluffing techniques for a No-limit Texas Holdem poker player is to constantly change gears and keep his opponents guessing.

The more that a No Limit Texas Holdem poker player can misrepresent himself to the other players at the poker table the better off he will end up at the end of the game.

The problem with bluffing is that oftentimes people do it at the wrong times. We looked at the bad bluff in terms of setting up opponents for later action but only very talented players are able to pull that off. Most poker players will not want to be making a bluff just to set up action later.  There are other examples of bad bluffs that should be avoided so let’s take a look.

You don’t want to be bluffing at low-limit tables. It is a waste of time, and even more importantly a waste of money. Low limit players are going to call nearly everything in online poker and that means bluffs will not work.

You don’t want to bluff after just losing a bluff attempt. The time to pull off a bluff is after you have continually played tight and showed down your hands as winners. That is the time when a bluff will work, not after you just failed at a bluff.

Don’t bluff into strength.  If a player continually is betting and calling your raises then you can rest assured he has a good hand.  Don’t hope to bluff him out of the pot as most of the time it won’t work.

There is more to bluffing at online poker sites than you might think. Sometimes you make bluffs to set up later bluffs and sometimes you avoid bad bluffs in losing situations. Bluffing is just one part of your overall poker game that needs to be used intelligently and not recklessly.