Controlling Your Bluffing
Some online poker players on TV make bluffing look like a cinch. Watch Gus Hansen raise and reraise his way to pot after pot with rags, and soon you’ll be asking yourself why you aren’t doing that too? There’s just something about the feeling of taking money that wasn’t meant to be yours.
At the online poker table though, and when you aren’t a multimillionaire with a feared reputation, bluffing often has a much different kind of nature, and if applied too heavily, can end up making you lose more than you winway more.
One day I realized that one of the main ways I lose money is trying too hard to bluff a someone who mostly is not bluffable, or in the wrong spot. Some players just will not fold their hands, and no amount of you pushing will stop them, regardless of how how often they check.
Often, too, regardless of the will of the online poker player, your opponent is going to make a hand he likes. He might not be sure he has the nuts, but he isn’t going to give up for the amount of money you have in front of you. At some point, in certain spots, you have to be able to forgo the bluff when you know it isn’t working, and operate under the idea that chips saved are chips earned.
