Turning a Hand into a Bluff

Often in poker, a relatively strong hand can fall apart by the river. Your opponent either outdraws you, or had a better hand than you in the first place. In the latter case, you usually don't discover this until at least the turn. When this happens, you can sometimes convert your hand into a bluff and win a pot when a scare card comes on the board. The trick to making it work is having a thinking, cautious opponent who can be bluffed. Here's an example from early this morning when I got in a quick 200 hands of $25NL FR Rush:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (9 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP1 ($13.52) MP2 ($31.60) MP3 ($9.75) Hero (CO) ($29.30) Button ($33.67) SB ($21.18) BB ($11.57) UTG ($25) UTG+1 ($33.82)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 9♥, 9♠ 5 folds, Hero bets $0.75, 2 folds, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.60) 10♦, 5♥, K♣ (2 players) BB checks, Hero checks  

Turn: ($1.60) 2♣ (2 players) BB bets $0.75, Hero calls $0.75  

River: ($3.10) A♦ (2 players) BB checks, Hero bets $3.10, 1 fold  

Total pot: $3.10 | Rake: $0.15

Results: Hero didn't show 9♥, 9♠ (nothing).

Outcome: Hero won $2.95

I never saw my opponent's hand, but he is a straightforward player who doesn't chase, but does call a little too much preflop with trap hands.  I'm pretty sure he had made a better hand than mine by the time we got to the river. If I had to guess, I'd say either he had made a pair of kings or tens. He might also have had a hand like wired jacks or picked up a flush draw on the turn, but most likely his hand was QT, KJ, KQ, or the like, which fit his actions on each street. The ace on the river was a definite scare card, both to me and him. When he checked to me, I was pretty certain he didn't like the card. Further, I realized that the only way I could win the pot was to get him to fold by betting  fairly hard.

The ABC approach to this hand would have been to check behind on the river and see the showdown. Nine times out of ten, however, you're going to watch the chips slide over to the villains side of the table when you do this. Nothing wrong with it, of course, as you've minimized the amount that you've lost in the hand. But you have to also realize that you're passing up some money in the middle that your opponent might be willing to give up on if you show a little strength.

This play won't work against many other player types, so be careful. For instance, a bad player who held KJ probably couldn't get off his hand. A more aggro player might also re-bluff you back on the river, so watch out for LAGs when trying to run this con. My opponent in the hand was the perfect type to bluff, so I went for it. Of course he could have turned over a hand like AT for two pair, but that's a fairly remote possibility, especially given his check on fifth street. Checks by straight forward players on the river mean weakness; they just want to see a cheap showdown. Don't oblige them.

All-in for now...
-Bug