The Poker Grafter

‘I never bluff,’ a tight player once told me with a clear sense of pride. After frequently playing in the same games as him over the subsequent months it was clear that he was as good as his word. It seems to me that announcing you never bluff is a poor strategy unless you really are convinced that your opponents will be wrong-footed when you actually do bluff. But even that assumes, very naively, that everyone takes comments made around a poker table at face value. But to announce that you never bluff and then demonstrate the point for the rest of your life is surely pure madness. 

It’s a strange quirk of poker that many players see gaining respect as very important. In fact for some it seems more important than actually winning money. This leads to a bizarre attitude to bluffing whereby it’s seen as an unworthy, almost despicable act. ‘Well, yes, I’m out of the tournament, it’s true. But at least I didn’t have to resort to duplicity like that rogue over there…Yes him, the one with the mountain of chips…He should be ashamed of himself.’ 

Bluffing shrewdly is integral to the success of any poker player and it doesn’t just involve throwing your chips all-in with nothing and hoping for the best. There’s a big difference between skilful deception and relying on pure luck. Of course many players can’t tell the difference and a good piece of play will often be criticised by a limited player who can’t think outside the box. 

A good example of this that I saw recently saw an orthodox textbook player opening up the pot with a raise in a late seat with A-Q. A more inventive player, who I know to be quite successful, bump re-raised on the button with A-10. Everyone else folded bar the initial raiser who just called. The flop arrived 10-10-5. Both players checked the flop and the rag on the turn. After an ace on the river the initial raiser bet out with top pair only to be re-raised by the button who had now hit the full house.  

The latter had been undeniably lucky but what really infuriated his opponent was the outrage of a re-raise with A-10. A re-raise with A-10 against him of all people! ‘Don’t you realise that when I raise I always have better than A-10, you fool,’ he barked. ‘When you re-raised I assume you must have A-A, K-K or at least A-K.’ This tells us all we need to know about the aggrieved textbook player. If he was so sure that a re-raise equated to a monster premium hand then why did he call it with A-Q? He was of course wrong with this read anyway, which is another problem. 

The good player who re-raises in that spot with A-10 knows several things. Firstly, he has position. The tentative player is terrified of the bump re-raise and is very unlikely to bet into him. This allows for the possibility of a free card if so desired. However, more likely, is that the re-raiser can make a continuation bet on most flops and the initial raiser folds. Even if the flop comes queen high, the tentative holder of A-Q may throw away the best hand to a re-raise, having already convinced himself that his opponent holds A-A or K-K. 

If the flop comes ace high (with no queen or 10) and the initial raiser is very keen, then the good player can probably still get away quite cheaply from A-10, fully aware of his kicker weakness. After all, he targeted a very orthodox player who is hugely unlikely to bluff a re-raiser. Alternatively, he may yet win the pot with the worst hand if he can re-raise convincingly to represent A-A, or more likely A-K. 

The dream scenario that played out for the wily re-raiser was that the flop came with two 10s. Suddenly he had a genuinely huge hand that was almost unreadable. When this occurred he was able to check the flop to imply weakness, or specifically A-K in the mind of his opponent. The player with A-Q then thought he had hit well on the river and bet. But against the feared A-K he would still have been beaten anyway and should therefore have checked with the intention to call, which would have ultimately saved him some chips. 

It’s yet another example where the player handing out the criticism has also been the one who played the hand worse. He’s just too blinkered to see it. All and all it showed the beauty of what amounted to a well-timed, positional bluff re-raise. What he got for his trouble was an earful of abuse - but a substantial boost to his chip stack.