By
Zpaceman
Poker is a game of deception. Broken down to its simplest logical level, poker is about making decisions based on whether your opponent is telling the truth or is lying. In the film “Liar, Liar” the character played by Jim Carrey cannot help telling the truth even though he wants to lie. At the poker table we can sometimes see a similar phenomenon where your opponent is trying to bluff, but his actions give away the truth. In this article we explore the art of catching our opponents’ bluffs and using this information against them.
The art of catching a bluff is generally based on deducing the meaning of every action given the situation. If we think hard enough about a sequence of actions in a given situation, we can often deduce that these actions do not add up to a strong hand, and are therefore likely to indicate a bluff.
Bluffing happens most often in heads-up situations, and in the context of multi-table tournaments, we experience heads-up confrontations every time a hand is folded around to the small blind. In these blind-on-blind confrontations, any kind of a hand goes up in value and there is a wide scope for bluffing and catching bluffs. I’ll first give a fairly simple example of situation where the actions clearly add-up to a bluff:
http://www.pokerxfactor.com/SH126885/12581_20080420_092640
We are just into the freezeout period of the Pokerstars $100 rebuy and all of the players are fairly deep-stacked. In this tournament, many are looking to make moves. Given the active players at the table, it is rare for a hand to fold around to the blinds, but in this case everyone folds to the SB who, having just been moved to my table, completes the blinds.
With position and a hand as strong as Ad-Qc, I’m looking to build a pot by raising from the BB, but it is quite common for a player to raise in this situation so my opponent could read my raise as any two cards. He calls and we see a very dry flop. I check behind here for pot control, and the turn brings an interesting card that opens up a few draws. I would expect my opponent to bet any drawing hand here so calling with two overcards is pretty straightforward. Then the river misses all draws and he bets again.
I think it is pretty obvious he is bluffing here, although it is possible he is bluffing with the best hand like 55, 66 or 67. Overall, however, I think it is much more likely that he is bluffing with no pair and a missed draw and I call fairly quickly with Ace high.
The key to reading this bluff was my opponent’s check on the flop. If he had any kind of a hand at that stage, I would expect a bet. Given that the turn and river cards did not look like they improved any hand that checks the flop, his bet on the river is a bluff a high enough percentage of the time to justify my call.
Opponents who defend their blinds to your raises are another lucrative source of bluff catching because I find that players who like to defend their blinds also tend to bluff. In this mid-stakes tournament, I make a standard mid-position raise with 99 and run into resistance from the small blind.
http://www.pokerxfactor.com/SH126886/12581_20080420_092910
While I hate to see such a scary flop, my opponent does not bet into it so we get to see another scare card hit the turn. Now there are three cards to a flush plus two overcards on the board and my opponent bets out. That bet made no sense to me. What kind of a hand can check that flop to a pre-flop raise then bet when the flush card hits the turn? I quickly rule out a made flush or any Ace-x hands and put him on a medium pair lower than nines or suited connectors. I was a little concerned he might have a Jack in his hand, but otherwise felt fairly good about calling to see the river. When a fairly harmless off-suit 5 hits he effectively puts me all-in with his bet. That rang my bluff catching alarm bells. Why would he make such a big bet? While making a tough decision I sometimes articulate my thoughts in the chat box. Here’s what I wrote before calling:
Zpaceman said, "weird"
Zpaceman said, "i think ur bluffing"
What made me feel that way were both his sequence of bets and the big bet on the end. With a good made flush he would surely bet less for value, whereas with a pair of Aces or Jacks he would bet less or not at all due to the scary board. The big bet at the end, combined with the earlier betting sequence (note the telling check on the flop again) convinced me that the only hand that made sense was a bluff. It was a much tougher situation than the first example, but I went with my gut instinct and made the call.
I could show you many other examples of “bluff catcher” calls on the river, but the basic tenet with such hands is to search for a weakness in your opponents’ actions that indicate the bluff. Sometimes, however, even if you sense a lot of weakness it is too difficult to make the call on the end. You are playing too loose if you never succumb to a multi-street bluff, but even when you get bluffed you can sometimes gain valuable information from player’s who are too proud or arrogant to keep their bluffs to themselves.
http://www.pokerxfactor.com/SH126888/12581_20080420_093442
Although much of the evidence suggested my overly loose aggressive opponent was bluffing, the river card was just too scary to call. I had checked the turn to induce just such a bluff on either the turn or the river, but when the river produced a fourth spade that was also an overcard I felt my bluff catcher had been counterfeited and I gave up. By showing the bluff, however, my opponent gave away valuable information that enabled the table to play back at him. I later busted him with great satisfaction.
This example introduces an idea about bluff catching that we will now explore further: inducing a bluff. This is commonly known as the rope-a-dope strategy. Given the number of loose aggressive players in the game these days the use of this strategy can win you a lot of chips with very little risk. It can also reverse the power of position by using a weaker position to exploit your opponents’ tendencies.
I’m just going to give you one example of the rope-a-dope play, but these situations arise fairly commonly and can be a major source of chips in tournaments:
http://www.pokerxfactor.com/SH126889/12581_20080420_093606
What makes this situation so ripe is that the stacks are so deep. If the stacks were shallower I would likely be raising Ah-Jd from the BB here, but with 50BB+ stacks I have massive implied odds if I just call. I hit top pair top kicker on a very dry board. If I bet out here I am likely to take down a small pot, but by checking I am inducing a bluff from an over-aggressive player. My opponent perfectly fits this category with a “screen name tell” indicating a loose player.
The pot size bet on the flop was also a significant tell. The board is so dry that there is no value in betting so much with a good made hand like an overpair or a set. Most players will eschew the bet pot button when they have a good hand, but default to it when they are bluffing. I felt that my top pair, top kicker was pretty strong here so I just check-called three streets allowing my opponent to bluff off all his chips when low risk cards hit the turn and river.
Another part of the betting-pattern tell here was the turn and river bet sizing. After betting the pot on the flop, my opponent bet less than half the pot on the turn, despite the fact that a flush draw is now in play. If he really had an 8 then he would be betting more on the turn. His small turn bet enabled him to make a pot-sized bet on the river. This eclectic betting sequence adds up to a bluff rather than a made hand. People with made hands are generally consistent in their betting, not veering from min-raise pre-flop, bet pot on the flop, two-fifths pot on the turn and bet pot on the river.
Catching bluffs can win you a small pot on the river (per the first example) or a big pot (per the second example) and can be a good source of extra chips if you simply take the time to analyze the action to deduce whether your opponent is lying or not. Inducing bluffs can be an even bigger source of chips as over-aggressive opponents can sometimes just give you all of their chips if you give them enough rope to hang themselves. Catching a few bluffs can give you an enormous sense of satisfaction in a game and also earn you the right to call your opponent “Liar, Liar.”