Bluff Catching - Pokerati

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Often in poker you come across situations where although you think you may have the best hand, you want to try and check and make your opponent bluff. These situations often occur when you have a medium strength hand that you do not want to fold, and where you think that your opponent has either a monster hand or nothing.

Always remember that poker is a game where you have to think about the best route of action considering the most likely holdings of your opponent

Imagine that you call a raise from a loose aggressive player with ace ten from the big blind. The flop comes 10c9c2s. You bet around two thirds of the pot and your opponent calls. The turn is the 4h and you bet again, a bet which your opponent calls. The river is the 3d. What should you do now?

In this situation it is likely that either your opponent has you crushed, with an over pair or a set, or that you are very far ahead, in the case where they have been chasing a draw. As a result of this, often in this spot you want to check and try and induce your opponent into bluffing at the pot. As you have no intention of folding, by check calling you save money when you are crushed (due to your opponent shoving over the top on the river with any big hand), but make money when they have nothing, as many players will fire here in a desperate attempt to win the pot after they have missed.

This style of play works particularly well against bad loose aggressive players, as they vastly under estimate the strength of their opponents holdings when they check, seeing any check as a sign to put in that big, aggressive bet and take the pot away. Because bad LAG players don\’t have the necessary skills to carefully think through situations like the one above, they can easily be taken advantage of with well timed bluff catching moves.

Always remember that poker is a game where you have to think about the best route of action considering the most likely holdings of your opponent. In situations where you feel an opponent has either got a monster or has missed, it is usually correct to check call and try and extract extra bets when your opponent fires out a bluff, and over the long run this can add up to a great deal of money.

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