Deconstructing a Bluff

Well, yesterday I made my return to The Golden Palace at Hayward and one of the biggest NL games in the bay area. The blinds are 2-2-1 with 5 to bring it in, but there is over $15,000 on the table every day. And it is very easy if you keep your wits about you and have the courage to play your hand.

There are also a fair amount of regulars there so even though I hadn't been to the place in many months, I recognized a fair amount of the players there. I'm not sure how many recognized me. What impressed me was that my mental catalogue was still sharp after playing with these guys once or twice before and I could jump into the game.

There is this one kid, Samson, who plays very loose and sometimes too aggresive, but is very capable of making a big laydown. In the beginning of our session (we sat down at the same time) he had made a big preflop raise with AK and then fired out big on the flop even though he missed. I had then later see him showdown AA and QQ and he played them "quietly" preflop, not making any big raises (in fact, not raising at all).

So it comes down to this hand: I have around $850 (I started with $1000) and he has me covered by a few hundred. This game had been fairly passive preflop so I limped in UTG with A7 in clubs. It's limped around to Samson in the Little Blind who made it $120. I instantly put him on AK. That is the only hand he could have. I don't think he would play any other hand that way (though the possibility of JJ or TT entered my mind). Now I figured there were 2 ways I could win: I out flop him or we both miss and I push him out. I knew he respected my moves beause I had been only getting active with a real hand and he would be wary of me. So I called and so did this passive preflop-calling station. That surprised me, so I put him on either really big cards as well or something like an 8s or 9s.

Pot: $380

The flop came 552. Samson leads out with $175. I think about this for a 2nd, just to go over my game plan. My instincts wanted to go with what my head was thinking, that Samson had AK. I wasn't quite sure what LP guy was going to do, but the bet was big enough and if I called it, he would probably laydown his mid pair. So I called. Other guy thought for a second and then folded.

Pot: $730

The turn is the beautiful 6 of clubs, giving me an over card (one of them was sure to be good), the flush draw and an inside straight draw. Samson checks to me, fully on the defensive. I pondered for a bit. I was trying to figure out how much to bet. I could stick my $550 in right now as a big bluff, or I could separate it into 2 bluffs. The tricky part is that the pot is very big and a big bet that was called would leave me nothing for the river. I decided on a $200 bet because that left me enough for a nice river bluff plus the the bet was big for the game and even though the pot was as well, I am sure he wasn't quite thinking that. I also think that the $200 bet was scarier and more threatening since I had money behind it. He has to call and then hope I don't bet again. The nice thing about live NL is that the pot size isn't just stated there for you, you have to figure it out and what really ends up mattering is the size of the bet, not the size of the pot because a lot of people don't always see that. Samson could have very easily thought that this was a $500 pot and my $200 bet seemed scarier.

My image was good, the board was good, and my opponent is very capable of folding, plus the range of hands I put him on were not too good at this point. I fired the $200.

He folded.