People get the idea that the bluff is a big part of limit hold’em because they’ve seen players bluff in no-limit hold’em tournaments on television.
Bluffs may be exciting to watch, but they work far better in no-limit hold’em games than they do in limit. This is especially true in low-limit games.
Limit hold’em games are designed to have a showdown on the river. The pot is often so large players with very marginal hands will call. They only have to call a single bet to try to win a pot that may already contain 20 or more bets.
Also, a “sheriff” usually is sitting at the table. The sheriff wants to keep everybody honest, and won’t be able to sleep at night if he thinks he has been bluffed. These are two reasons why bluffing too often is a mistake in low-limit hold’em games.
And in multiway pots, don’t even think about trying to bluff your way to a win. Why? Because in hotly contested pots with four or five players, your opponents will seldom fold at the river since it usually costs them only one bet to call.
Oftentimes there will be more than one caller at the showdown. After all, if the pot is multiway and several players have stayed to the river, they must have some sort of hand, right?
Here’s another way to think about a multiway pot: When several players already have invested lots of bets, the pot becomes what we call a “protected pot.” A single bet at the river will never induce anyone with even a remote chance of winning to fold for that final bet because the pot is protected from theft by its hefty size.
Even players with the second-best and third-best hands often will call. Therefore you simply must have the nuts to win a multiway pot at the river—or at least a better hand than anyone else has.
When can you bluff? The three game conditions you’re looking for when you attempt a bluff are:
• When the pot is small.
• When you have superior position over your opponents (you’re the button).
• When you’re playing against only one or two opponents who play on the conservative side, which seldom is the case in low-limit games.
Proceed with caution and you won’t get many speeding tickets in low-limit hold’em. And that’s the absolute lowdown.
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