Bluffs are a major part of poker, but there are plenty of situations where a bluff makes absolutely no sense. Some players get overwhelmed with a hand and make desperate bluffs in an attempt to escape a hand they probably wish they were never involved in.
A lot of times a poor bluff post flop is set up by a bad play pre flop. Pre flop play is the foundation for anything that happens post flop. If you play well pre flop there is an increased chance that you will be able to avoid making a weak post flop bluff at all. If you aren’t put in a tough spot you won’t have the opportunity to make a bad decision. The reality is, however, that you will inevitably end up in some tough spots one way or another. It is usually pretty easy to identify a bad move after the fact, but it only matters if you are able to put the brakes on a bad bluff before it happens.
There will be times where you are holding a hand that had extreme strength pre flop, but is practically useless post flop. This isn’t a problem and will inevitably happen, the key is to actually make a fold when you know your hand is no good. The board will be the biggest factor in virtually any hand that you play, and it will be the easiest way to determine whether your hand is a fold. Many players become obsessed with the strength that their hand once had pre flop while completely ignoring the fact that everything has changed. Adjustments are vital in poker, players who don’t make adjustments will bleed money. It doesn’t have to be difficult to make a big fold, it just takes a little will power.
Continuation betting is generally understood as a concept that applies to betting the flop with a hand that missed. The reality is, however, that continuation betting is just as important when you have a strong hand as when you miss. Tournaments make continuation betting more of a challenge with a strong hand because you have to convince your opponent that they should be risking a piece of their life line. While you don’t want to bet so little that you fail to extract a lot of value from your hand, you can’t bet so much that you are blowing other players out of the pot. There is a fine line between a continuation bet and an excessive bet.
The optimal bet will fall somewhere in between when you are going for value. If you have a weak hand and are continuation betting it goes without saying that a small bet will be effective, but you should be making larger bets with stronger hands for the same reason. Continuation betting should always take a handful of variables into consideration, be it your opponents or your position. When you are considering the dynamics of a hand you will be better positioned to make solid continuation bets.
Double barreling is a skill in poker that has become increasingly important over the past few years. Double barreling is when a player makes a bet on the turn with a weak hand after they had done the same on the flop. The barreling part of double barreling stems from the fact that you are trying to knock, or barrel, the other player(s) out of the pot.
Many poker players know what a double barrel is and try to implement it into their game, but many of these players don’t really know what they are doing. The effectiveness of a double barrel is going to be entirely dependent upon a handful of variables. If you neglect the cards on the board, or the way your opponents are playing, you will have an incredibly difficult time pulling off successful double barrels. This doesn’t mean that double barreling is a science, it simply requires players to use some basic observational skills. If you can relate the pre flop action with the post flop action you will be on your way to understanding how to make an effective double barrel.
The next step is deciding how this action correlates with the cards on the board. These different things will help you decide whether a double barrel is a good idea, and what type of bet is going to work the best.
When you are dealt a few suited cards it is natural to envision the possibilities. Many times the suited cards won’t live up to their potential as flushes, but other times they will connect. If your hand does happen to improve it is important that you capitalize by extracting the most value possible from it. Don’t be timid if you have a strong hand. There will certainly be times where the other players will fold to your aggression, but there will also be times where they call all of your bets. Apprehensiveness is rarely rewarded in poker.
Bet sizing is one part of poker that players tend to struggle with. Some players will make their bluffs too large while other players won’t make their value bets large enough. There is no guideline to proper bet sizing as it is always dependent on a number of factors, but it is not as difficult as some players make it. If you have a strong hand your aim will be to win the most possible; this will be done through properly calculated bets and raises. A common mistake that players make when trying to win the most possible is to make small bets and raises. They fear that larger bets will cost them money if they scare the opposition away. The fact is, however, if a smaller bet is going to keep them in the hand there is a good chance that a larger one would have done the same thing.
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