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Catching a bluff

This hand was played at the $100NL table at Full Tilt Poker…

I had just sat down so I had no read on the anyone at the table. It was folded to me in MP. I raised to $4 with a pair of tens. Everyone folded except for the big blind who called.

The pot was $8 and the flop came Q77 with two clubs. The BB checked to me and since I was the pre flop raiser, I fired out a pot sized bet of $8 hoping to fold him off, but unfortunately he called.

The pot was now $24. The turn card was the ten of clubs. This was the perfect card for me. He checked to me and I checked it right back. I could have bet here but I wanted him to think the flush card scared me.

If I bet now and he has something like AQ, he will fold because he is afraid of the flush. If I check, I can induce him to either bet his queen, bet if he has a flush (which I beat of course), or he may make a big bluff thinking I have AK and that is why I checked the turn.

The pot is still $24. The river is the queen of diamonds. Now that is a really bad card. If he has a queen he now has me beat. He goes all in for his last $21. I used all of my allotted time but finally decided to call for a couple reasons.

1/ I set him up to bluff me and he may well be bluffing

2/ He may be betting his flush (even though thats a bad idea on a double paired board)
3/ He’s playing a short stack. A lot of times a short stack is a sign of a bad player. This is not a huge factor is most hands, but I sometimes use it to sway me when I am teetering over a decision

So I called him and he had KTo and I took down a nice pot.

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Monday, April 5th, 2010 hand histories Comments Off on Catching a bluff