Pure Bluffs: Floating and Probe Bets

There are two basic types of bluffs: the semi-bluff - essentially, betting with some outs, and the pure bluff - betting with almost no outs, but rather playing the situation and your read on the opposition.
Of course, there are variations of each of these. Some are fairly routine and some far more subtle. The options available to you, as well as the techniques you can employ, will vary depending on whether you have position and on the number of opponents involved in the pot.
The amount of pressure you can apply with a bluff (of either variety) also depends, to a certain extent, on your position. Bluffs made in position tend to be more intimidating than their counterparts because your opponent knows he'll have to act first on the next street as well.
In today's article, we'll take a closer look at two examples of a pure bluff.

Floating

For most poker marked cards players, nothing feels better than executing a pure bluff - reading an opponent correctly, having the courage to act on that read and then dragging the pot as your opponent lays down his hand.
In today's game, the most common example of a pure bluff is the increasingly popular "float" maneuver. Essentially, "floating" involves calling your opponent with nothing, with the intention of taking the pot away from him if he shows weakness on a later street. Typically, this move is attempted when you have position against a single opponent who has raised pre-flop.
After raising pre-flop, most players make a standard continuation bet on the flop - whether they've improved their hand or not. However, comparatively few players are willing (or capable) of firing a second bullet (on the turn) without a real hand. Against opponents such as these, floating the flop can be very profitable.
To execute this move, simply call the continuation bet on the flop (independent of the strength of your hand - this is a pure bluff, remember!) and wait for your opponent to act on the turn.

Obrestad: Whatever you put me on here, - you're wrong.

The typical player tends to abandon the pot (checking and folding to a bet) if they've missed the flop, made a continuation bet and been called. They simply don't fire a second bullet often enough. This weakness is exploitable trick cards. Float the flop; then simply bet the turn if your opponent checks and fold (if you haven't got a hand) if he bets.
Clearly, as the above betting pattern illustrates, position is an important component of the typical float play. The basic idea is to force your opponent to reveal the true strength of his hand on the turn and then act accordingly based on this information. This is easier to do when you have position.
Of course, you can float from out of position too, but it's far less common and somewhat riskier to do so. When you're out of position, a typical float play involves calling the pre-flop raise, check-calling the flop, then either leading out on the turn or attempting a check-raise bluff.
Attempting a check-raise bluff on the turn requires a much larger commitment (in terms of chips) and is consequently a significantly riskier maneuver. Very few players have the ability to attempt this type of bluff.

Probe Bets

Another good example of a pure bluff is the probe bet. It's an underutilized tool in most players' repertoires. A probe bet is a bet by a player out of position, usually by the first player to act after the flop. Because, as a general rule, most flops miss most hands, probe bets are a means by which the player acting first (or the first player to bet in a three- or four-way pot) can capitalize on this fact and attempt to steal the pot.

Jacob: You are beginning to feel the effects of my probe bets.

Essentially, the basic concept behind the probe bet is to simply take a stab at the pot when you think the flop may have missed your opponents. This is done by making a small bet - usually around a quarter or a third the size of the pot. If you bet only a small percentage of the size of the pot, your probe bet doesn't have to be successful very often in order to show a profit.
A probe bet can be used in both raised and unraised pots and is a common tournament technique in both multi-tables and sit-and-gos. However, in cash games, you'll often need to bet slightly more - perhaps around half to two-thirds of the pot - in order to successfully steal the pot.
The key to profitably wielding the probe bet is to use it in the right situations. Knowing when a flop has likely missed an opponent is difficult, but careful observation can give some insights into the types of hands they're likely to raise (or limp) with. Often, flops with either all low cards or low cards and an ace are good opportunities to attempt a probe bluff.
In the next article in this series, we'll take a closer look at some other common bluffs.

Don't Let Imitation Compromise Your Game

There's a time and a place for emulating your poker-player heroes, but take it too far at the table and you could be harming your chances of winning. Why do people do it?
We Homo sapiens are an imitative species. A trip to the zoo will reveal that we share this tendency with our closest relatives (as in "monkey see, monkey do"). Infants imitate others as soon as they can; three-day-olds will stick out their tongues if they see an adult do it.
A huge amount of what we learn comes from observing others and, as we grow and mature, our role models become touchstones for our own developing selves. We like movies and television and love to imagine ourselves as our heroes; we want to be like that dude up there on screen.
But imitation has limitations. It works best when learning something new. It helps you get started because you focus on the important stuff and there is less to learn on your own. But if you hope to become an expert, you must leave off copying others and develop your own skills --- and this brings us to poker.
The poker landscape has undergone seismic changes in just a few years, much of it due to TV. The exposure has created stars. Guys who, a couple of years ago, were crawling the dusty roads from one underground game to another now have agents, personal trainers and their own Web sites.
Twenty-somethings who were sitting in front of their computers in their tighty whities eking out gas money in $1/$2 games are now tooling around in Porsches. This is great and I wish them the very best - and I hope they're doing the right thing for their futures, 'cause it's real tough to stay in the limelight for long.

The Skeletor outfit: Really overrated as an instrument of doom.

Of course, as most realize, watching poker on TV isn't really watching poker played marked cards on TV. It's an edited show. Compelling scenes have been selected; the dross has landed on the metaphoric cutting room floor. It is entertainment.
It has to be. It has to sell advertising time and it has to draw an audience. It has done both, more than anyone (including the producers) ever imagined. But it is not poker, not really - although some shows, like High Stakes Poker, get close.
Poker, according to the late, great Jack Straus, is "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror." Boredom don't sell beer.
These stars have become role models and, predictably, have spawned legions of imitators, players who seem to think they gain something by acting like their heroes. They don't. They look like bozos and it hurts their game.
When good players see this kind of posturing, they work to unpack the offender's game. They aren't impressed; they just think you're a bad joke. Here are three of the worst. If you see yourself below, do yourself and the rest of us a favor: stop it.
Hollywooding
We've all watched Sammy Farha "contemplate" a big bet by counting out his chips, stacking and restacking them, riffling them over and over, counting them again, flipping them, stacking... gag!
Of course, then he folds. There are reasons for this act. It has a touch of drama. Sammy and the unlit cigarette stay on camera and it has secondary gain in that it annoys opponents who are likely to tilt.
I'm tired of Sammy's act but I understand it. But I've had it with kids imitating it in my game. There is no camera my friends, no air time and no agents will be calling. You're wasting everyone's time and you're not gaining an edge on me. I have labeled you a "bozo" and I like to play with bozos.
And, while you're at, stop tying to dress like Phil Laak. Dump the hoodie.
The Stare
Phil Hilm got himself a lot of TV exposure during last year's WSOP finals. I suspect he's a decent enough luminous contactlenses player (he apparently has done well in European events), although his meltdown at the final table was stunning.
But no matter. The fascination with Hilm was "The Stare." Every time he had to act he would turn and rivet his opponent with an icy, focused glare. Like Sammy's Hollywood gambit, it got him air time.
Hilm's stare isn't anything new, of course. His was just the most recent and one of the more penetrating of the genre. But these peering, leering, staring, glaring clowns keep showing up in my games.

The Stare, far from gaining you chips, is actually a tell.

If you've become a practitioner of The Stare, here are some things to know. First, as noted in an earlier piece of mine, few if any tells are picked up this way. Tells are garnered from patterns of betting, talking and larger physical bodily actions.
Second, staring this way is a tell. It usually reflects uncertainty.
Third, I think it's funny and I have taken to snickering when opponents do it.
And, while contemplating this, please dump the shades. If you haven't noticed, many pros who wear them take them off in critical moments when they need to get all the information they can. I watched a poseur with aviators get stacked when he misread the board. The glasses went into his pocket on the very next hand.
Hand Reading
I love watching Daniel Negreanu smile, lean forward and say something like, "Man, you called with J-9o and hit that second pair." And, of course, because we know the hole cards, we see that he was exactly right. In fact, the commentators often remark about Daniel's seemingly occult hand reading skills.
Daniel is good at this, among the best. It is an important element in his success. But, keep in mind that the show you are watching is edited and a dead-on read like this is a "TV moment." Missed reads aren't.
Hand reading has a lot in common with picking up tells. It's based on detecting patterns over time. It is also not aimed at putting an opponent on a specific hand, although occasionally that is possible.
Hand reading begins with educated guesses about a range of hands an opponent could be holding and, as more information becomes available, progresses to a gradual narrowing of that range. When you know precisely what an opponent has, your grandma knows too.
Take-home message: Imitation is, indeed, a sincere form of flattery. It helps develop skills, and picking the right role model can be critical in the life choices we make.
But to really excel in anything we must go beyond emulating others. Find your own way. Stop the Hollywood gambit, dump The Stare and don't make a dunce out of yourself telling me I'm playing A-Js when I'm on a stone-cold bluff.