Playing the player (part 2)

Another simple exercise to try in the quest to truly master playing your opponents rather than just your cards once again involves playing blind. This time just call any mid-position raise on the button, and then however the flop comes, call the continuation bet. Your objective here is to try to establish a tight range of cards that the other player holds and then try and get them off the hand.

Below is a prime example of just how to pull off this move…

Flop - Jh 5h 4s - Villain continuation bets, you smooth call
In this situation you are now looking for the next card to be any card that fills up a draw, such as any heart, or an 8 or 3 to represent the filled draw on the turn.

Turn - 8 of hearts, Villain checks and you lead out 2/3 pot, the villain then calls
The perfect card has hit the flop, whether you actually needed it or not, and you can successfully represent either the straight with 6,7, or the flush with any two hearts.  The villain has called, but this is a good thing, as long as another heart does not appear. He could now be drawing to the higher flush and needing to draw a heart on the river, or maybe he has top pair or overpair and does not want to lose too much in the pot by betting again out of position. Either way he is weak, as he would have (90% of the time) check raised, or led out again on the turn if he made a straight/flush or thought his hand was strong enough to go to show down.

River - 2 of spades, Villain checks again and once again you bet 2/3rd pot, this leads the villain to eventually folds after much deliberation.
The perfect river has fallen for us to bluff again, whether we have the hand or not, we just don't know (as we haven’t looked at our cards), but the other player has shown so much weakness on the turn and river, that it is very unlikely that he has a hand strong enough that he will think is good on the river. On this sort of play the villain will fold 80% of the time – meaning you win the pot without even looking at your hand.

It’s important to remember not to go overboard on your bluffs here, and do not constantly play without looking at your cards, as you will look extremely dumb when you are looked up every time holding hands like 9,3 off suit. What you should do is pick 1 hand in 10 to not look at your cards, and then try the tactic.

Remember, the art of bluffing is that it must make sense, if your betting line does not make sense then you will be looked up more, so do not just randomly start raising until your heart’s content - make sure you are only bluffing when scare cards hit the board and imagine you have the hand you are trying to represent!

James 'james666' Sudworth is a part of the Team PKR Pro group of poker players who recently represented PKR at the 2009 WSOP. To find out more about him and to read more articles written by James, please click here

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