Semi-bluffing is your friend. In no-limit hold’em it’s hard to regularly make strong hands, so you’ve got to look at winning pots with marginal holdings, a few air bluffs and a lot of hands that you’re betting ‘on the come’. Semi-bluffing is when you bet or raise with a hand you don’t think is currently the best, but has a lot of chances to improve. The crux of semi-bluffing lies in the fact that there are actually three ways to win a pot: your opponent can fold now, you can turn or river a draw or you can turn or river a scare card and win with a bluff then.
Out of position
When playing out of position it’s often because you’ve called from the blinds with a range that includes suited connectors, suited Aces, small/medium pocket pairs and some Broadway K-Q type hands that you chose not to three-bet preflop. Out of position in a heads-up pot you should look to check-raise most tight-aggressive (TAG) and loose-aggressive (LAG) opponents a decent proportion of the time with strong hands, semi-bluffs and the occasional bluff. You can change the balance according to number of players and type. For instance, in multi-way pots you should decrease the frequency you check-raise-bluff because it’s far more likely someone has a strong holding. Also, against some opponents, such as maniacs, fish and nits, you should exploit their range correctly through solid ABC poker and reduce your semi-bluffing. Stack sizes also make a big difference. When you are-deep stacked you should be more conservative out of position and when the effective stacks are smaller you can be more willing to gamble with semi-bluffs.
For instance, after calling a three-bet with K-Q suited against a LAG player who has just 60BB behind, check-raising all-in on a flop of J-T-4 is a good play. Make sure when you check-raise that you can represent a wide range of hands, as some boards heavily polarise your holding which can make it easy for good opponents to outplay you. Phil Laak learned this lesson the hard way in the following hand against Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan.
In this example, if the board had more texture to it, something like 5h-7c-9h, Laak’s semi-bluff check-raise would elicit many more folds from durrrr because he can represent a wider range of strong hands. As it is Dwan knows that Phil’s range is basically Sixes (of which there aren’t many of in his preflop range), flush draws or an unlikely slow-played overpair. As such he calls Laak’s semi-bluff with the best hand, turns a full house and elicits a bad call from Laak when the flush comes on the river.
In position
When you’re playing in position you can be more selective about when you semi-bluff. Generally, semi-bluff raising a donk bet (when an opponent leads into you) will be the best line until you build up enough history to know what your opponent’s range is for doing this.
Let’s say you are 100 big blinds deep and open with Ks-Ts from the cutoff. You’re called by the big blind who also has 100BB. The flop is Qs-8c-5s. What should you do? It depends on your opponent and whether they are a nit, a very tough TAG, a crazy maniac LAG or a terrible weak-passive fish. Well, against all of them betting will be fine, but some of the time you should check too.
Against the nit you should check back a lot of the time as they will give away their hand strength on the turn. If they check-raise the flop it’s terrible for you because you’re rarely going to get the money into the middle in great shape and calling to try to hit the turn is a huge leak.
Versus the tough TAG you can balance betting and checking back in the same way as against the nit, but for different reasons. Generally it will be far harder to force these guys to make big mistakes so checking back adds a layer of deception to your range and can induce a bluff on the turn.
Against the maniac LAG you can definitely bet out and look to jam all-in over their check-raise because you dominate so much of their range, which includes many hands they’ll have to pass.
Against the weak-passive fish, betting to build the pot is a nice line, knowing that if you connect with a King or a spade you can extract more bets from them.
A word of warning
Be careful about semi-bluffing boards against very aggressive or crazy players where you have showdown strength and/or nut draw potential, such as A-J on a Q-T-4 rainbow flop or J-T offsuit on an 8c-9s-Ks board. In the first example you probably only get called by a better hand which means you have to fire multiple streets with your gutshot and overcard. In the second you may get check-raised by a wide range of hands which will prevent you from seeing some turns and rivers.
Firing the second barrel
As already mentioned, playing as first to act is an ugly situation to put yourself in. Your best approach is (normally) to double-barrel all your strong draws – that is, you should bet on the turn after you’ve bet the flop, even if you miss. Obviously there are exceptions, such as if the board texture has turned nasty. To take an example, let’s say you check-raised a TAG with 6c-7c on an Ac-5d-4s flop. The turn brings a second Ace, and that should be enough to stop you from firing again. Even if they haven’t got the Ace, they’ll believe you’ve got it even less now.
There are also some players you don’t want to double-barrel, such as fish who quite obviously have top pair and are not folding. Maybe you check-raised Ah-5h on a Kh-7h-2s flop and the turn is a low blank. Just check and they will often give you a free card and are unlikely to fold their top pair. Check out the following clip that shows Daniel Negreanu’s approach to double-barrelling on a semi-bluff.
Out of position on the turn
When you do hit your draw on the turn you should generally bet, especially if you complete a straight draw as your hand will be far more camouflaged than a gaudy flush. Say you’ve check-raised a double belly-buster with J-T on an 8-A-Q flop against a tight player and hit your gin Nine. Check and trap? No. Just bet again so the pot is big enough that you can move all-in on the river. When boards get coordinated the likelihood of your opponent holding a strong hand like two pair goes up. Against some players that are really out of line and do random stuff like floating check-raises, you can sometimes check the turn to feign weakness but generally this will lead to smaller pots than just slamming more bets in. Remember, you want to get money into the middle when you’re winning! That said, against tough, solid opponents with good hand-reading skills you must check the turn when you hit at least some of the time so they don’t get a long-term read on you.
In position on the turn
When you are in position and hold the betting lead from the flop you should utilise scare cards where possible, but be happy to take free cards particularly if your draw is a weak one. If you opened 6h-8h from the cutoff and your opponent check-calls a 7-9-J flop only to see a Queen on the turn then you may need to slow down. This kind of card is terrible for you to double-barrel as it fits your opponent’s flop calling range perfectly and means you will have to triple-barrel bluff the river frequently. If the turn was an Ace or King then, sure, fire again!