Better Players can be Bluffed

The one rule of poker that new players have a difficult time learning is that it is not a sin to lay down the winning hand after the river card is dealt.  Players who never do this are not yet as good a player as they can be or should be. Good players can be bluffed out of pots and made to lay down a winning hand.  In fact sometimes it is easier to bluff a very good player than it is to bluff the table calling station that never folds a hand.  Good players will replay the betting in their mind and come to a conclusion of whether they think they have the winning hand or not.  If the bluff was carried out right, the good player may well fold a hand that would win.

No less a player than Daniel Negreanu has stated this fact.  His idea is do not do it too often, but never become a calling station all the time.  If this becomes a tendency it will make it harder to book winning sessions.  Players that compute pot odds all the time are given a slight edge in this situation as the odds enter into their calculations about the hand they hold. [Read][more...]