The All-In Bluff

JRTS5 — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:53:53 GMT

I've had it with bluffing all-in, I've really had it.

This is a hand where I made some pretty bad mistakes a couple days ago:

300/600 blinds, 4 players left late in a STT, top two get paid, stacks are something like 2000, 9000 (me), 11500, and 17500

One person limps before me, and I look down at 78 suited connectors. I've got the button, so I decide to raise to 1500. Only the limper calls, making the pot 3900 (I'm down to a 7500 stack to his 10000).

Flop comes down a rainbow 4TQ. He checks. I go for a 1000 raise. My thinking is that if he had something on this kind of flop, he'd have bet, so I figure I could steal it here. But no, he reraises me to 3000 total.

Now, I've been playing with this guy for a long time. My read on him is that he is pretty loose and aggressive (which is why I thought he would've bet if he had something on that flop). He knows me well enough to know that I'm usually very tight and would not get myself committed unless I was feeling really good about my hand. He's also loves the check-raise if he sees typical steal situations like the blind steal or the continuation bet.

So I decided to push all in for my last 6500. I'm certain he wasn't too confident about his hand and that his raise was a purely defensive move, he's not actually raising with too powerful a hand here. Besides, the way I've been betting, he's gotta be convinced I got a beast, right?

Wrong.

He thought about it for a looong time before finally calling. He shows up QJ and wins with his queens.

Now, let's list my mistakes one by one, shall we?

1 - Raising on the button with 78 suited. A debatable move, some would say good, some would say bad. Good in that this is the part of the game where the most aggressive player often wins, and I got the button. Bad in that 78 is not particularly strong here, even if it's four handed, plus the guy limped before me, he's smart enough not to put in 600 without being prepared for a potential raise somewhere in the field.

2 - Betting 1000 on the flop. At this point, I'm starting to commit too many chips when I don't have a winning hand. I'm essentially hoping, praying either for him to fold or for me to hit something on the turn and river. It's a bad idea to do that, get your money in and pray.

3 - Raising all-in. This was by far the worst mistake. I wasn't thinking about what kinds of hands he could have that caused him to limp/call a preflop raise then check/raise me on the flop. Such action screams of at least something good. Besides, when I pushed all in, he had to call 4500 into a pot over 14000, over 3-to-1 odds. Even ace high might call that.

So how did I not see his call coming? The only answer I got is that I don't have the first freakin' clue. I consider myself pretty skilled, but these all-in bluff situations have killed me in virtually every tournament I've played in lately. I understand that if you want to bluff all-in, you gotta have some conditions first:

A - Leave yourself some outs.
B - Push all-in against tight players.
C - Try to wait until the turn and/or river before pushing.

I'm convinced by now of one of three things: I can't stop picking bad spots for the all-in bluff, I got a major tell that people pick up on, or the all-in bluff simply doesn't work.

I'm pretty sure the main reason is my poor spot-picking, but let's speculate on whether or not the all-in bluff actually works.

First of all, when you do it, you're basically hoping your opponent folds. In the absence of any real read or an ability to range his hands based on the action and board texture, such a move will rarely go your way because you won't be capable of making a good judgment on good or bad spots for it.

Second of all, is it really worth it to risk your entire tournament on this one bluff, especially if you got a decent enough stack to last a little while longer? Committing too much money on nothing is, more often than not, a bad play.

Third, even if you're semi-bluffing and have some outs, you're still gonna be behind if he has as much as a pair, or maybe even ace high. Best you could hope for is if you got 15 outs to an open ender and flush draw, which puts you in an almost coinflip situation should you go all in on the flop and he calls. So basically, you're putting yourself all-in when you're behind most of the time.

Anyway, I just wanted to get all that off my chest. Like I said, all-in bluffs are killing me and I'm convinced by now that they just don't work, that it's just a terrible play.

Convince me otherwise.

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The All-In Bluff