Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
2.Indiscriminate semi-bluffing against calling stations:
Any reasonably good player has learned the value of the semi-bluff. But some apply it indiscriminately. Usually these are either very aggressive players who have trouble backing down a little when they need to, aggressive poker players who have hit on semi-bluffing as a useful ploy, but have little else in their repertories.
Sometimes they are simply players who play a very formulaic game with little ability to make situational adjustments. As Sklansky points out in The Theory of Poker, profit from the semi-bluff comes from the combined possibilities that your opponent will fold immediately or, if he does not, you will make your hand on the next card. If your opponent is sure or almost sure to call, the semi-bluff is no longer profitable. (*This isn’t always true stud games. Here it can occasionally occur that a semi-bluff is correct even if you know you will be called in order to get your opponent to fold later on if you happen to catch a threatening card.)
Yet I see knowledgeable players reflexively semi-bluff into calling stations all the time. It almost comical sometimes to see a passive, wholly unskilled player unwittingly outplay a normally solid, aggressive player simply by calling. The aggressive player hangs himself in his own noose as he tries repeatedly, and futilely, to bet the passive poker player semi-bluff against a loose caller, but to do so automatically, without picking your spots, is going to cost you.
3.Semi-bluffing into a sure raise:
This is another tendency of some players who play too rigidly without adjusting to different opponents and situations. Say a player is in the big blind holding a hand like:
A tight aggressive player opens for a raise under the gun. Another aggressive player, also with reasonably tight starting standards calls in a middle position, as does an average player on the button. Now our player in the big blind decides to call.
The flop comes:
You will frequently see the player in the blind bet out with his flush draw here. As in No.2 two about, he overlooks the fact that in order for the bet to be right there must be some reasonable chance that everyone will fold to his bet. In this scenario, not only is there little chance all three opponents will fold, but there is an incredibly strong chance the bettor will be raised by one of the aggressive players, knocking out one or two players who might otherwise pay off his flush if he hits it on a subsequent round. After all, the flop contains the kinds of cards the tight, aggressive player would raise with in early position. They are also around the ranks of cards with which the other tight player would likely call a raise cold (though such a player would probably more often reraise).
Moreover, there are not really enough opponents to justify poker betting based on the multiway action you expect to get for your draw. A bettor here will probably end up heads-up, having to call a raise. By betting he is simply putting in more money as an underdog. Perhaps the main reason players who should know better still make this error is that it doesn’t feel very costly. Sometimes, of course, he wins the pot, despite his poor play.
But even while he’s still at the flop he does not really feel punished for the error because he knows he still has a reasonable chance to draw out, and so has an easy call of the raise. If you do the math, however, you will see that the cost to you for making this ill-advised semi-bluff truly lessens your hourly rate. I should note that this play can actually be correct against a different kind of opponent. If you are up against someone who is extremely “weak tight, ” then it might be the right move. That is, if your opponent is unlikely to semi-bluff raise, and will readily lay down a hand when he does not connect solidly with the flop, then the benefits of semi-bluffing yourself have increased.
Against such a player, however, you might get a free holdem card if you check and he has missed the flop. (Then you can semi-bluff the next round.)You should take this into consideration before deciding what to do.
Playing Too Many Hands-I / Playing Too Many Hands-II
Self-Weighting Cold Calls
Do You Pass the Ace-Queen Test
Conjecture on the Limits of Tell Detectability
Quick Indicators / Afterthought