How to Bluff Weak Players

“Bad players can’t be bluffed! They will call with anything!” – A Poker Player

Bluffing in poker is defined as betting (or raising) in a situation where you think better hands will fold to your aggressive action.

This article is about bluffing the weak. Now, as learning players start exploring bluffing, they will learn things like representing a hand. For example, pretending you have pocket aces, and betting your hand as you would if that’s what you actually held. Or bluffing when the flush card hits the board, saying through your action, “I made a flush”, to your opponent.

The Art of Telling a Story

The principles of telling a perfect, consistent story are key when playing against skilled opponents who approach poker with a Game Theory Optimal (GTO) mindset – they are looking for balance and consistency. However, against weaker, less thoughtful players, we shift to an exploitative strategy. Our goal is not to be balanced; our goal is simply to exploit their predictable weaknesses.

When is a Bluff Credible?

In other words, when you lead out on the river flush card with the intent of representing that you’ve just made a flush, are your prior actions consistent with that holding? Would your opponent expect you to have taken the actions you did on prior streets with a flush draw? If the actions are consistent with this type of holding throughout the hand, then you’re telling a good, sound story. A believable story. It’s easy for your opponent to buy what you’re selling because it makes sense to them. This idea is really the underlying principle behind the advice that one way to run a good bluff is to pick a hand from the start you’d like to represent and pretend that’s what you actually hold, taking all actions accordingly. In doing so, you will tend to be telling a good story and not fall into the trap of a story that doesn’t make sense. Because when the story doesn’t make sense, good listeners (or good hand readers) are more likely to sniff it out and call your bluff.

Why Weak Players Pose a Different Challenge?

“Wait a minute,” you say, “I understand that, but this article is about bluffing weak players, and weak players aren’t listening, are they?” Ah yes, indeed… poor players are also poor listeners. They typically don’t hear the message, making bad reads or entertaining thoughts about the hand that don’t make good poker sense. Some aren’t listening at all; they’re simply playing their own cards without a second thought about what you might hold.

“Exactly! That’s why they can’t be bluffed!”

Wait a minute. I didn’t say that exactly. They can, in fact, be bluffed.

When the ‘Good Story’ Theory Fails

It’s true; everything discussed above doesn’t really apply well to bad players. Your “story”, no matter how brilliantly conceived and executed, doesn’t do you much good if it’s falling on deaf ears. That being said, bad players do fold sometimes, right? There is no player who goes to showdown every single hand… even the loosest players fold. And while the craziest of loose opponents don’t make good bluff targets (value bet those types consistently instead), most bad players aren’t quite that loose.

The Key to Success: Bluffing Weak Ranges

So, when do they actually fold? Well, logically, when their hand is weak. The weaker it is, the more likely they are to fold to a bet. And that is the key to having success bluffing weak players: apply pressure on them when their range is weak.

What Makes a Weak Player’s Range Weak?

The answer often lies in their passive, capped line. They play with wide ranges preflop (they call too much), but post-flop, they love to check-call with marginal holdings. When a weak player check-calls on the flop, check-calls on the turn, and then checks the river, their range is generally composed of weak pairs or busted draws. They are trying to get to showdown cheaply, and they are highly susceptible to pressure on that final street.

A Practical Example of Bluffing a Weak Range

Let’s look at a common situation that shows how bluffing weak players works when their range is weak – even though they don’t really “listen to the story.”

You’re on the button and open with Q♠ J♥ . A weak player defends their big blind. The flop comes 2♣ 4♦ 8♠ . He checks, you make a small continuation bet, he calls. At this point, his range consists mostly of weak pairs like 2x, 4x and some 8x, some straight draws like 53, 65, 67, and a handful of random floats such as A♣ 7♦ and some backdoor flushdraws.

The turn is the 10♣ . He checks again, you fire a second barrel, and he calls once more. His range is still capped and fragile – a lot of one-pair hands, missed straight draws, and a few backdoor flush draws that picked up equity. Weak players rarely slow-play, so he’ll rarely have a very strong holding. If he had something big, you’d usually know already.

The river brings the K♦ . He checks for the third time. This is an excellent card for you: it’s another overcard to most of his pairs, it completes none of his common draws, and it’s a card that hits your perceived button opening range extremely well. You fire a third barrel, and he folds.

So What Did He Likely Fold?

Mostly busted straight draws and weak pairs like 2x or 4x. Some players will even let go of their 8x here. The key point is that he didn’t fold because your story was perfect; he folded because his hand was simply weak. Weak players still fold weak holdings – you just pressured a capped, vulnerable range on the right board texture.

The way to improve on this is to improve your ranging skills, so as to better identify when your weak opponent has a weak range. There are a couple of important points to consider however:

Three Crucial Considerations when Bluffing Weaker Opponents

• The definition of a bluff still holds true: Remember, we must think better hands will fold to our action. If we are betting against a weak range that means our holding must be weaker. Taking a hand like A♣ 10♦ on a K♦ 10♥ 8♠ 4♥ 4♣ board and raising a bad player on the river to “turn our hand into a bluff” isn’t a good idea… a bad player isn’t folding a king, and we beat all of his worse hands anyway.

• The story consistency doesn’t matter (as much): Our action may not make sense in terms of a good story, but that’s OK. Against the player who is mostly just playing their own cards, attacking their weak ranges is the key. We benefit from their not listening by not having to be too concerned with the consistency of the story we’re telling. Save the concerns about “our raise isn’t repping anything” for the opponents who are showing some measure of skill at ranging us.
• You need to play the player: Obviously you need to take into account that certain players tend to skew towards somewhat flexible archetypes. If someone makes a call with a hand where you would expect the pool fold the vast majority of the time it’s important to take notes and adjust your game plan accordingly against that player next time.

When to Choose to Bluff

Bluffing bad players shouldn’t be done frequently, because it’s simply not necessary to hold over them with a big edge. In many cases against bad players, we can simply value bet them when we have strong hands and not put money in the pot when we don’t. But if we’re going to look towards expanding that edge by identifying potentially good bluff spots, this is the way to look at it. Because, contrary to popular opinion, bad players can in fact be bluffed… as long as you’re picking the right spots. Spots where they don’t have much, but you have even less yourself.

So, the true meaning of this article’s title is about bluffing weak ranges, which should make sense to you… there’s no profitability in trying to make people fold strong hands. It also happens to be the only real way to effectively bluff your weak opponents, where the best spun tale of strength is negated by their lack of ability to decipher the message.

Summary

• When you bluff players, you bluff ranges. Weak players will have weak ranges.
• Pick the right spots. Bluff when their likely holdings are weak. Don’t bluff against players who are capable of calling with weak hands.
• Value betting is king. Bluff sparingly; your edge comes mainly from betting good hands.