Bluffing a player who is on a draw.

I decided to post this in the high stakes section since I thought it was maybe a little more relevant here.

Say I raise preflop with some hand and an opponent calls. Flop comes 3 rags with a flush draw which doesn't help my hand. Opponent checks, I bet, and opponent calls immediately, which suppose from previous hands I know usually indicates a draw. No obvious draws complete on the turn, but the question is, should you continue bluffing? The problem seems to be you expect your opponent to be willing to call reasonably-sized bets, and you risk losing a large pot if your opponent hits, or if you're wrong and your opponent has a made hand. Also a river bluff loses legitimacy if you check behind on the turn, and may get called from a wide range of hands, even if your opponent misses his primary draw. Should you simply give up in these situations? It obviously depends to a certain degree on the player's tendencies, but is one policy better than another in general, assuming a random opponent? Any ideas on this?

No, I don't think it's a good idea.

Originally Posted by dsaxton

No, I don't think it's a good idea.

Yeah, you're probably right.

It's not bluffing if you have the best hand.

And multitabling opponents will usually fold if they arn't getting the right odds to peel another off. Just pot it and win.

-'rilla

Bob ciaffone said when he was grinding it out at casinos NL for bread and butter a friend asked him what he thought was one of the most important aspect of his game was.. he replied: knowing when to fire that second barrel

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

It's not bluffing if you have the best hand.

And multitabling opponents will usually fold if they arn't getting the right odds to peel another off. Just pot it and win.

-'rilla

I was assuming I raised with something like 7 high (that is, that I actually am in fact bluffing and probably don't even have the other guy high-carded).

If you put them on a draw, I say fire rather weak on the turn and then fire again at the river if the draw misses. You kind of want the turn call if he's on a draw as he'll likely miss it and dump his hand. This way you also don't risk losing a large turn bet when the draw completes or you've misread his hand.

Originally Posted by michael1123

If you put them on a draw, I say fire rather weak on the turn and then fire again at the river if the draw misses. You kind of want the turn call if he's on a draw as he'll likely miss it and dump his hand. This way you also don't risk losing a large turn bet when the draw completes or you've misread his hand.

Yeah, I thought of that. But a drawback of making a weak turn bet is that it isn't really consistent with the kind of hand you're trying to represent (an overpair or whatever), since generally these hands are concerned with protecting the pot against drawing hands. In this way you might be inviting a decent player to play back at you.

For example, the opponent might try a line like check-call the flop, then check-raise the turn, which basically forces you to fold.

Not necessarily likely, but possible.

Are you talking about tournament or cash game play here?

We may have different ideas about what constitutes a weak bet on the turn. I'm not saying a minbet or anything. If the pot is 500 on the turn, I'm saying bet about 200. It looks like it very well could be a bet begging for a call by a big hand, and its more scary to most players than a bet of 500. Scary in the sense that they're not going to reraise at least, as a draw prefers that type of bet and will be more likely to call. They call, and the pot is 900 at the river. If the draw you have them on misses, I'd then bet about 500, if I was rather confident in my read and did not catch a pair that would beat the draw I put them on.

A bet of pot sized bet of 500 (using my example) on the flop, to me, more invites a flush draw with two overs to reraise all in if they're semi-short stacked (perhaps 1.5k more), if we're talking about tournament play, as there's more in the pot to fight for. Even if they don't, if they call, are you going to fire again on the river? Now we're talking about a pot of 1500, and needing to beat nearly 1k in chips to see if you were right about them being on a draw.

But ... it really all depends. I sometimes go with a near pot sized turn bet as well. It depends on the player, what I have them on, and how confident I am in the read.

This is difficult because there are so many factors. Are you heads up at the flop? If you've got a few callers in the hand, your op that is drawing will be getting better for his money and be more likely to call.

Also, who has the bigger stack. If I have the larger stack and think I have at least a high card over him, I'll certianly fire a continuation bet on the turn card to try and knock him out. However, if the player who is drawing has the bigger stack and you raise 200 on the turn, the weakish bet discussed above, if I'm drawing and have a pretty good chip lead over you, no question I'm reraising you here. IMO Especially if I have a good read on you and know that if you raise preflop you're going to continuation bet most of the time, I want to buy some info, and probably take down the pot without even making my hand.

Especially at higher limits I think you need to force difficult decisions on people as often as possible.

I say check the turn to confirm your suspicions that he is on a draw.

If you have position on him, I'd say go with michael's advice for the turn action. On the turn is where you'll know exactly what you're working with. If you bet 200 into the 500 dollar pot and he cold calls then a draw is likely and its much more likely for the draw not to hit. You have to fire a strong bet on the river though, as he may call down a weak river bet with a random pair he caught when missing that draw. If he reraises you on the turn, it is hardly ever a bluff and you just have to let your bluff go as you no longer have the room to represent your bluff.

i try to stay away from bluffing with draws present because it defeats the purpose if they are going to call with nothing(draw)