The 'Book of Bluffs' lays out 12 'Buffing Proverbs' that touch on key bluffing concepts. They really provide a solid, theorectical foundation for successful bluffing. It's a good read ....... I really recomment the book.

Proverb #8 says that a good bluff tells a story that the victim believes & understands. This is all too true!! The last thing you want to do is trigger someone's calling instincts by creating confusion, because that leads to curiousity which can very quickly bring about a call that you don't invite.

I agree with the wabbit, I think it's a mistake to directly equate the ability to pull off bluffs or not to the stakes you are playing. It's the players, not the stakes. It just so happens that as you move up in stakes there are more "solid" players that are bluffable/capable of laying down the best hand.

I routinely pick the right spots and right players to bluff in the $1/2 B&M NL game that I play in. And yet, I constantly hear other otherwise decent players talking about how 'there's no bluffing in this game'. How wrong they are. Ironically, these guys are some of the easier ones to bluff.

Table image is so, so important; I'm learning that more and more every time I play. If you are not running well, or your image says 'this guy's struggling', your bluffing success rate will go WAY down. If you have a massive stack that says 'I'm winning, and therefore I must be solid" to your opponents, bluffing is definitely easier to pull off (of course, that's not just your image at work, but your table image plays a larger psychological role than I had originally thought for sure)

I also find calling down bluffs to be harder than pulling them off. Finding inconsistencies between the action and the hand or hands being represented is one general bluff catching concept ..... anyone know of others that they care the share? Back when I was playing more limit, I seemed to be able to call down bluffs more often, but the implied threat of betting on later streets in NL, has made calling down bluffs a small to non-existent part of my game. Which on the whole is fine at the stakes I play since the other players aren't bluffing very often, and when they do it's as obvious as hell. I'm talking about more subtle situations, like holding 77 and calling down a KQo bluff on an Ace-high board. That's really hard to do in NL and would love to hear some sage advice from you master bluff catchers out there.