Bluffing enough in tourneys?

[Kijjo]

I usually don't spend too much time thinking about these mass emails that FT sends out, but I've been thinking about this one from Brandon Adams all day. For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a high stakes cash player, so you won't see him in tourneys on TV very often.
Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker - Poker Tips: Tips From the Pros: 19th April 2010
The reasoning that he seems to be using here is something that I've never heard or considered.
I would readily admit that bluffing at big pots is something I need to upgrade in my own game. I don't get caught hardly ever and as we've all heard the pros say, "If you never get caught bluffing, you're not playing the game right." I do bluff, just not nearly as much as I think he's proposing.
In his article, Brandon uses a general guideline that if you're betting pot on a big pot bluff, your opponent is faced with 2:1 on their $ to make a call. So then his reasoning if I understand it properly, is that you should be betting as a bluff about 1/3 of the time in these kinds of situations and about 2/3 of the time, betting for value. The implication it seems would be that over the long haul you're making it too easy for your opponents to make the correct decisions by only pulling out the big bet when you've made a strong hand and leaving too many pots on the table by not bluffing a high enough frequency.
So the reason I'm posting this is threefold:
- To get your guys' take on if I understand his assertions properly.
- To get feedback on if you guys think this is appropriate - do you winning MTT players bluff at about this frequency?
- Generate some more discussion on a topic I need to stretch my own game on, late street bluffing.

[fjuanl]

If your goal is to be balanced, then you would be bluffing 1/3rd of the time when you make a potsized bet. You create a situation where the opponent can't benefit; calling and folding have the same EV. Being balanced usually isn't optimal because in almost all stakes of tourneys people call more than they should. If you know a player is going to call your bet near 100% of the time, its clearly a mistake to be bluffing this much.

I would say this is pretty irrelevant in determining who is a winning MTT player. Almost every tourney you play, you sit with unknowns who have no idea about your bluffing frequencies. No one is going to pick up on spots where you are almost never bluffing. And as they keep calling, you have nothing to worry about

[only_bridge]

As fjuanl already pointed out, this is less important in MTT's where u contantly face new opponents.
And another point is that betting for value doesnt always mean you have the absolute nuts, and bluffing doesnt mean you have the absolute nut low.

[baudib]

I think a lot of this is really vague...I mean there are all kinds of spots to pick up pots with the right bet when you don't think you have the best hand and I assume most good MTT players do this regularly.

When you cbet with A-high and get picked off, is that getting caught bluffing? Restealing is basically a bluff even if it means turning a hand like 44 into a bluff.

I assume we need to have some amount of equity vs. their flop-calling range when we bluff besides the obvious times when we plan on representing scare cards.

[Kijjo]

Thx for the comments guys. I think I'll go back to mostly ignoring these articles they send out.
I do think it's kind of ironic that they have a cash game guy writing this about MTTs. In a cash game, his logic would seem a whole lot more appropriate even though some of the things you guys have mentioned are still applicable. Coincidentally, I had 2 weeks of Poker After Dark episodes of cash games that he was in and watched them over the past few nights. Turns out, he really did pull off some sick bluffs, and many more than all but one of the other players. He showed one that tilted Hellmuth so bad I thought blood was going to shoot out of his eyes.
I've been paying more attention and I do cbet quite a bit, I semi-bluff in a lot of situations, 3bet now and then w/o the nuts, and I play push-fold like a monkey on roids when appropriate. Each of these could be seen as a second-cousin of bluffing. I guess really most of the time bluffing on the turn or river doesn't really have as much place because we're usually battling short-stackedness for quite a big of the tourney.

[drmcboy]

prefer to bluff when you can make a < pot size bet

I think you're saying bluffs are 'better' in cash games because chips lost are > than chips gained, but against people who know that bluffs work a lot more often than they will in cash games.

you play deep stacked poker in almost every MTT now on stars/FT for at least 30 minutes. And there are a lot of deeper structures that have play for much longer. And the deep pots you play layer, while rare, are going to be the most important pots you play all day.

Pick some good semi bluff hands and use them as a random trigger to become more aggressive than normal - pre, post, whenever. Floating where you would usually fold, raising where you would usually call. I doubt you will find they turn out to be bad plays.

[sk8r_daniel]

Yeah, it seems like this bluffing 1/3 of the time thing only applies if you are playing deep stacked poker against good, and aware opponents who you play with on more than one occasion.

I'm sure at the highstakes there aren't that many people, so you playing with the same people over and over.

Not to knock on Bryan Adams, but you should probably take this advice with a grain of salt

[drmcboy]

but it cuts like a knife!

God i just realized no one knows who bryan adams is.

Anyway don't get married to the numbers, it's a good concept to think about even if you won't optimally be bluffing 1/3 of the time. Look for spots you aren't EVER bluffing, decide if it makes sense, and go from there.

[sk8r_daniel]

LOL it took me 5 minutes to realise my mistake, only if it was the summer of 1969 we wouldnt even have to think about balancing our ranges!

[drmcboy]

jimmy quit, joey got married, shoulda known, we'd never get far!

[Kijjo]

I actually had his CD back in the day. I remember when I moved from Canada to the states, I was surprised they had no idea who I was talking about.