bluffing in micro limits
From another thread:
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The problem with bluffing at micro limits is that you're only going to get players to lay down hands that are worse than yours.
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wrong. you can push people off bottom pair, second pair, top pair bad kicker (sometimes), and very rarely even more than that. but you have to know what your opponent is willing to lay down.
someday, my son, you'll understand.
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In my experience, bluffing in micro limits is a "win small, lose big" proposition because players at this level are not yet concerned with what YOU have, only what THEY have. If they get any piece of the flop (be it bottom pair, a marginal draw, or whatever) they are almost assured to call you down because poker is a game of luck to them and they want to see the hand through. And, since they play such a wide variety of hands, it's hard to put them on a hand to know if they will lay it down. You might get them to fold on the flop (if it misses them), but if they have their heart set on seeing if bottom pair will hold up, then the more money you contribute to a bluff, the more money you lose.
These days, the furthest I'll take a pure bluff is if I raise preflop with high unpaired cards and the flop misses me completely (like raising with AQo and the flop coming 369 rainbow), I'll bet and usually raise on the flop to represent a high pocket pair (although I doubt that they interpret it as such). If I get called or re-raised, that's the last penny I am putting into that pot. More often than not, I get called, and it's money lost to someone who is married to his bottom pair or marginal draw (and with enough opponents chasing draws, at least one of them will make theirs).
Sure, sometimes it works, because they missed the flop just as badly as you did. But that's not very often.
The way I see it, bluffing requires 2 key pieces of information: a somewhat defined range of cards your opponent is holding, and whether or not they will lay it down in a particular situation. Since players come and go pretty fast and you don't really have time to learn their playing styles, and they will play a wide variety of hands, you just don't have enough information to bluff at them intelligently.
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