how many bets are saved by giving up on bluffs?

[dankhank]

so i've been wondering lately about how often i give up on bluffs and semi-bluffs, and if i do it too much. oftentimes in a full ring game i'll find myself on the river, sitting there with AT or whatever, facing a dry board and a BB who has called all my bets so far and checked to me on the river. if i bet and get him to fold then i'll win a 5BB pot, but if he calls me (which i fully expect him too....because people usually call let's face it) then i've blown off yet another precious BB. a full 100 hands of effort.

i really have a hard time evaluating when 5BBs are worth a 1BB risk in these spots. because first of all you don't know what your opponent has (bottom pair for example), second of all you don't know how much respect they give you, and thirdly you don't know if they're going to call you with bottom pair or not. some players will call you if they're in a certain mood, and not call in others. it is just a big mystery when i throw that last bet in there, and a lot of times i check behind instead, get shown garbage, and wonder if i could've pushed them off.

so i'm wondering what other people are thinking when they're in this spot, or in a similar spot on the turn. usually i'm thinking "man this guy is an idiot with trash but he's going to call me anyway....so don't just give away a BB like that champ."

what i dream of being able to think is, "well this guy knows for a fact that when i bet on the river i'm strong, so therefore i can bluff here with impunity." but i don't know how to adjust my style and mainpulate the metagame to get to that point. wondering how others approach the subject.