Firing blanks
In Ed Wilson's ongoing series of 7 posts on no-limit hold'em, the 5th post is titled Pull the Trigger. With that title I expected it to be a post on aggression, but it's not. It's a post on bluffing. Of course bluffing is an aggressive act, but not really what I think about when I think about pulling the trigger.
The reason, I think, goes back to the difference in his attitude and mine in the importance of picking up pots. I talked about that in a previous post. He puts a lot more emphasis on the idea of winning pots than I do. I try to focus on the money, and that's not the same thing as trying to win pots.
He outlines some of the situations where you might be able to pick up a small pot with a bluff, but he seems to think that winning the pot is the objective. I also like to try to pick up a lot of small pots without a hand, but not because I care much about winning that small pot. I like to bet a lot, and by betting a lot you tend to condition your opponents with the idea that you bet a lot and they should tend to call more with medium strength hands. By betting at the small pots (with small bets) you tend to increase the chances that they'll call you later when you make a bigger bet into a big pot.
And the opposite it true also, by not betting at the small pots you set your opponents up with the idea you don't bluff much at all and later you're set up for a big bluff into a big pot where they won't call you with a medium strength hand.
So, there are reasons to bluff at small pots, but also reasons not to. And those reasons are about other pots, not about the current pot. That's what I mean by strategic thinking, the slant I'm using in the book I'm doing (and posting here in dribbles). Ed ignores all that in his bluffin post, focusing on each hand independently of the other hands. I think that's a mistake.
The reason, I think, goes back to the difference in his attitude and mine in the importance of picking up pots. I talked about that in a previous post. He puts a lot more emphasis on the idea of winning pots than I do. I try to focus on the money, and that's not the same thing as trying to win pots.
He outlines some of the situations where you might be able to pick up a small pot with a bluff, but he seems to think that winning the pot is the objective. I also like to try to pick up a lot of small pots without a hand, but not because I care much about winning that small pot. I like to bet a lot, and by betting a lot you tend to condition your opponents with the idea that you bet a lot and they should tend to call more with medium strength hands. By betting at the small pots (with small bets) you tend to increase the chances that they'll call you later when you make a bigger bet into a big pot.
And the opposite it true also, by not betting at the small pots you set your opponents up with the idea you don't bluff much at all and later you're set up for a big bluff into a big pot where they won't call you with a medium strength hand.
So, there are reasons to bluff at small pots, but also reasons not to. And those reasons are about other pots, not about the current pot. That's what I mean by strategic thinking, the slant I'm using in the book I'm doing (and posting here in dribbles). Ed ignores all that in his bluffin post, focusing on each hand independently of the other hands. I think that's a mistake.
Labels: ed miller
posted by Gary Carson at 12:11 AM
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