| Now, I know what most of you are thinking. You're saying, "C'mon, a ten has got to be coming. I mean, what are the odds of dealing 18 cards in a row with no tens?" Many people who are only casually familiar with poker assume that bluffing is the key to winning. This impression has been falsely instilled in their minds by dramatic bluffing scenes in Hollywood movies about poker. In reality, to win at poker you simply need to "have the goods" about 95% of the time. A habitual outright bluffer will usually be the first player to go broke in a real poker game because somebody will generally call him down. There is however, a blood relative of "outright bluffing" that does play a critical role in winning at poker. That relative is the "semi-bluff". A semi-bluff is when you bet or raise with a hand that you know is beaten at the moment, but isn't far behind -- and -- might still make your opponent fold even when you don't improve. By combining your chances of making the winning hand with the chances that you might bluff your opponent out, semi-bluffing often becomes a winning strategy where an outright bluff with nothing would be foolhardy. Semi-bluffing is so much better than outright bluffing because sometimes when you get caught -- you've actually made the winning hand! Here's an example of a semi-bluff that worked for me in a high limit 7-Card Stud pot in Vegas. Understand that if this was a $1-to-$5 Stud game, this play would have little chance, since most players there are strictly just playing their own cards. In games where players are trying to read what they're up against, however, everything changes. I started out with a pair of queens and a 9 kicker, and came in raising. Three players initially called my raise, but by the time we got to sixth street I had only one opponent and our boards looked like this: ME OPPONENT 9-Q / Q-J-3-10 ?-? / 3-8-8-3 As soon as a blackjack player learns all his basic strategy, he usually either progresses to card counting or stagnates right where he's at. That's because most people think there's nothing in between. Ahh, but there is! What would you do if the player next to you had a pair of 7s against a 3, but was out of money? So he asked you if you'd like to put up a bet and take one of his 7s so he could split the other. Should you do it? Or what if that same player had a $25 bet up and was dealt a total of 9 against the dealer's 7, and decided to double down for just an extra $10? Should you offer to fill in the remaining available $15? These and many other "hand interaction" opportunities come up every time you play blackjack. Yet, most players don't know what to do with them. You know why? It's because you play blackjack by rote. You stand with 12 against the dealer's 6 not because you've figured out the odds, but because somebody else has and told you the answer. But if you knew all those odds, you'd know what to do with the two hands described above. Let me show you how many ways you could gain an edge by interacting with other player's hands at the blackjack table. Following is a "Hand Interaction" quiz. Use your best blackjack card sense to answer them. The questions have been designed for the six-deck shoe, but would apply virtually the same way to hand held games. You've already seen questions #1 and #2. 3) An acquaintance next to you has blackjack against an Ace up for $50. He's the type who always takes even money and you've told him it's a bad play. So he turns to you and says, "Well then, give me $51 and you can have my hand." Should you buy it? |
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