The Juicee Bluff (How to Lie to your Friends) 3 parts

Players Helping Players
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To understand bluffing, you need to understand the math in both equity and expected value. Despite some similarities, there is a difference between the two, and they often work together to help you make profitable decisions.

Equity is a percentage (0 to100%). Equity tells you how much of the pot “belongs” to you, or to put it another way, the percentage of the time you expect to win the hand on average from that point onwards…
Expected Value is a monetary value (A negative, up to all your chips, or positive of all the chips in game, (or losing all your chips to winning all the chips in play from everybody) It can be positive or negative.
EV tells you how profitable or unprofitable a certain play, (calling or betting) will be. We work out EV when we are faced with a decision. You need to know your equity to work out your expected value.
Equity is the basic raw material that you need to help you create more effective numbers to work with.

When you combine equity with the chips you could potentially win or lose after making a certain decision, you come up with your expected value.

Making good bluffs in poker is all about the mathematics. It’s all about the EV of your play.
To work out whether a bluff is going to be “a good one”, you need to try and accurately estimate how often your opponent will fold to your bluff.
As you can guess, the more knowledge and experience you have the more accurate your estimate will be.
After you have a percentage in your head, you can go ahead and work out how much you expect to win when they fold and how much you expect to lose when they call. After that you’ll be able to tell if the bluff is going to be a good one or not.

Look at it like this:
Hero (1000): A♦ K♥
Villain (1000): T♠ J♠
Board: A♠ Q♦ 4♠
Your Equity: 56%
Pot: 2000
You have 56% equity on the flop. This means that you have 56% chance of winning by the river and therefore 56% of the pot currently “belongs” to you.

Villain moves all in on the flop for 1000 (making the pot total 3000) and we have to decide whether or not to call that 1000 bet.
To work out how much we expect to win (or lose) on average every time we call, we need to work out our expected value.
You win 3000 56% of the time. 3000 x 0.56 = 1680
You lose 1000 44% of the time. 1000 x 0.44 = 440
Expected value calculation.
EV is the win, minus loss or 1680 subtract 440 / EV = +1240
Therefore, we expect to win 1240 on average every time we call the 1000 all-in from our opponent in this situation. We couldn’t have known that with just the 56% equity figure on its own.

Let’s say we have a low equity hand, but a high expected value:
Hero (1000): J♦ T♥
Villain (100): A♠ J♠
Board: A♦ Q♠ 4♠
Our Equity: .11%
Pot: 2000
Our opponent moves all-in for 100 in to the 2000 pot on this flop.
We only have 11% equity here, which is a very, very low equity share indeed. However, if we work out the EV of calling:
•We win 2200 - 11% of the time. 2100 x 0.11 = 231
•We lose 100 - 89% of the time. 100 x 0.89 = 89 EV = 142
Because the bet size is so small compared to how much we can potentially win, it’s a +EV play to call.
In general, to have low equity in a hand but for a call to be +EV, the bet must be small in relation to this size of the pot.
So Equity is a percentage & EV = Expected Value is a monetary value

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Now on to bluffing
There are two main bluffs in poker: A Pure Bluff “AKA” Stone-Cold bluff, : Your hand has little or no chance of improving.
And The semi-bluff: To bluff on one round with an inferior or drawing hand that might improve in a later round.

Without the bluff, poker would not be poker, It is the ultimate deception. One of the greatest feelings you can get from poker derives from taking down a huge pot that your opponent should have won.
You should not enter a hand with the intention of bluffing. You should only bluff if you are confident that you can win the pot based on the way your opponents have been playing up to that point in the hand.

So let’s move to position for bluffing, if unsure on position please see The Juicee Position (Why It Matters)
Position is a topic too important to ignore, as it goes hand in hand with bluffing and aggression. Thus, adding a bluffing game on top of your position game is absolutely critical. Bluffing will usually take place when you are close to the button or last to act. Because you are in the advantageous situation to see all the action before the action is on you.
The hardest part about bluffing is knowing when to really dial up the aggression and when to slam your foot on the brakes. Trying to push over an opponent with a monster hand, or standing down to an opponent with a weak hand are the two “worst” mistakes to make while bluffing, Because they’ll cost you the most money. This is why you want to try and analyze exactly what your opponents may be holding that they’re still in the hand with you.
Look at what is on the board and try to figure out what hand your opponents would call you with. Are they loose enough to call that inside straight draw or call with bottom pair? Are they predictable players that only call top pair? But most important, are they weak enough to call the flop and fold the turn? The mistake that most aggressive players make is they don’t try to understand their opponents, they just want to bully them. Your decision to continue should be a smart one, You can keep bullying if you have a good chance, but otherwise, give up. Ok. There was only one opponent left on the river. You were sure they were going to fold, so you bet it out. The first thing that goes through your head at this moment is: How on Earth did they call that?
You can actually turn this into a good spin. Now some people see that you are capable of bluffing hard, They can often think you are bluffing when you have the nuts. This adds to your arsenal. The harder you are to predict or read, the better your chances of winning or making the money are with good play.

Optimal bluffing frequency!
If a player bluffs too infrequently, observant opponents will recognize that the player is betting for value and will call with very strong hands or with drawing hands only when they are receiving favorable pot odds. If a player bluffs too frequently, observant opponents snap off their bluffs by calling or re-raising. Occasional bluffing disguises not just the hands a player is bluffing with, but also their legitimate hands that opponents may think they may be bluffing with. The optimal bluffing strategy is to bluff in such a way that the chances against your bluffing are identical to the pot odds your opponent is getting."

Optimal bluffing also requires that the bluffs must be performed in such a manner that opponents cannot tell when a player is bluffing or not.
To prevent bluffs from occurring in a predictable pattern, You may want to use a randomizing agent to determine whether to bluff.
Example: a player might use the colors of their hidden cards, the second hand on their watch, or some other unpredictable mechanism to determine whether to bluff.
Lets say I bet 1000, creating a 3000 pot, my opponent is getting 3-to-1 odds from the pot. Therefore my optimum strategy is to make the odds against my bluffing 3-to-1. Since the Villain will always bet with nut hands in this situation, I should bluff with villain’s “Weakest hand/bluffing range” 1/3 of the time in order to make the odds 3-to-1 against a bluff. Meaning I should know my opponents tendency & hand range.

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Bluffing circumstances
*Fewer opponents who must fold to the bluff.
*The bluff provides less favorable pot odds to opponents for a call.
*A scare card comes that increases the number of superior hands that the player may be perceived to have.
*The player’s betting pattern in the hand has been consistent with the superior hand they are representing with the bluff.
*The opponent’s betting pattern suggests the opponent may have a marginal hand that is vulnerable to a greater number of potential superior hands.
*The opponent’s betting pattern suggests the opponent may have a drawing hand and the bluff provides unfavorable pot odds to the opponent for chasing the draw.
*Opponents are irrationally committed to the pot
*Opponents are not sufficiently skilled and paying sufficient attention.

Other times include:

  • When in position. Hijack & Cutoff ideally, If you are in last position, you have the ability the make more successful bluffs than anywhere else on the table. If you are last to act, and your opponents have checked to you, it is a sign of weakness. This is a perfect opportunity to bet and win the pot.
  • If you raise pre-flop and then missed on the flop, you can still win the pot. If you make a continuation bet, your opponent is less likely to call unless they have hit top pair or middle pair at least.
  • Against small stacks. If your opponent has a small stack, they are unlikely to call a raise unless they have hit the flop hard. But you have to be careful, as it will be rare for a short stack to simply call when bet into, They will either fold or push.
    Again this is where practice makes perfect, and you will know when your opponent is more likely to fold than push based on their stack size.
  • When on a draw. If you do not have a made hand, but are on a draw such as a straight or a flush, you can launch what is called a semi-bluff. You hope to take the pot down right there, but if you do get called you still have a chance to win the hand if the next card(s) improve your hand. But if you get re-raised be prepared to let the hand go, unless you are receiving correct pot odds to call.

The extra advantages of bluffing in poker:
If you continually try to run bluffs against your opponents, they will try and catch you out when you bet into them because of your table image. They will start to overplay their mediocre hands when you bet and pay you off when you do have a good hand.
Players do not like to be deceived out of their chips. If you make a successful bluff against a player and show them, they may become frustrated and play worse in an attempt to get their money back. This is known as “playing on tilt”. However it is not advised to do this often as your opponent and others at the table may be out to get you, which will make the game trickier to play.

Hope this helps!!!

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OR… size up what you’ve seen the players at your table play like and GO FOR IT! lol

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Very nice EV explanation… I don’t think I have anything to add.

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Depends on table dynamics and opponents. Playing the field or certain table dynamics I often enter pots with hands that are theoretically -EV because I feel like my post flop abilities allow me to build pots pre and manufacture wins post knowing I will be bluffing a ton. If you’re at a table where you can bluff a lot profitably you should be entering as many pots as you can.

Other than that little tidbit, I like the rest of this post as well. You’re a very good writer @JuiceeLoot and you articulate the information you’re trying to get across to your readers in a clear, concise way that is easy to understand.

                                                                     Cheers, and thanks for writing.

EDIT:
3 parts… 3 likes. Very good work. I was checking out your juice anatomy… errr post, you know, your “body of work.” I am feeling inclined to go back and read them after going through this post. Thank you for putting them all in one place. That was a good idea. Cheers.

I tried to give this it’s separate reply but I had made a post about someone tagging or commenting on it so I wouldn’t miss reading this at a later time. Apparently this from the other day still counts towards my number of comments “in a row.” I tried to delete it but it still counts.

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very good examples, but juicee, there is not many people out there who is smart enough to understand all that… Like me you might be too smart for your own good…

Please tell me, were you or are you still a University Professor?

Actually please tell me you copy and pasted all that, cause even I have trouble understand all that LOL!

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