Bluffing Paradox

A successful poker player has to adopt a middle-ground strategy. This means that sometimes you’ll be called when you bluffed and lose that bet. Other times you will release the best hand because an opponent successfully bluffed you out of the pot. Neither scenario is enjoyable. Just remember that making errors is inevitable when you deal with incomplete information.

One can call too often or not enough. One can bluff too often or not at all. And the only way to eliminate errors at one extreme is to commit them at the other. Very cautious players, who never call unless certain of winning, avoid calling with a lesser hand, but often relinquish a pot they would have won. Players who call all the time win just about every pot they can possibly win, but find themselves holding the short straw far too often when the hands are shown down.

The paradox is that good players make both kinds of errors some of the time to avoid being a predictable player at either end of the bluffing-calling spectrum. After all, there’s a relationship between risk and reward. If you are never caught bluffing, you are either the best bluffer in the history of poker or you are not bluffing often enough. If you are caught almost every time you bluff, you’re bluffing much too frequently. If you call all the time, you will never lose a pot you could have won, and if you seldom call, your opponents will learn that they can win by betting and driving you off the pot unless you have a very strong hand. Bluffing, after all, is much like mom’s advice: “All things in moderation.”