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Bluffing Your Way to a Poker Win

Bluffing, when to bluff and when not to bluff is often a decision that all poker players will need to make. A player's personality is often involved in this decision process. Some players actually would rather win a hand by bluffing than to win outright with the better hand. No one wants to be bluffed because it ultimately means ooops someone just got fooled into losing a hand because they folded when actually they had the winning hand. Sort of like losing face!

The decision to bluff sometimes can harm a player more than just folding and waiting for a better hand. There seems to be lots of bluffing throughout a hand until a obvious winner is determined either before the hand is completed are at the actual end of the hand. If there are several rounds of betting like in seven card stud or Texas hold them there is most likely a bluff going on from one or more player who is sticking around to see the next card that is turned up.

When a player is bluffing their ultimate goal will to be winning the pot however, the cards showing need to be an indicator if they really do have that winning combination or maybe they have that winning combination. This will then force the other players to drop out so the individual with actually the inferior hand wins the pot. To bluff one needs to make the others fold.

A bluff can also be a bluff of the amount of money that is in the pot. A player that matches the pot is often bluffing their hand but using the size of the pot to scare the other players into folding. The players that fold because of the large bet have let the size of the bet determine their folding and not the cards. In other words they are playing their hand according to the pot and not according to the cards.

This is because they are not sure they will win but fear matching the pot more than having a losing hand. When they are confronted with the decision to come up with a large amount of funds based on a maybe winning hand they will often fold a winning hand because they feared losing the large amount of money more than risking winning.

Often a card will be turned up and the person wanting to bluff will have an indicator of having a superior hand based on that one card being turned up and the immediate large bet based on that one card. If the opposing players do not have a real strong hand they will more than likely fold thus the bluffing player has won the hand without actually having a winner.

So who has that poker face? Who has the real winning hand? Who is really bluffing or not? Well, believe it or not there is bluffing constantly going on but, when the final card or decision is made who really knows, only the bluffer knows for sure.