A Good Semibluff Against Different Styles of Players

[shipitfish]

A while back I posted about abusive use of the semibluff. As I mentioned, using it too often simply makes your opponents realize that when you raise on a draw-centric board, you usually have the draw and not a strong made hand.

The semibluff is however a powerful poker weapon when used with

Comments

[shipitfish]

Yes, it is key not to think the way you think on their behalf. Notice
my description how I did “research” about Pappy by listening
to other players describe his hands and what he said after them about how
and why he'd folded two pair or less. Of course, Pappy could have been
lying every time, but I got the impression he wasn't once I confirmed some
with my own eyes.

I watched Mike play many times and got into his head about how he
played, particularly with his attitudes and thoughts about draws. The
most useful datum was when he felt a draw (pair plus flush draw) was
enough for him to choose to raise rather than call. He was folding no
draws at all, but knowing which ones he thought were “raising
draws” and which were “calling draws”. He had a logic
to it, and it frankly wasn't that complicated once I'd seen hundreds of
hands with him.

But, this is something that took time to carefully develop. It sounds
like you started playing with this guys before you really started to
study, so you may have to start from scratch. Really watch them closely
and how they make decisions. Listen carefully when they talk about the
hands about why they did what they did. Ask leading questions “out
of curiosity” about why they do various things to get in their
heads.

If you want some reading material specifically tuned to this area, I
recommend The Psychology of Poker by Shoonmaker; I'm actually
reading it for the second time myself now. The book focuses just on these
topics. He talks very specifically about how to turn the subconscious
tendencies into sub-verbalized thoughts in your head so that you can
examine the thinking more carefully and find possible errors in it.

[patty_bush]

I've heard you mention that book before, I'll look into it. I'll add it to my list of books that I'm currently reading. It seems to keep getting longer.