In The Art of War, Sun Tsu says, “When weak, appear strong”. In general , this is a good way to look at the game of poker, but not all the time; knowing when and how to bluff is often more important than actually bluffing. One thing that experienced poker players know is that bluffing should be a tool in your poker arsenal to be used on occasion, rather than every hand.
The best time to bluff is when you believe that your opponent is weak and unlikely to call your bet. If you can build and take down the pot without ever having to show your cards to your opponent, you are in a good situation to run a bluff.
That said, avoid bluffing early in a game. If your opponents are able to read your bluff and take you down in the beginning, they will be less likely to respect your position as a player to be feared. Once their fear is gone, it’s certainly not an easy thing to build again, so save bluffing for late in the game, and minimize your losses by folding more hands than bluffing to try to win more.
Once you’ve decided to bluff, don’t’ hesitate. In order for a bluff to work, the other players must believe that you have the hand you’re pretending to have. Thus, if you want to bluff a pair of Queens, you must act just as you would if you actually had a pair of queens. This is best achieved by minimizing the variance in your game. If you look like you’re playing every hand by the same rules, your opponents will be less likely to be able to read your bluffs and your straight plays when they occur.
The most important thing to remember about bluffing a hand is that its more about psychology than cards. The object of a bluff is, as Sun Tsu would argue, to show strength and convince your opponent that they are holding a losing hand. If you can get into an opponent’s head, then you’re golden.