A bad bluff

This is an interesting hand, which is illustrative of a principle that can save you quite a lot of heartache and chips in poker.

I am familiar with Flutterbies, but I'm not in this hand. What we've seen in this tourney is that she called a raise with TT, then pushed a flop with a T on it that looked like it might have hit the raiser. It had, and that's why she has 2.7K.

I just played Orezza and I know that he's a LAGgy type who seems able to understand what's going on most of the time. He made a couple of insane calls on the bubble though. He's been reasonably quiet in this tourney. He becomes aggressive when he has a stack; I know that much.

TEXAS_HOLDEM, NO_LIMIT, T4-66286044-27
played at "Dayton" for USD TC from 2008-04-25 21:52 until 2008-04-25 21:53
Seat 2: Flutterbies ($2,722 in chips)
Seat 3: Dr Zen ($1,525 in chips)
Seat 4: sgruno ($1,470 in chips)
Seat 5: grippenlake1 ($2,765 in chips)
Seat 6: vaktis100 ($1,710 in chips)
Seat 7: XXstevencXX ($1,365 in chips)
Seat 8: rumram ($375 in chips)
Seat 10: orezza2B ($3,068 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
Dr Zen posts blind ($25), sgruno posts blind ($50).

PRE-FLOP
grippenlake1 folds, vaktis100 calls $50, XXstevencXX folds, rumram folds, orezza2B bets $300, Flutterbies calls $300

So we note that she has called a decent raise. She's not as tight as she should be, but she has played tightly this tourney, and has not been involved much. No reason to think that Orezza doesn't have at least some sort of hand here.

Dr Zen folds, sgruno folds, vaktis100 folds.

I have rags and fold.

FLOP [board cards: 7C 8C QH ]
orezza2B checks, Flutterbies checks.

TURN [board cards: 7C 8C QH TH ]
orezza2B bets $100, Flutterbies calls $100.

RIVER [board cards: 7C 8C QH TH 8D ]
orezza2B checks, Flutterbies bets $900, orezza2B calls $900.

When they turn over their cards Orezza shows Ah7h and Flutterbies AK. She blows up at him for his call. What a donkey! But is he?

No. His call is reasonable and her bluff is not. This is why. Bluffs are stories. The story you are telling must be credible. What is Flutterbies' story here: "I have an 8 "? "I have QT and slowplayed it"? "I trapped you with J9"?

None is very credible. She's a tight player and called in the blinds. There aren't many 8s in her range. A8s maybe, but that was a big raise to call with that. And can an 8 call on the turn? If she played a straight or QT slow from fear of folding him out with a raise on the turn, why put in such a big bet now?

Basically, Orezza only needs to think "the 8 didn't improve her and she played the hand really weakly, so mostly this is a bluff" and he can call with his pair. I think I would call too in his spot, against this player.

One thing that might have tipped Flutterbies off that bluffing was not a good idea was that the guy put in such a big raise pre. This is not a sign that he's tight, and if he's not tight, he's not folding anything on the riv. The principle here is: make sure your bluff tells a credible story. What's credible varies, depending on the opponent, but if you can only really be bluffing, most villains will call.

For me the tourney ended in the money. I busted pushing A8 into Orezza. He called with 76s, which I suppose is not as bad as it could be (I had 1.3K and he had over 8K), and he turned and rivered 7s.