Seven Stud: Bluff and Understand your opponent

Published on February 20, 2011 by kkroz · No Comments

Another thing very important in the Stud game is understand what kind of hand the other players are representing. A opponent that has Ace up and raise could represent Ace pair, but he can also bluffing it. It’s up to you understand if the player has the pair or not.

Bluff or Die

You Can only understand that, following the game and trying to understand your competitors at the table. If a player at the table with a high card up (Jack or higher) bet and another player (that seems a good player), call with a low card up, take a close look to the second player because could be that the player is dealt. To understand is better to follow this example, there is a player with Ad card up that raise, after him a player with 4c face up calls. In my opinion there is something weird in that call, so it’s possible that the second player has at least a pair or better or a good draw. If the dealer give him another club as 4th card, the player could has a pretty good hand, pay attention. If you have a medium hand try to keep the pot low, if not a good idea is to fold your hand .
It’s also very important pay attention to the other players way of betting: timing, amounts of the bets, tells and all the clues that can help you understand the strength of the hand of the players. If you see a loosing player always betting and raising, you will need a medium hand to face him, but if you face a tight layer, it could be possible the you will need a pretty good hand to compete against him.
The bluff is very important in each poker game, but the real difficulty of the bluff is to understand when it’s time to stop bluffing. It depends on 2 main things:
-The number of the players in the pot
-What kind of card the players get on the 4th street
There are plenty of example to explain that, but I guess it’s pretty easy to understand. The rare occasion when you are playing heads up in Stud, it’s easy to win a pot when your opponent get a card that doesn’t seem useful. The best thing to do is always bet, so you can understand whereyour opponent is at that moment.