The flop is one of the most important streets in poker because it offers close to half of the total cards that will be added to everyone’s hands. With this much information being revealed you can and need to take advantage of it with your bluffs.
You need to make sure that you are continuation betting against your opponent on the flop especially when it’s a dry flop. Bluffing the flop is the easiest bluff to make and will make the most sense to your opponent because you haven’t given that much information at all yet.
Two kinds of flops
There are two different kinds of flops that can come out and hands reading is a great skill to have for successful bluffing at the flop or at other streets.
There are draws that aren’t likely for your opponent to have made a connection with which are called dry flops and there are flops that have lots of high cards or have a lot of available drawing opportunities.
On a wet flop you need to be much more careful about making a bluff continuation bet because there are more hand combinations that your opponent can have that they will call with. You want to bet at dry flops that have only one high card and are very unlikely for your opponent to have connected with. This is life or death with bluffing on the flop. If your bets are getting called more than they are being folded to then you should slow it down.
Bluffing on the flop in 3-bet pots can be a lot more confusing if you are a new player. Let’s say you have JJ in hand and you reraise your opponent preflop. Whenever an ace hits and your opponent doesn’t bet they are probably scared of the ace being there. This is another good situation to make a good bluff on the flop. If your opponent calls or raises, then you just let the hand go and check/fold.
A lot of times you will be up against QQ or KK in these situations. Some of the time you will be blown out of the water and your opponent will have the ace. Just be careful and know that you are making a bluff and not committing to the pot.
Reacting to bluffs on the flop
Your opponents will try to bluff on the flop just as much as you do and possibly more. You need to be prepared for this. Aggressive opponents will raise preflop and continuation bet the flop quite often where you will fold.
You need to contest this against them every so often to make sure to keep them on their toes. Your opponents will only hit the flop one third of the time which means that they will more than likely be bluffing when they bet at it. If you don’t contest them every so often, they are always going to bully you on the flop and take the pot down right on the flop. Don’t let them think that you are just some fish.
Make sure that your bluff on the flop is always thought out carefully with reasoning before you make it. Any time that you make a play without thinking about it at first the play shouldn’t have been made. If you are making a bluff for no reason it is even worse! Make sure that you are thinking before you are bluffing.
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