I’m not sure how this myth is still so widely believed. Poker began as Limit, and bluffing has been part of poker since its inception. No matter what betting format you’re playing, whether it be Limit, Pot-Limit or No-Limit, bluffing always has been, and always will be, an integral part of the game.

Believe it or not, the myth that Limit isn’t conducive to betting came to be mostly thanks to Chris Moneymaker.

The Moneymaker-driven poker boom brought thousands of new players into the game, the vast majority of those stepping directly into the No-Limit forum. Until very recently in the history of poker, No-Limit Hold’em was a very rarely played game.

One of the traits of No-Limit is that it provides opportunities for an amateur to make “dark tunnel” or “donk” bluffs. At any time, an amateur can drop all their chips across the line in a bluff for the pot.

This is called a donk bluff because only donkeys make it. They have no feel for the texture of the board, no reads on their opponents, no idea of their opponents reads’ on them and no inkling of what their table image truly is.

These bluffs are often successful, simply because of the lack of attractive odds. Even if a pro feels that the amateur is bluffing, calling a $500 bet into a $35 pot just seems like a poor idea. The pro has no problem cutting their small losses and waiting for a better spot to get the money in.

In Limit, the donk bluff will almost never work. With the bluff being $10 into a $35 pot, the pro can easily call on a read that the amateur is running a bluff. The risk versus reward equation of it being a profitable call is favorable.

So the idea that you can’t bluff in Limit isn’t exactly false, but it only scratches the surface of the truth.

Bluffing at Limit requires lining up all of the elements in the poker bluff equation flawlessly. You must align the texture of the board, your image, the perception of your hand and the perception of your read on your opponents’ hand perfectly.

If any one of these elements is askew, there will be enough reasonable doubt for the player to call.

Situation: Your opponent raised pre-flop; you called on the button going to the flop heads-up. On the flop he bet and you called. On the turn he bet again and you raised him. Action is on him.

Opponent’s thought process: The texture of the board is horrible for his hand. Anyone holding a three or any pocket pair has him beat. He can’t beat anything but a bluff in this hand.

He has been playing with you for five hours and has a very good idea of how you play. He knows you’re a solid player who plays solid hands, and that you’re very tight and unlikely to be caught playing with weak holdings.

So far all the elements are lining up, but there are still a couple of things that just don’t make sense.

First of all, you called a raise pre-flop – there is no way he can put you on any hand with a three in it. Even with ace-three, chances are you fold on the flop, being as tight as you are. This means he only loses if you have a pocket pair.

Since you didn’t three-bet pre-flop he doesn’t believe you have AA, KK, QQ or JJ. So the only hands he can put you on that he loses to are 77-88-99-TT or a set.

There is a good chance you’ll raise any of those on the flop. Although he can’t be sure that he’s ahead, he is getting 6-1 on his money to make this call.

You only have to be bluffing here once out of every six times for this call to be profitable. Given his doubt, even though it’s scant, the doubt plus the odds makes calling here an easy decision for him.

If, on the other hand, you had the table image of a player playing any two cards, your opponent now has to add all two pairs and straights into your range.

In this scenario the elements are all lined up: if he calls the turn and doesn’t improve on the river, there is a chance that another bet will take it down for you.

Bluffing in Limit is a huge part of the game. It’s just a very advanced part of the game that requires a large amount of experience and skill to understand, evaluate and manipulate the elements and your opponents’ reads of them.

As a hater, the next time you’re about to say how much you hate Limit, or how Limit is just a big game of bingo, think about this and save yourself from looking like a fool.

Just say that Limit is not the game for you. There is nothing wrong with only wanting to play No-Limit; just make sure you’ve made that choice for valid reasons.

Even though Limit poker’s not as popular as it once was, it’s still very much a force in the poker world. All poker variations can be played with a Limit betting structure, whereas not all games work well played as No-Limit.

General popularity aside, Limit poker is the ideal betting structure for beginners to become acquainted with poker.

Limit is more based on math and logic than psychology, allowing players with less experience to play a more solid game from the get-go.

The most notable advantage of Limit for beginner players is the dramatically decreased rate of loss. It’s simply not possible to lose your chips as quickly in a Limit game as you can in No-Limit.

In No-Limit, your mistakes are amplified, without a concurrent boost to your results, especially if you’re a beginner.

Limit allows for a more consistent, gradual learning curve, and provides players with the ability to see and play far more hands of poker with a significantly lowered amount of risk.

Every Bet Counts

The first thing you need to understand about betting in a Fixed-Limit game is that every bet, even if it may seem insignificant, counts.

There’s a lot more to be said on this, but rather than rewriting advice available elsewhere, click through to this article which goes into the subject in depth:

• Limit Hold’em: Every Bet Counts

The Odds Are in Your Favor

The absolute worst pot odds you will ever be offered (post-flop) in a Limit game will be 2-1 on your money, and getting only 2-1 is only possible in a very specific scenario.

More often than not a player will receive 3-1 or better at any given point. The reason for this is simple:

In a $2/$4 Limit game the big blind is $2. Let’s say all players fold to the small blind, who limps. The big blind checks and we go to the flop ($4 in the pot).

The small blind bets out on the flop ($2). This gives the big blind 3-1 odds to call ($6-$2).

A player will receive 2-1 odds only if both players would have checked on the flop. In this scenario, with the small blind betting out on the turn ($4), the big blind is now looking at paying $4 for a pot of $8, or 2-1 odds.

As soon as you have more players in the hand, the odds increase. 3-1 and the rare 2-1 are the absolute worst odds you can ever get in a Limit game.

Much more than in No-Limit or even Pot-Limit, drawing is a very large part of the game in Fixed-Limit.

Since a hand such as a flush or an open-ended straight draw is in the neighborhood of 2-1 to complete (from the flop to the river), you literally always have the odds to draw to your hands on the flop.

If you went to the flop heads-up, and still only have your 8- or 9-out draw, on the turn you will no longer be getting correct odds to chase if your opponent bets. Even though you’ll still be getting 3-1 on your money, your odds of hitting your draw have dropped to as low as 6-1.

If you have a third player in the hand, on the turn you’ll be offered 4-1 or even 5-1 odds if that third player calls before you in the hand.

For a flush draw, 5-1 odds mean you’ll just about break even. If you can occasionally pick up a bet on the river, you’ll make some money in the long run.

The key concepts you should take away here are that every bet counts in Limit, and that your opponents will almost always have the odds to draw to hands.

Unlike in No-Limit, where you can make a point of trying to win every hand you play, as a Limit player you must accept the fact that many pots will be won and lost to draws – both legitimate and backdoor.

To be a winning Limit player, therefore, you must make sure that you always have the correct odds when you choose to draw, and that you charge your opponents the maximum to draw against you.

Minimize your losses, maximize your wins, and laugh your way to the bank in the long run.

True or false?: All of the decisions you make at a poker table can be made by feel, without any serious consideration for the actual numbers you face.

The answer is, absolutely false. There are a select few decisions at the table which require no consideration of odds, such as calling an all-in bet while holding the nuts on the river. Outside of plays made purely on a read of your opponent, all decisions in poker are made through an evaluation of the odds.

Even players playing by feel, who never actually make any calculations at the table, are still playing the odds. They just don’t know the numbers associated with what looks and feels like a good decision to them.

In order to use the numbers to evaluate the quality of your decisions, you need to calculate the pot odds and your equity, and then compare the two. If the odds are greater than your equity, you’re making money; if the odds are less, you’re losing money.

It doesn’t matter whether you start with the pot odds or your hand equity. Each of these numbers are independent of each other, but are completely useless until you have them both to evaluate.

In this article we’ll look at pot odds, and in part two, hand equity.

Pot Odds

Count the pot: Actually counting the pot is incredibly difficult to do once it’s grown large, especially when there are chips of multiple denominations piled together. The best idea is to keep a running count of the total pot as the hand progresses.

$2/$5 game: UTG raises to $15; folded to the cut-off, who calls. The button calls as does the small blind; the big blind folds.

What’s the pot? Trying to add it up now is a little bit of a task, whereas if you keep a running total in your head as you go, it will be much simpler.

When you’re keeping track of the pre-flop action, it helps to ignore the blinds until after they have acted; otherwise you have to subtract from your total what they already had in from the amount they called, adding the difference to your total. That’s just too much work.

If you start at UTG, it’s pretty simple: UTG raises to $15, cut-off calls ($30), button calls ($45), small blind calls ($60), big blind folds ($65).

Create a ratio: In the same scenario as above, the pre-flop raiser bets out $50. What are the pot odds to the player in the cut-off?

First, you have to add the bet to the total pot, making the total pot $115. The player must call $50 for a pot of $115. This creates your first ratio: $115-$50. Now to make things easy to work with, we want to make the right side of the ratio 1. Since I’m sure you’ve all forgotten your grade nine math:

115-50: If you want to turn the right side into a 1, you need to divide it by itself (50/50=1). What you do to one side of a ratio, you must do to the other, so 115/50 = 2.3. This makes your new ratio 2.3-1.

The cut-off’s pot odds are 2.3-1.

Here’s a trick to doing that last calculation in your head. At the table you don’t need to be exact; getting yourself close will do just fine. To divide two numbers, take out the largest possible chunk that the divisor goes into without a fraction.

We know that 100/50 = 2, and 150/50 = 3. Since 150 is larger than the number, the largest chunk we can take out is 100. We now know out first number is a 2. That just leaves us with 15 (115 – 100).

Approximately how many times does 15 go into 50? 15*3 = 45. That’s as close as we can get, since 45 is closer to 50 than 60. That gives us our second number (the remainder) of 3. Put the two together and we have: 2.3. It just so happens that in this example, the shortcut method brings the actual correct example.

Let’s say the cut-off calls. What are the pot odds to the button now?  Try to do that up in your head right now. If you’re having trouble, here’s a step-by-step numbers walk-through:

Pot = $115 + $50

Pot = $165

Odds = $165/$50

50 * 3 = 150 (first number is 3)

165 – 150 = 15

50/15 = close to 3

Odds = 3.3:1

Hopefully you caught on to the most important shortcut. Once we calculated the odds for the cut-off, and he calls, the odds to the button will be exactly better by one: 2.3 + 1= 3.3. There is no need to recalculate if a player only calls; just add one. Once another player raises, only then must you recalculate.

If what you just read has really confused you, you can check out this more basic article on the same topic. Between this one and that one, you should have odds figured out in no time.

In part two, you will learn how to evaluate hand equity, and finally how to compare the two numbers to get your result.

Ryan D’Angelo illustrated the concept of keeping your range open by discussing a hand he played during the NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event. For Part 2, he talks about another hand that he played at the same table in which this week’s concept also applied.

Hand #2

Opponent: Jacobo Fernandez
Blinds: 1,000-2,000 with a 200 ante

So how long after the first hand did the next one happen?

I would say four to five orbits, or maybe 45 minutes later. I had been raising a lot of pots obviously, playing my aggressive style and battling a bit with the guy on my left, Jacobo. I had been winning a lot of hands, but I really hadn’t been getting out of line, but they didn’t know that cause I hadn’t been showing down too much, just making some hands.

What was your history with this opponent?

I played some pots with Jacobo where I would raise and he would flat on my direct left, and I would give up. He continuation bet once, I think, and gave up. When you give up to players like that, I think they expect you to try and make a move soon, which set up my next hand perfectly.

And when I say players like him, I just mean someone whom you deem might be suspicious of you at all times and likely to just not give you credit even when you are representing a strong hand.

Hand: Jacobo Fernandez opened to 5,600 under the gun, and D’Angelo made the call from the big blind with .

What did you think once you looked down at aces?

I remember as it was folding around to me how sick of a spot this would be to look down at aces, and I just looked down at the aces. It was really freaky actually. When he raised under the gun and it folded all the way around to the big blind if I reraised, it obviously would shrink my range down from like 25 percent of hands to three percent of hands.

Obviously, when he had 170,000 at 1,000-2,000, and I covered him, I wanted to build the pot, but I just didn’t think I could get a lot of chips from a marginal hand of his unless I made it look like I’m was doing something crazy postflop. So, my plan was to call preflop, and check-raise almost any flop and play my aces kind of like they are bottom set. I call 3,200 more, and just threw the chips in like I was calling with ten-eight offsuit.

Hand: The flop comes . D’Angelo checks and Fernandez bets 11,000. D’Angelo reraises to 28,500, and Fernandez calls.

How did you pick your bet sizing?

At this point, it’s very important to take a moment and kind of set up the rest of the hand in your mind because you don’t want to bet the turn and have there be like a half pot left in his stack in relation to the pot. It’s just bad for your overall game plan. I made it 28,500 and after he calls, there’s 140,000 left in his stack and 65,000 in pot.

Hand: The turn is the . The board now reads . D’Angelo bets 38,500. Fernandez goes all in for 140,000. D’Angleo calls and shows . Fernandez shows . The river is the and D’Angelo wins the pot, increasing his stack to 475,000.

It’s a beautiful turn card. Now all I have to worry about is queens and jacks really, which I think he reraises on the flop a fair bit, so I was chillin’. He goes all-in with and I hold for what, at the time, had to be the biggest pot of the tournament so far I’d imagine.

Did he have fold equity when he shoved?

Yeah, he did for sure. I mean, if I’m value betting the turn for 38,000, I’m probably not folding to a shove. But, I could have a draw that he beats like , which I probably just check-call that flop that deep in a big tourney which is a great plan when you’re comfortable getting two bets in on a flop like that, but he doesn’t know that. I probably wouldn’t check raise because I might get three bet. Or, I would lead there. Leading is such a great play that people don’t really do enough, especially live. If you’re leading with bottom pair in a three-way raised pot on a flush draw board, you aren’t ever getting raised by an overpair and you can rep the flush if it turns. A lot of people just snap fold everything.

So to summarize our topic this week about keeping your range open, can you recap exactly what it means, and specifically, how you do it preflop?

Basically you want to keep players on their toes as much as possible. When you’re doing things with your range all the time in certain spots you can become very predictable and good players will recognize that very quickly on that. This concept is more important against players you play against all the time obviously, because patterns than need to be balanced won’t show up to noticeably over a one live tournament sample, but a good example is a three-betting range.

You don’t want to be just three-betting your good hands because it’s going to be way too easy for someone to play against that. When I raise pocket tens in middle position, and you just haven’t reraised all day and you three-bet from the small blind, I can just throw it away. Now if I’ve seen you being active and showing down three-bets with marginal hands, it’s going to be much more likely you get action when you pick up a big hand.

And another point on polarizing – when you are three-betting middle strength hands like pocket sevens and ace-jack suited, you are just going to be folding the best hand a decent portion of the time when you get four-bet. When you three-bet ten-five suited, you have no problem tossing it in the muck if they don’t fold right away. It’s very dangerous when players can start putting you on one of only a few hands in your range. It’s almost like your cards are face up, and they’re going to be able to make very good decisions.