You can't bluff a stupid low-stakes player, but..

..you will get inappropriate calls from them more often than not, when you have the better hand.

I've taken a beating in some .10/.25 | .25/.50 ring games and I'm finding that my bigger leak has been trying to bluff (mostly semi-bluff that doesn't pan out) low-stakes players and getting called with hands you'd never expect someone to call with.

I've used this logic to have people make calls on me that were not very smart. K4 vs my KQ, etc.

It's fun to be LaGGy and aggro and push sometimes, but at the .25BB tables, it's just worthless sometimes. The value of the max buy-in is soo low that a big bet doesn't incite fear.. It's more like you are throwing yarn at someone. Yarn with a big steak on the end. They are starving mongrel carnivore squirrels who see it as a tasty meal, not a deterrent, so they BITE when you are thinking "HOW??".

Just my opinion, of course.

There's room for infrequent and good, strategic semi-bluffs at low stakes, but the LaGG maniac table image sometimes goes over like a fart in church because you don't get respect through fear, you just get a trigger-happy starving mongrel squirrel tangled in yarn and knawing at your ankles. You will step on them and sqash them, eventually, but dammit, it seems better to let them smell the bait and then be patient.

What do you think? I'm basically saying that you can do very good by just letting people bet into you / call you down / pay off your raised hands in place of most bluffing at lower stakes tables.

Funny Post and I agree..

I just wish I could practice what I preach..

i guess the higher limits you get the easier it becomes to bluff, as you get less bad players and bad players are the ones you cant bluff.

You can still bluff at 25$ tho, you just have to pick the situations. for example raise preflop to 1.5, now your the aggressor you raise pretty much any flop (pot bet) and most of the time you take it down. remember pick your situations, maniacs and loose passives are more likely to call the flop pot bet.. if they do you need to slow down if you have no hand and check/fold turn or river.

Ha ha ha.

You're right. It's not worth trying to bluff weak players, especially in low limit. The weak player cannot respect the cards you might have, he only sees his bottom or second bottom pair and thinks he is winning. So he calls.

Make your hand and let him make the mistake of calling. You will get paid off. With top pair, you have an excellent chance of getting the call, even with a medium or poor kicker, if your opponent is weak.

I agree that it is very very difficult to bluff at the lower stakes. But I agree with JonDoe that it's more about repping a strong hand and this usually can't be done with just one bet at low stakes. Even then, you probably won't chase out 50% of the players who make bad calls with their gutshot draws.

not a big deal at all, if they are willing to call a bluff bet, they are willing to call a bet when you have a hand .. wait for a hand, let them call.