Pop culture gives us many examples of cool casino gamblers. High profile casino management and VIP players are sometimes glamorous enough in their daily lives to outshine even their fictional Hollywood counterparts, but WSOP champions and the main characters of Goodfellas all have one thing in common: confidence.

Contrary to popular belief, this cool as a cucumber casino confidence doesn’t actually come from a gambler’s magical ability to predict the future or practice mind control. A skilled player’s confidence lies in careful observation of his circumstances and surroundings, which allow him to make well-considered decisions about his own fate based on logic, rather than emotion.

The benefits of employing this observant and level-headed approach to gaming are easy to see in
poker, for example, which combines a unique combination of the elements of chance as well as players skills and strategic awareness. In every card game, your opponents are almost constantly and unconsciously giving you clues that point directly to their intentions. These physical and verbal cues are called tells, and they are one of the most legendary aspects of casino gambling.

Playing poker online at sites like Ultimate bet Poker, of course, requires players to adapt to a new set of circumstances. In online card rooms, the most successful players are often the ones who are best able to adapt their internal lie detectors to suit online card table play. Consult online poker resources, such as the Poker.ca website, for more detailed information about online bluffing

To bluff is to bet or raise with an inferior hand, i.e. a hand that is not likely to beat the other poker hands at the table. It’s done by a player with the hope that the other players will think that he/she has a dominant hand, and fold their own hand out of fear (the bluffing player then wins the pot).

Bluffing is an important part of poker, but not everybody understands how and when it’s best to bluff. While there’s no hard and fast rule that one must bluff at a certain time or even a certain amount, there are certain times and situations in which it might be in your best interest to bluff. Typically, bluffs only work against certain people and/or in certain situations.

It is important that you don’t bluff too frequently or infrequently. If a player bluffs too frequently, other players can observe and note it as a ‘tell’, and ’snap-off’ these bluffs by calling or re-raising. If a player bluffs too infrequently, this too can be observed and noted as a ‘tell’. Occasional bluffing is a good cover not just for the hands that a player is bluffing with, but also for those legitimate strong hands that opponents may think he/she may be bluffing with.

Here’s your poker secret for the day: David Sklansky, in his book ‘The Theory of Poker’, states that, “Mathematically, the optimal bluffing strategy is to bluff in such a way that the chances against your bluffing are identical to the pot odds your opponent is getting.”