Poker is a game of incomplete information, and a bluff is the purest form of it: representing a hand you don’t have and getting a better one to fold. The place to study it is High Stakes Poker, the televised cash game where the pots are large and the decisions are shown to the audience.
The stage
High Stakes Poker is a long-running televised cash game, now streamed on PokerGO. The video above is PokerGO’s compilation of the show’s best bluffs, featuring players including Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Brad Booth, Bill Klein, Lex Veldhuis, Barry Greenstein and Eli Elezra.
The bluffs people argue about
- Brad Booth against Phil Ivey. Ivey folded the best hand to Booth’s bluff, which many fans rank as the most memorable bluff in the show’s history.
- Tom Dwan, Season 5. Dwan’s pressure forced Barry Greenstein and Peter Eastgate off their hands, and some call it the greatest bluff ever televised.
- Phil Ivey against Lex Veldhuis, Season 6. Ivey’s bluff reportedly took down a $256,000 pot.
- Sameh Elamawy against Humboldt Mike, Season 13. An $800,000 bluff from a recent season, pulled off over multiple streets.
What makes a bluff great
It isn’t the size of the pot. A great bluff tells a believable story from the first bet to the last, and it works on a player skilled enough to know better. The best ones make the audience realize, only at the reveal, what was really on the line.
Which is the greatest?
There’s no official answer, and the argument is half the fun. Watch the compilation and make your own call.