Daniel Negreanu Give Up A Bluff

Tying to decide whether an opponent is betting a big hand or trying to run a bluff, you should know how likely he is to fire that one last bet at the pot.

In bluffing, you need to find out how far youre willing to go to try to convince your opponent that you have the nuts, hoping hell fold based on the range of hands that youve put him on. Your instincts play a part in this situation, but in todays hand between top pros Daniel Negreanu and Barry Greenstein.

At the $25,000 World Poker Tour Championship at Las Vegas Bellagio in 2009, with blinds at $100-$200 plus a $25 ante, Daniel Negreanu open-raised to $475 from early-middle position with pocket 7 and Greenstein re-raised to $2,000.

Negreanu, who won on the WPT circuit and at the World Series of Poker thought he has a big hand because he wasn't doing a lot of that. Negreanu called, and the flop came 9-4-3, two hearts. Negreanu checked. Greenstein, a legendary cash-game player who also has won WPT and WSOP events, bet $3,000.

After that, Negreanu thought that he has an overpair. He is confident that Greenstein has a big pair based on his bet size.

Negreanu figured out that are a lot of hands he can represent at the flop. He thought Greenstein can represent a set and see what happens if a flush card comes off. So Negeanu made it $8,500 and Gereenstein called.

The turn came the 10 of hearts, completing a potential flush.

Negreanu said that he knew that if Greenstein has an oveyesrpair without a heart -- say he has two aces that were black -- he would fold to a bet. So, Negreanu bet $12,500 and he called. When he called, he was sure that he had aces or kings with a big heart.

When the river came a blank, Negreanu had to decide whether to continue the bluff or save his chips. He decided to give it up and checked.

Negreanu said he probably has the ace of hearts or king of hearts, its hard to represent a hand that's big enough because he has a key card and its hard to represent the nuts when you know your opponent has one of the cards.

Greenstein checked behind Negreanu and flipped over pocket aces with the ace of hearts to take the pot.

Negreanu said that the plan was so good. You can't focus on just the result. As it turned out, he had to have exactly that type of hand, and he did. It doesn't make my play wrong. You just have to know when to abort mission.