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Now that he has raised, he must beat my seven because if he didn’t he would simply call with his eight hoping that I don’t have the seven I’m representing.
Thus I will throw away my seven since he obviously has made an even better hand.” Of course, you don’t have his seven beat but you have given him credit to make this big lay down and you thus can make that particular poker play.
This is a play that comes up against tough players in all different poker games. The concept behind it being that if it is clear that you have a good hand that is worth a call yet you still raise you must have an even better hand or why bother to raise?
Your tough opponent will now throw very good hands away knowing or thinking that he knows that you couldn’t be bluffing in this spot because you have no reason to even try it. The key to this play in razz is that you have an obvious calling hand. If a J-7-6-5 bet into your
you would be less apt to bluff raise since he suspects that the king-queen may be making a desperation raise with nothing.
Only the fact that the man has an 8 showing and thus has an easy call in the previous example will convince the expert that, in fact, he is up against better than an eight.
Remember, however, that the play of raising on the end hoping to get your opponent to fold is normally only correct against expert tough players and really only then if they don’t know that you are capable of one of these plays.
It is imperative that if you do make this play and he does fold you do not show your hand or you will never be able to make it again.
The one time a raise on the end can be right against a bad player when you do not have a good hand is when you have very strong suspicious that he is poker bluffing, but your hand cannot even beat his bluff. This might occur if he has something like
and you have
and because of the way the hand was played and the cards that were out, you felt it was worth drawing to a nine and missed it and you now suspect he is betting a ten on the end as a bluff. Situations like these arise so rarely, however, as to be not really worth going into.
Getting back to the typical situation where the decision is simply whether to call or fold, you must determine whether your chances of winning the pot are better than the poker pot odds you are getting.
There are two ways that your hand could possibly be better than that of the man who has bet into you. One way would be if he is bluffing. The other way would be if he could be conceivably betting a hand for value which does not have your hand beat.
In most situations, when you call on the end you are hoping that he is bluffing. In order to make an evaluation about the chances your opponent is bluffing, you have to know your player and also know how to read hands.