Post Oak Bluff

Post Oak Bluff was a term phrased in Doyle Brunson’s “Super System” poker book. This book has been deemed as one of the best books on poker and was the first book to publish many poker theories and strategies that are still used by top pros today.

The idea of the post oak bluff is to make a small bet into a large pot in a No Limit or Pot Limit poker game. This play will not work at small limits where the players are not thinking players because they will just see the great odds and call anyways. With players who think, they will become suspicious over the small bet and begin to think that the small bet represents a huge hand that is trying to get more money into a pot they can’t lose. This causes the others player to fold rather than to fall into this trap. The great thing about this play is that if the pot has $1000 and the player had bet $100, the play only has to work 1 in 10 to be successful. The success of this play depends on you convincing your opponents that you have the winning hand. If your play throughout the hand, including bets, raises and checking support what you are trying to sell then you may succeed. However if the bet does make sense to an opponent then you are not very likely to succeed. For example, you can an opponent’s raise preflop with A J and the flop hits Q 4 3 with two spades and your opponent bets the flop. You call and the turn is the 10 of hearts. You both check the turn and the river is a 3rd spade. Now you bet 1/5 of the pot. It is perfectly reasonable that you called the flop bet with a flush draw and hit the river. Now you are betting small to try to extract something out of your opponent knowing that if you bet large, you would not get paid for your flush. Your opponent might have a medium pair or even AK but will often fold.

Although Doyle Brunson makes note of the Post Oak Bluff he himself does not indorse it. He in fact considers the play a gutless play and has stated that he never uses it.