Catching your opponent red handed when he’s bluffing has got to be one of the most satisfying things in poker. A bluff is always a high risk move which carries good rewards for the bluffer who has the temerity to drive the move home. Whenever you lose money to a bluff you look a bit like a fool: outsmarted, outplayed and left in the dust. This is exactly why it’s so great to bust a bluff: it’s like catching a daring thief.

There are several ways to keep bluffers honest. One of the most satisfying is through another bluff. Called floating, this move allows the savvy player to defeat the bluffer with his own weapons. Floating is meant to defeat the c-bet which is getting more and more popular these days. Because online games are more and more competitive, preflop aggression is more and more prevalent too. Players who fire out a preflop bet or raise, will often fire a second bullet called a continuation bet (c-bet) on the flop to show strength and thus to make the others fold to their bluff. What’s happening here is either a semi-bluff or a full on pure bluff. This is where the floater comes into the picture. He calls the bluffer’s c-bet and tags along to see the turn. This move will often plant the seeds of doubt into the bluffer’s head, so chances are he’ll just check on the turn, thus giving away the fact that he doesn’t really have anything. This show of weakness is the floater’s clue to swing into action. He makes a pot a size bet thus letting the c-bettor know he means business. The floater’s goal is always to make his opponent fold.

Although floating is generally considered a pure bluff which means the floater is not supposed to have any sort of a hand, if you want to make the most of the move you’d better make sure you have some equity in the hand on which you’re floating. You need that equity to turn the move into something of a semi-bluff, which offers you two ways to take down the pot. Plan A is always to make your opponent fold, but if plan A fails, you have a plan B on which to fall back. You don’t need an excellent drawing hand. A weak one like as gutshot straight draw will do fine.

Another way to bust a bluff is through the bluff catcher. The bluff catcher is a hand, which is not particularly strong, and which is definitely not worthy of value-betting. The bluff catcher represents the lower end of your calling range – that’s the best way to define it I suppose. That means your hand doesn’t really have any other value besides being good at catching bluffs.

The toughest thing in deploying the bluff catcher is actually recognizing the hand. The reason why it’s tough to recognize is that there’s no way to see it before the river card lands.

Like everything in poker, successful bluff catching requires that you have a knowledge of your opponent’s playing patterns (like bluffing frequency) and that you can put him on a fairly accurate range.

If you get the range part of the equation right, you’ll be able to deduce the bluffing frequency fairly accurately.

As a general rule, whatever you do at the table, make sure you do it while signed up to a rakeback deal. A deal like the full tilt rakeback or the entraction rakeback will offer you a serious long-term edge regardless of whether you are a cash game or a tournament player.

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