Bluffing is the sexiest of the poker betting actions. Except when it's plainly stupid, it is bold, daring and exciting. Aside from the adrenaline rush of winning something significant, bluffing gets the juices flowing much more than other actions, especially things like folding or calling or betting the best hand.

However, bluffing is not easy and the situation needs to be carefully selected. A smart bluff should be a mixture of craziness, daringness and also a slight bit of calculation. If your hand is weak, there are ways to set the scene to play the bluff and get away with. Poker has witnessed countless situations were a bluff has gone incredibly bad, but every now and again there is a gem, a bluff that was played so sweetly, such a masterpiece, that it can be rated with Michelangelo’s David or Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

One of these gems and of the greatest poker bluffs must surely have been played by Scotty Nguyen against Humberto Brenes. The bluff was so outrageous that it actually hurt watching it on TV. Nguyen’s off suit 8 and 3 was geared against Brenes’ ten and an ace. Nguyen played his bluff before the flop, which was ideally, when you decide to bluff, the right choice. Nguyen raised the blind to 21 000 which was raised by Brenes. Now normally, any smart player would have folded the hand however, call it an act of inspiration or a moment of pure madness, but Nguyen re-raised and laid down 100 000 dollars in chips.

Okay, the golden rule of bluffing is that if you are going to play a bluff, you need to play it confidently and make your opponent thinks you have two aces up your sleeve. Also don’t play a bluff against more than one player, there is stupid and then there is just plain stupid. Going back the Nguyen’s hand, had he merely called Brenes’ re-raise and waited for the flop, it would have ended his bluff considering that from the out set he only had a 31% shot at winning hand. Calling Brenes’ re-raise would have had two consequences, which if you are playing a bluff, you really want to avoid. Firstly, had Nguyen merely called he would have sent Brenes a ambiguous signal, it would have indicated that maybe his hand isn’t that strong, and considering that Brenes had an Ace and a Ten, he probably felt pretty confident going into the flop. A second argument is that the flop would have given Brenes the chance of strengthening his hand. Nguyen must have known that Brenes is holding a strong hand, or other wise he would not have re-raised. Therefore Nguyen knew the only way to pull off the bluff is to scare Brenes away from the Flop. Alright, to back track a bit, one needs to understand the setting. Nguyen had significantly more chips that Brenes, and therefore Brenes would have had a great deal more at stake on a re-re raise.

A player will think five or six times before committing over half his chips before he has even seen the flop and any poker player knows that no matter how strong your initial hand is, a flop can go horribly wrong! Therefore there were a number of factors playing in Nguyen’s favour to go for this bluff. Once Nguyen had played his hand he merely had to sit back slowly witness Brenes initial strong hand be taken apart by his own doubts, Nguyen threw in a few side kicks to seal his hand. Engulfed in self doubt, Brenes folded his hand. Of course, the magnitude of this bluff could not go unnoticed, and Nguyen could not help himself by showing his hand.

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