Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
It is good practice not to show a hand
It is good practice not to show a hand after a successful bluff unless you do not intend to bluff for the remainder of the session. And if a player does not call on the showdown, bluff or no bluff, don't show your hand. This merely gives the other players more information about your playing methods. Conversely, a player should sometimes call a hand even if he knows he is going to lose, just to gather information concerning his opponents' methods.
If you ever have had the opportunity to watch a $25,000 buy-in
If you ever have had the opportunity to watch a $25,000 buy-in table-stakes game in Las Vegas or elsewhere, you'd notice that in these games the bluff is used four or five times as often as in a $3 and $6 or a $5 and $10 limit game and twenty times as often as in a 25-cent and 50-cent game.