Under the right circumstances, bluffing is a very important weapon. Without bluffing from time to time you risk coming across as too predictable and too easy to read. If you want to win serious money in the longer then you should occasionally place a well-timed bluff. However, that is also a great number of other things that you remember.

First of all you can never be quite sure about who you are facing. An important rule is to never bluff against weak players. They tend to call all your actions, which makes bluffing pointless. It is therefore imperative that you know how to read your opponents, but you should realize that they want to get to know you as well. If you are known as the ‘always bluffing players’ then you will not be taken seriously.

The bigger the price pool, the harder it is to bluff. Try to estimate if a bluff will win you money in the longer term. Collection information is vital and if you are in a later position, then you have the opportunity to learn more about your opponent’s hands.

Las Vegas is sadly lagging behind Macau as the Casino Capital of the World, the figures point at this as being to the tune of four to one, in other words for ever four dollars spent in Macau, only one is spent in Las Vegas. The high rolling baccarat salons of Las Vegas are also a thing of the past according to experts and now Macau is getting big poker business in what is described as “Nosebleed” games. The allusion to nosebleed meaning high altitude, in other words massive stakes and prize pot poker!

By comparison Las Vegas high stakes poker is dwarfed and blinds as high as HK$50k/$100k have been reported. This is approximately $6,500/$13,000 and these incredible sized blinds are featured in the most expensive (anywhere) no-limit poker. The popularity of poker has skyrocketed in Asia and Macau in particular, in the past two years, where specific “Nosebleed” tournaments are organized to cater for both local poker fans and visiting businessmen.

The most recent activity with games in these stakes was the Asian Poker Tour Macau tournament and obviously high stakes competition like this is attracting the big guns in poker. These are by no means friendly games with so much money at stake and talent in the form of John Juanda, Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey have been taking shots in heads up action against businessmen. There are millions of dollars on the line in play which is loose, undisciplined and enormously enticing however, there are some considerations which have to be made.

First off these poker games are considered to be semi-private so the participation of professionals has been limited. These are local games and the locals don’t want foreign professionals dominating their game. The rake is also much higher than players from Las Vegas are used to. Well look at the stakes, one would expect that the rake would be high in accordance with the size of the prize pots. If you think about it, pundits are saying that Macau is turning over 4 to 1 of what Las Vegas numbers are and they are also saying the rake in these games is as high as 4 -5 times that of Las Vegas; this does not appear to be a coincidence does it?

Local players are extremely familiar with the rules and standards of good poker play, so pros going in thinking they are going to be shooting fish in a barrel had better think again. First they have to get into a game, and it is a pretty closed shop, then they are playing against an unknown quantity, which is also not such a great idea and because of the nature of the games and the fact that they are semi-private, they tend to move around from casino to casino. For the time being however if you fancy a game of poker with supremely high stakes, the best thing to do would be hang around Starworld, the Hard Rock or Wynn Macau.