There is almost always huge merit in bluffing in poker. Known as ‘the Cadillac of poker moves’, just like the car itself, it can make you purr when it runs perfectly.

There can be few better examples of how to perfectly time a bluff than the one from  the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event. Down to just two players, with stacks of greenbacks piled up between the two men, Tony Miles and John Cynn duked it out for the title and the $8.8 million top prize. The runner-up would walk away with ‘only’ $5 million.

With 10 million chips in the pot on the flop of 3-4-J, both men had comparative rag hands, Miles holding 7-5 and Cynn with 6-4. Flopping middle pair, Cynn bet 4.5 million. In normal circumstances, a take-it-away bet that 90% of the time, elicits a fold.

This hand, however, was something else. It was a hand in which Tony Miles plays as if he is determined to win the hand any way he can. This particular time and that particular time. He’s finding a way to win this hand in the manner Liam Neeson characters refuse to die in action movies.