Floating in Poker
Floating in poker is an advanced bluffing play where you call a bet on the flop with the intention of bluffing on the turn.
Floating is a good way to exploit a player who continuation bets a lot. In Texas Hold'em seventy percent of the time the flop will not improve your opponents hand. So a player who almost always continuation bets will not have a hand most of the time. When you decide you are going to float and make a call on the flop when your opponent happens to be making a continuation bet with air, they will likely give up and not bet on the turn. After they check you will bet the turn and more often than not take down the pot. If they do bet the turn you can get away from the hand and fold. It can be dangerous, but you can sometimes raise your opponents turn bet if you have a great read on them and you know they are capable of firing a second barrel with air.
Floating won't be a profitable poker play if you overuse it. Even though floating can be an effective play against a continuation bet it should only be attempted occasionally. If your opponent gets a read on you that you are floating a lot, they will start to check-raise you when they have a hand and possibly even when they don't have a hand forcing you to fold and lose money.
In order to attempt floating it is essential that you have a good read on your opponent. They need to be a player who not only continuation bets a lot, but who is capable of folding after continuation betting when they face resistance. Therefore, Tight-Aggressive players are ideal players to float on and Calling Stations would not be a good player to float on.
You should only attempt floating when you are heads-up against an opponent. The more players that are in a hand, the more likely it is one of them has a hand. This makes it too risky to try this bluff when there is more than one opponent. It is also essential that you have position on your opponent because you need them to act before you so you can bluff them off their hand if you determine they are weak.
Floating can be a profitable play at any of the online poker sites. Poker is still growing in popularity around the world. There have been spikes in different parts of the world over the past 6 years. There was an Australian online poker spike after Joe Hashem won the WSOP Main Event in 2025. Most of these new players are inexperienced and won't be familiar with a play like floating.
