Stealing back your own blind

[StellarWind]

You are BB and an unknown new player posts in Cutoff. Everyone else folds and it's you versus the other poster. What do you need to raise?

[MoreWineII]

Some chips.

[jluker7]

and 2 cards.

[jluker7]

= ) Who knows?

[MAxx]

very little, but not total garbage. my reasoning is that if co posted and it was folded to him and he doesn't have enough of a hand to raise in this spot... most of the time his cards are horrible (or occassionally great looking for some action... but I would still raise with pocket aces myself if i was co poster here). Anyway I think you should really open up your raising standards. I think there is a very good chance co will fold here to your raise. I would not suggest doing it with total garbage though, as you may get a call. Raising will give you some addtional strength if high cards flop even if you don't have them (and he doesn't too).

[arkady]

i have done this against 2 posters: any 2.

[Garland]

Interesting question. You don't know the poster, and he's likely to have crap just like you.

I'd say just take a shot at it blind and hope for the best. I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say.

Garland

[dumb ox]

With above average cards, you should obviously always raise.

Say your cards are below average. You're risking 2 dollars to make 5. Simplisticly, if it works 2/7 of the time, you break even; if he folds more often than that, you make money. But, of the times he calls sometimes he'll have a hand just as bad as yours, so you won't lose money then. So your opponent can fold less often and the play will still be profitable; say if he folds one quarter of the time it will be profitable.

So, if the average opponent at your limit will fold roughly 1/4 of the time, anything will work; the less likely he is to fold, the tighter you have to be with your raises.

Of course, this isn't taking into consideration the effect of your preflop play on later streets, or the rake; this could change the situation alot, but I'm not sure how.

[StellarWind]

[ QUOTE ]
But, of the times he calls sometimes he'll have a hand just as bad as yours, so you won't lose money then.

[/ QUOTE ]
Theoretically speaking we have to be careful here.

1. It is true that viewed as a bluff we are risking 1 SB to win 2.5 SB.

2. The actual risk is much smaller because often when he calls we will win our 1 SB back anyway and his 1 SB too. The actual EV risk of raising even 32o is far below 1 SB.

So the odds on bluffing look awesome. But not so fast:

3. The EV gain of winning is also not 2.5 SB. A large part of the time that a bluff wins, we would have won anyway. Our equity in the pot if we check is probably at least 50% given that he would have folded preflop and probably has a terrible hand.

Still it seems that there is a near consensus in favor of raising whenever 1) we have chips and 2) we have the correct number of cards and 3) we are certain SB has finished mucking his hand. I'm not prepared to disagree with that but I'd like to hear more opinions.

[balkii]

You should probably raise with the same hands that you would raise if you were the CO in this hand, which is any 2 or close to it. The 2 scenarios offer you the same odds on a steal, but with a twist:

if you are CO, you have position, which is nice.
if you are BB, you have no position, but he has already acted and told you he has squat.

I would guess these cancel each other out.

FWIW I raised my posted CO with 83o the other day, bet a broadway flop HU, and folded to a turn bet. Still not sure if 83o is worth attempting the steal with against an unknown...who raises that there?

[MoreWineII]

I'd raise a lot of hands here. The fact that CO checked his option after it's been *folded to him* leads me to believe he's got absolute trash.

I don't even need to hit my hand every time here to win a pot against the average player (provided had I raised PF). Therefore, I think a raise in this situation has a ton of advantages.

On the flip side, I think a check leaves you in a really tough spot. You're just begging for the CO to steal the pot from you post-flop since he's got position and a pretty good idea that your hand sucks too.

Hope that makes sense, I'm struggling with words today.

[sthief09]

2 factors that I think are important:

1. the rake
2. the fact that your opponent is passive. in most cases, just calling down a bet with something like middle pair, rather than raising, is the best line of play. it would seem that having a passive opponent is great here, but he can actually outplay you by simply calling your bets.

so I'd like to have SOME high card power here to raise. I'd probably raise with any A, K, or Q or any pair 66+. I think a hand like 22 is impossible to play into this type of opponent, and your preflop edge is close to 0.

I don't think you'll get him to fold that much preflop. I think ina lot of cases, you're better off checking the BB and then betting the flop regardless of what comes out. he'll make a pair 1/3 of the time, and often you'll make something better, so he'll fold around 60% of the time, and maybe 25% of the rest you'll be ahead.

[pstripling]

This is the reply I agree with the most. Another tactic would be to check preflop and autobet any flop. If you have trash and trash flops...great, if high cards flop you can represent those too. You have risked the same amount of chips as the preflop raise, whereas if you raise preflop you are going to have to bet any flop and fold to a raise unless you have part of it. So in that case you are investing 2 more bets.

[dumb ox]

This makes a lot of sense.

Could you give us your answer to your question?