Tactics versus this headsup player

[Tosh]

Took a challenge on Party, played for an hour, we lost about $200 in rake and I ended up $6; waste of time but the opponent really was poor and I'm sure could have been better exploited. Problem was I am not too familiar with button as BB and the general style of my opponent.

- If I limped from the SB she would raise about 75% of hands.
- If I raised she would 3 bet about 75% of hands.
- She raised about 90% preflop and limped the rest.
- She would cap my 3 bet about 9/10.

Post flop she became very different.

- She would check as much as 80% after raising.
- She check raised maybe 1 in 100 hands, even though I bet a lot.
- She would bluff infrequently, but when she started betting she wouldn't stop.
- 3 bets were rare, meant basically trips or better at all times.
- A river bluff was pretty non existant from what I saw.

This was 5/10 with a 2/5 SB.

Also generally what is the strategy changes for having the button in the wrong place?

[Joe826]

How did she play post-flop? Was she tight? You said she checked alot but i'm curious as to whether or not she called down alot without a made hand. From your description it sounds like you should be getting most of your EV preflop by playing fewer hands than you would against a reasonable opponent. In other words raising marginal heads-up hands is a bad idea because she's very unlikely to fold. Instead let her give you maximum value on your hands that have a clear edge.

It really sounds like you should do alot of betting in general post flop. You should do it both for value, and also to force to her to fold (this is assuming she will fold and not just call you down all the time, but i'm still not sure of this). Playing predictably post-flop heads-up is suicide, so you should be able to handle her nicely. Still though, I've played a couple people like this, and it can be quite confusing. As far as playing the reverse weird party heads-up structure, i'll not really sure.

[Peter_rus]

I would cap PF 50% of hands and keep pushing till river, which is check-call or check-fold depending on her river play.

[J.R.]

some thoughts: I have been playing a lot more headup on party, but am no guru. V this opponent:

play tight in the sb, don't 3-bet that much from the bb, bet a lot of turns and check behind, fold to river bets, raise for free showdowns / semi-bluffs in position a lot, don't check to her out of position, bet a lot of flops for free river looks.

[Tosh]

She generally called down with any pair and so I didn't really bother bluffing but value bet almost anything.

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
I would cap PF 50% of hands and keep pushing till river, which is check-call or check-fold depending on her river play.

[/ QUOTE ]

That seems like suicide.

[Tosh]

It has to be said that 'guru' is an underused word, I plan on using it more. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[naphand]

The SB position now acts first and it is a 3/5 bet to come in. Bad position, more expensive = fold more hands PF.

If she is raising 75% of your limps, what is she not raising with? Are these trash hands or a mix of best hands/trash hands? It is important to know if she is raising her best 75%, or if she employs another strategy.

However, given the likely cost of limping in, you need to tighten up in SB, for the reasons given. I am not sure of the math (but someone can show this) but you have 40% of a small bet invested PF in the SB, clearly you fold any hand that has less equity than this. I think you can add up to 5% to the requirement to cover rake and poor position. This means you need to fold about 30% PF from the SB (all hands with less than 45% chancee of winning).

This means your minimum standards are:

78o
J3o
76s
T3s

30% seems quite high to me, you could add J2o and T2s which makes it easy to play. I would not think folding 20% here is too much, so I guess it depends on how much you factor into account for position and rake.

It's up to you to decide if your strategy is to raise all these PF, limp them all or mix it up. Personally, if she is going to raise 75% anyway and still check 80% of flops, let her "take control" and try to pick up reads of her PF strategy. From the description it seems to me she was trying to intimidate you, unless you have reads to the contrary, just ignore her PF play. Let her cap your big hands obviously.

Post flop looks straightforward. CR the Turn/River when you flop a decent hand and she bets, bet Flop/River for value, fold Turn with nothing if she is betting or take a free card/SD.

It seems to me either (1) you were not running too well or, (2) you let yourself get too confused/focussed on her pre-flop play, instead of pretty much ignoring it. When I play someone who just raises a ton PF, I ignore the raises and play pretty much every hand (bar utter garbage, the worst 5%-20%, depending on how good a handle I have on their post-flop play).

I think pre-flop play HU, esp. in reponse to very aggro players, is very much determined by how you cope with them post-flop. Any rule which says "raise 100%" is failing to address this aspect.