The noble art of defending

[Guy McSucker]

In MEBenhoe's starting chart thread, Trix introduced the topic of blind defence. I defend my BB too little I think (< 30% according to Tracker) so I'd like to do some work on this. Here's what Trix is going with for now:

[ QUOTE ]

This is what I call/raise, which probably is too tight, but a start:

Positions are position of the openraiser, its folded to the BB.
Hands behind the "|" are what I 3bet.


UTG : 55 AT KJ QJ A7s K9s QTs JTs T9s| TT AQ AJs KQs
MP : 55 AT KJ QJ A7s K9s Q9s J9s T9s| 99 AQ AJs KQs
CO : 55 A9 KT QT A4s K8s Q9s J9s 98s|88 AJ KQ ATs QJs
BTN : 55 A8 K9 Q9 JT Axs K7s Q8s J9s 97s 65s |77 AT KJ A9s QJs
SB : 22 A4 K8 Q9 J9 T9 98 Axs K5s Q7s J8s 76s 75s |77 AQ AJs KQs

SB Openlimp: |44 A5 K8 T9+ Axs Kxs Q8s 65s 97s J8s


[/ QUOTE ]

This is much more liberal than I currently play. So, I'd like to ask people:

- what do you think of these standards?

- what's your plan post-flop with the hands you just call? Fit or fold most of the time, as suggested by Nate tha' Great in a few posts? Or get funky?

Suppose you defend with e.g. J9s and get a J-high flop. Are you check-raising or leading out into the preflop raiser msot of the time? Or do you mix it up liberally?

When people defend against me I find they check-call the flop and check-raise the turn a lot, but that seems like giving the raiser too many chances to hit an overcard to me...

All thoughts appreciated!

Guy.

[Fnord]

[ QUOTE ]
When people defend against me I find they check-call the flop and check-raise the turn a lot, but that seems like giving the raiser too many chances to hit an overcard to me...


[/ QUOTE ]

Funny, the auto-raise the flop; and call the flop bet the turn lines seem to have been all the rage at the tables I was playing at. Then again, I run a flop bet turn check line sometimes with overcards to avoid being too easy of a check/raise bitch. Any suggestions on dealing with them?

Let's open up another sub-topic, how do you defend against a SB completion. What range do you raise? How do you deal with a flop auto-bet, given that the pot size is smaller?

[Guido]

I think those hands are pretty close to mine. I defend a little less in the BB against an EP raiser but I defend a little more against an LP raiser.

Guido

[Trix]

I have a feeling that they are too tight and will try to loosen up some, especially vs LP.
I hope one of the guy´s who is crushing 10-20 would reply though.

[ QUOTE ]
Suppose you defend with e.g. J9s and get a J-high flop. Are you check-raising or leading out into the preflop raiser msot of the time? Or do you mix it up liberally?


[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I mix it up. Dont think I lead that often, maybe I should do that more as everyone hates it /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I often CR, especially if the board is drawy, meaning he will call down lighter.

[Guido]

[ QUOTE ]
I hope one of the guy´s who is crushing 10-20 would reply though.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I'm not crushing 10/20 but for the last 20K my winrate was about 2.3BB/100 which isn't that bad.

I agree with you and I think the standards in the original post are pretty good to start with.

Guido

[naphand]

I think there is an argument for calling the UTG raise with any pair. Given that UTG is raising say 77+ and high cards, 55/66 have no more advantage than 22/33/44 for a board that falls med-low. If UTG is raising a PP like 88 and the board is 872 or suchlike, your 55/66 was beaten PF anyway, but no less beaten than the lower pairs. Surely, given more cards can fall safely against a UTG raise, then all pairs can be played more confidently post-flop.

Why would lower pairs be more profitable against LP raises? when, in fact, it is much harder to judge the kicker they may be holding.

Just an idea.

[1800GAMBLER]

Looking back over this post it just seems trivial but it seems silly to delete it.

[ QUOTE ]
UTG : 55 AT KJ QJ A7s K9s QTs JTs T9s| TT AQ AJs KQs
MP : 55 AT KJ QJ A7s K9s Q9s J9s T9s| 99 AQ AJs KQs

[/ QUOTE ]

A7s K9s QTs JTs T9s. I wont call with any of those in full but i know the above was aimed for 6m. Taking random ones to analysis A7s and T9s.

Silly, probably pointless coldhot sims for A7s:

Tight:

Hand 1: 32.0056 % [ 00.31 00.01 ] { A7s }
Hand 2: 67.9944 % [ 00.67 00.01 ] { AA-99, AKs-AJs, KQs, AKo-AQo }

Medium:

Hand 1: 35.5383 % [ 00.34 00.01 ] { A7s }
Hand 2: 64.4617 % [ 00.63 00.01 ] { AA-88, AKs-ATs, KQs, AKo-AJo, KQo }

Loose:

Hand 1: 42.6539 % [ 00.41 00.01 ] { A7s }
Hand 2: 57.3461 % [ 00.56 00.01 ] { AA-66, AKs-ATs, KQs-KTs, QJs, AKo-ATo, KQo-KTo, QJo }

From all of these if we were calling our last SB all in, we'd call, getting 3:1 on our call we need equity of only 25%. Yet we have to play the hand through.

So with A7s we'll flop a pair ~33% and a flush draw ~11% so that's nearly half the flops we like, somewhat. Against the tight UTG we'll be dominated on the A high flop 23 times and ahead 24 times. 4 of the times we are ahead KQs drops fast.

So, as expected, it all comes down to how well we play postflop, if we can get more bets in when ahead than lose when behind we should call, given the nature of the hands/flops i think that's tough but it is a lot closer than i first thought - i thought we would be dominated more often - and that's against the worst case.