Button vs BB

[Dave G.]

I've recently moved back up to 2/4. I'm finding situations in the blinds coming up more often, and it's something I need to work on. I find them difficult spots to be in most of the time.

Button plays too many pots and is very aggressive, almost always entering the pot with a raise. He likes to take a shot at the blinds whenever he can, so I'm not surprised to see his raise here.

What do you think of my play? My thoughts were that I could have the best hand here, but I might be able to push him off of his hand if he can't beat a K. I'm trying to represent a very strong hand on the turn.

Are these semi-bluff raises worth doing? As a general rule, how aggressively should I defend the blind, particularly from habitual stealers? I don't want to burn money, but I don't want to be free money either.

Party Poker 2.00/4.00 Hold'em <font color="#0000FF">(10 handed)</font> link (http://www.darksun.lunarpages.com/poker/)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J/images/graemlins/heart.gif, A/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="#666666">7 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises</font>, <font color="#666666">1 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero 3-bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button caps</font>, Hero calls.

Flop: (8.50 SB) 5/images/graemlins/club.gif, T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, K/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">Button bets</font>, Hero calls.

Turn: (5.25 BB) 4/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">Button bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises...</font>

I hate it.

It's unlikely that board didn't hit the button in some way (draw or otherwise), so your raise is just going to get called and your river bet is only folding a worse hand and getting a call from a better one.

I much rather prefer call/call. Our hand has good showdown value.

EDIT: Folding is also a viable option...

[grjr]

I'm a big fan of semi-bluff turn raises but I'm not sure they don't work better when the flop was multiway and then it became heads up on the turn rather than it being heads up the whole way. (can you make sense of that?) People seem more inclined to call you down when it's heads up from the start.

My Spidey-sense says he has a pair here so we should be folding the turn. If you think he's making a move with nothing then call the turn and river.

[Dave G.]

I see your point about multiway pots. I'd never really thought of it but it seems to make sense; I'll definitely watch out for this trend.

I would really rather people not try to steal from me so I become laggier to discourage such attempts. Maybe just calling down would be better, people would soon figure out that I'm not going to fold my hand.