Blind Battles: Hand #3

[TStoneMBD]

SB is a very solid/aggressive player. He raises your BB alot from the SB. He never folds pairs against you and will often take acehigh to the showdown. He's tricky and often unpredictable. We play alot together so metagame matters.

All fold to the SB,

SB raises, You call in the BB with J/images/graemlins/spade.gif4/images/graemlins/spade.gif

Flop is QcTs3d

SB bets, what do we do?

We muck with enthusiasm.

[goofball]

Fold. No hand + no draw + board that hits his range pretty hard.

[Lmn55d]

this seems like a pretty easy fold against this player. If you hit a J or 4 he's often gonna have a lot of outs against you (overs + straights etc.) if you are good. Plus you might not even be good.

[TStoneMBD]

so youre saying its correct to play hit and miss against an avid SB stealer?

[Trix]

Easy fold imo.

[Lmn55d]

I think it is against the sort of player you describe. I peel pretty liberally on the flop against these players, but I don't think your hand is quite strong enough to peel here. Were you considering raising or something?

[scotty34]

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so youre saying its correct to play hit and miss against an avid SB stealer?

[/ QUOTE ]

There are times to play back at them, there are times to fold. Obviously you aren't going to fold every time you miss, but this certainly seems like as good of a place as any to do so.

[Danenania]

Interesting topic. I think a board with two broadway cards isn't a very good one to take a stand on because he's so much more likely to have some sort of pair or draw that will either play back or call you down.

If the board was Q63 instead of QT3 I'd say that making a play has a lot more merit. In that case he'd have to fold a lot of middling hands in the JT range and might also fold A-high fairly often since it won't look like you can have a draw (of course if he catches you at this sort of move any fold equity you had against A-high goes out the window).

[Victor]

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so youre saying its correct to play hit and miss against an avid SB stealer?

[/ QUOTE ]

exactly.

[scotty34]

I suppose he is getting 5:1 with 6 possible pair outs, a BDFD and a BDSD. I'm not sure if that changes my mind though, as this still seems very marginal at best. A free card play is unlikely to work with any regularity against this guy, and you would hate to get 3-bet on the flop.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
so youre saying its correct to play hit and miss against an avid SB stealer?

[/ QUOTE ]

exactly.

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Thirded!

[TStoneMBD]

i disagree. i feel like im getting exploited by playing hit or miss because the opponent takes down so many pots postflop against me.

just look at the numbers. im going to hit the flop 1/3 times while catching a draw some other small percentage of the time, maybe 1/10. (11/30) times i hit the flop. the other times he takes it down and makes a 1BB profit. even when i flop pairs or hit draws my pot equity isnt 100%. hell often have a higher pair or an even better draw or a pair those times i have a draw. but if i play hit or miss when i miss HIS pot equity is 100%.

to simplify, say i hit the flop 1/3 times. he has to invest a SB bet on the flop each time after raising preflop, so 1/3 times i win 3SBs and 2/4 times he wins 2SBs. hes making a fortune this way.

you can play hit or miss in nonmetagame situations. you guys are used to playing on party where noone knows anyone and its all a statbased game but when you get to higher limits especially on smaller sites things are very different. playing hit or miss sucks.

[Victor]

ok tstone, heres a play i do sometimes when im pissed or feeling picked on. just call the flop intending to fold the turn or bet if he checks. works against a lot of players who will check/fold a lot of turns obvioulsy.

the idea is that his range is huge and hes gonna bet any flop. now, on the turn, we are hoping he gives up with his trash which is likely unless hes the type to keep pushing with trash. decent players generally do.

as far as metagame goes, just by calling the flop you will dissuade him from stealing somewhat since he knows you are gonna be seeing 4 cards usually.

many high stakers make this move too.

[TStoneMBD]

yah i do this quite a bit and in this hand i called the flop with that exact plan since i often just call the flop with pairs and he knows this. the next problem is that by calling the flop with nothing if the opponent regularly follows through without a pair youre bleeding money. if hes good enough to screwplay the turn on you then you got even more problems.

I'll agree that you don't want to let yourself get run over by this guy on a regular basis, but for this particular hand, you're in pretty bad shape and a fold is in order.

As for future hands, you got position on him, which is a big edge. If he will lead every flop, and lead every turn after u call, plan to raise the turn when you hit the board decently. This way, you aren't exactly bleeding away chips because you win more when you are ahead.