Defend from big blind

[King_J]

Lets imagine we play shorthanded four handed.
We are better then all of them, but they´re not superfish. But we make money playing against them. We play a little bit better postflop, but there is not a huge difference.

Cutoff knows that he should play more aggressive shorthanded and he raises quite frequently.

You are in the BB and cutoff open raises (he is UTG too)
all fold to you.

do you defend with:
A. 67o
B. T6o
C Q7o
D 96s
E K5o

These are just examples. I am having BIG problems from the big blind. If you have any ideas regarding starting hands, plz comment me. I would love to get help.

(I have read HPFAP)

[Stork]

A-no B-no C-no D-occasionally for variance E- depends on your read of the player, but probably sometimes. Maybe with a reraise

[bigpooch]

A. yes
B. no
C. marginal; decide based on other factors
D. yes
E. no

If you have the inclination, get Turbo Texas Hold'em
and run a simulation. Don't just look at the equity
results, but practice playing all the marginal hands
so that you know how to handle most flops.

[BookOfIcculus]

4 handed I fold all of these to any "respectable" raise 90% of the time.

[DocHollyday]

Hail King

I know this situation too well, as I prefer to play short-handed (3-4 players). The problem with the steal-raise is just a matter of fact what happens playing that short-handed.

I'm not a pro (far away), but I handle it like that: Be still tight, even if shorthanded, but don't let them run over you. Pay a raise from time to time, may be you hit a good flop. Don't pay with absolut crap, like A,B,C. But with D and E I'd give it a try. I mean you'll be heads up and every hand can win, and when you see he's raising frequently, it's almost impossible that he's got a hand all the time.

So pay, raise or start a bluff yourself occasionally. It's hard to give general rules, you got to find a balance of still playing tight, but loose up a little at the same time.

Good luck with your cards.

[Lunamondo]

S&M has their more tighter reguirements, while many other people have rather loose requirements. I would follow S&M if in any doubt, though their hands are for SB vs. BB and the SB has the button and is very aggressive, but their hands are nonsense there as they are way too tight, but vs. steals those requirements are quite nice, though I would often rather play KX than AX if the open-raiser is tight in his open-raising, but then I probably won't play KX either.

If I am against an aggressive open-raiser I would rate to defend with about all those hands, and also if he is good, as good players are more solid and I can make some moves to win extra bets from them and I have no need to pay them off when they put e.g. a reraise to that, while I play it more passive vs. aggressive nongood players. But in both cases the odds are there to flop a pair with any two cards and after that if one playes well, one has the implied odds - it's usually offered as a reason to be tighter, that one has bad implied odds with XX defends, but I don't see that to be true. And also defending less vs. good players, I don't see it true either, as they rate to open-raise more loose, or if they rate to, as it might be a loose game, but that is an exception.