I am seen as too tight, how do I adjust / exploit?
 

When I play live tournaments at my local card club, several of the more aggressive players have tagged me as too tight in the blinds. They steal my blinds with any two. What's my best approach for adjusting to or even exploiting this?

I have tried reraising (all-in if appropriate) whenever I have decent or great cards, but I'm not sure it's the best solution; it certainly increases my variance.

-Magnus

Re: I am seen as too tight, how do I adjust / exploit?
 

Call and shoot out a bet regarless of what falls on the board that will show them picking on you can be costly.

Re: I am seen as too tight, how do I adjust / exploit?
 

The only solution is to play back at them. When you put them on a steal, perform a re-steal. If you really want, do this with a trash hand and show it after they muck. Its a good way to send the message "Don't F- with my blinds"

Re: I am seen as too tight, how do I adjust / exploit?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The only solution is to play back at them. When you put them on a steal, perform a re-steal. If you really want, do this with a trash hand and show it after they muck. Its a good way to send the message "Don't F- with my blinds"

[/ QUOTE ]

I am in a similar situation and LOVE it! I completely disagree with reraising and showing your cards so that they know that you will play back, I would rather maintain my tight image...

If I were you I would let them pick on you and steal your blinds early on and when the blinds are high enough (or before your table breaks) perform a resteal.

In a situation with blinds and antes late in a tournament you pick up about 4 BB from a resteal (SB, the raise to 2.b BB from LP, plus antes. What you should do is wait until you need the chips and perform a resteal, they are bound to put you on a pretty big hand and will fold hands as big as 99 or ATo. (If you happen to be against a monster so be it) When you resteal your cards are irrelevant, do it when you need the chips but make sure that your raise is substantial enough to make a difference.

Calling and betting out is a decent strategy, especially if an ace flops but it could be quite costly if your opponant hits the flop, I would rather exploit my image and shut the pot down preflop.

-Steve

Re: I am seen as too tight, how do I adjust / exploit?
 

just out of curiousity, how did you come to this conclusion? did they show down some junk hands after stealing against you?

and i agree w/ others, 3-bet pre-flop. if you have less than 4x the pre-flop raise left, you're likely going to get called if you push.

Re: I am seen as too tight, how do I adjust / exploit?
 

Blind defense is tough.

Some small stacks are so desperate to get the blinds that they're going all-in with just Ace high on the flop or turn. Some big stacks will pretty much call you down if they have any piece of the flop or put you all-in on the flop or turn. So you need to look for evidence that the person will fold to a decent bet before you look to defend with a less than premium hand.

When you do choose to defend with a mediocre hand, you need to play your hand in a manner that is consistant with how you'd play a better hand. For example, I don't slow play much. So when I decide to defend, I'm pretty much betting out at the flop and probably the turn regardless of if I hit unless I get a lot of resistance. I'm not slowing down when an Ace or King comes or a flush hits on the turn because I want the villain to think that I just hit it.

If I don't have a big enough stack for this and decide I need to defend then I'm raising all-in pre-flop and I'm picking an opponent that knows how to fold and a hand that is at least ok heads up against high cards.

Remember that if you can steal blinds pretty freely that you don't have to defend your own blinds ultra aggressively. You also can't defend your blinds every round or you're going to get burned. You also have to remember that you're looking for good spots to defend your blinds and being ticked off because the same guy keeps stealing your blinds doesn't necessarily mean this is a good spot to defend.

As far as showing hands that you defend with goes... I'll show a really premium hand that doesn't go to showdown every once in a while or I'll occasionally say something like "God
I never get action when I flop a set". I wouldn't dream of showing a garbage hand that I bluffed a guy out of the pot with though unless I intended to only defend with premium hands from then on.