[creedofhubris]

(Crossposted from the NL forum; maybe this post belongs here?)

First, background on me: I'm very tight, and not as aggressive as a lot of other winning players. When I raise preflop, I've got a premium hand. I don't run very many large bluffs. When I go bust, it's set-over-set, or an all-in opponent has outdrawn me.

I also play on a small site with a number of other regulars, and have logged several thousand hands with some of them.

OK. There are several tricky/dangerous players in my game who a) know me very well and b) like to see a flop with speculative hands for a decent-sized raise. (NL -- my usual raise is 5x bb, 1/20 of the buyin.)

Since they know my raising standards and my betting, they know when I'm very likely to be holding a big pair. They then call with suited connectors and baby pairs to crack my big pair. I don't really mind this since I am ok with laying down hands to them.

What I'm worried about is them calling just to put a move on me postflop, since I am capable of these laydowns.

I should also point out that it's really only three or four loose aggressive tricky regular winners that I'm worried about: the ones who call with the right sorts of hands to beat big pairs, and whose raises either mean that they have nothing, or that I'm crushed. I don't want them routinely outplaying me with any two cards.

Here's a laydown hand, to give you a sense of what these guys like to call me with/when I can find the fold.

I'm in MP with KK. Chump ($100) raises to $15, I ($500) minraise to $30 (intending to isolate and get chump's stack, hoping chump will move in preflop), tricky guy ($900) on the button calls, chump just calls. Flop is

457r

Chump checks, I bet $65 to put chump all-in, tricky guy raises to $200, chump calls, I fold. Tricky guy shows down 86 soooted for the flopped straight.

This seemed to me like a fairly routine fold because of the protected pot, but if I routinely make these laydowns, then these guys are going to repeatedly take shots at me with nothing, right?

I recently had this happen, which is why I'm thinking about it: I raised a bunch of limpers from the blinds with AA (telegraphing big pair) then bet the pot on a baby flop, got minraised, and then folded to a turn overbet, only to be shown an unimproved 44.

What's the best solution to this dilemma? Some things I'm considering:

1) Check a bunch of flops with aces/kings, lose a smaller pot if their crap hits, encourage them to bluff.
2) Randomly call down the tricky dudes when they represent better-than-big-pair.
3) Randomly reraise all-in with just a pair or AK that misses.
4) Start occasionally raising from EP and MP with medium pairs, small suited connectors or one-gappers (86s!) so maybe I'll catch them with an unexpected monster myself.
5) Change nicknames.
6) Start calling all of their preflop raises, limp/reraise them preflop with garbage, play back at them with nothing until they stay out of my pots. (This seems petty and unlikely to work, but it would be satisfying if it did.)

What do you other tightwads/people who play the same opponents regularly recommend?