[I.Rowboat]

I'm playing in a $30/$60 game recently, the game gets short handed (< 6), and I go card dead, especially in the blinds. I mean seriously dead -- the endless parade of 94o, 83o, 45o, and the occassional J6o to spice things up. It's almost a joke, but this happens to everyone from time to time and the game is still good, so I play on. However, I am basically unable to defend my blinds, as most hands are going to showdown and my blind hands have zero showndown value, and every three-bet, follow-up bet/bluff attempt I've made has been called, so my table image is suspect as well. So I've worked myself into a corner and need to come up with some hands, which will definitely be paid off if/when they ever come through, but they don't. This goes on for some eternity.

PlayerA notices this situation and takes an open seat two to my right, so he can attack my blinds every round. Oh, joy. PlayerA is very cocky, and proceeds to bloat the chat with comments about how terrible my play is, etc., while I continue to surrender my BB, or even worse, call/reraise with promising but low hands that have no showdown value. When I do take a hand with even marginal SD value to the river, such as 66 or A7o, I am shown a better hand and receive another string of criticism. It's one of those sessions where I never seem to play winning cards. Eventually, the session ends with me stuck $2400 and PlayerA convinced that I am a terrible player. (BTW, I have taken over $25k profit from this game in the last two months, so I don't think my play is all that terrible, but it did look very weak during this session.)

In the time since this session, I have played several more sessions with PlayerA, and he has continued to seek out the seat two to my right so he can attack my blinds. Which is fine with me, as I have received a more typical distribution of cards and have defended with (and shown down) your garden variety of holdings, many of which were good -- y'know, standard stuff. But every time I defend (and especially win) with something as weak as Qxo -- a hand I might surrender against a different player but not this asshat -- PlayerA pisses and moans about how bad I play. Of course, when I showdown a hand like AK and he wins with 33, I get another barrage of abuse about how bad my play is. PlayerA is not only convinced that I am a terrible player, he is also pissed because even though he is playing "better" than me, I am taking his money in the long run. So he has essentially made it his mission in life to attempt to steal my blinds, or to attempt to isolate me in every shorthanded situation, and this (along with his constant stream of criticism) is getting old -- I don't mind the gamesmanship, but the open hostility is tedious and pretty juvenile.

So my question is this: What would your minimal standards be for blinds defense in this situation? Assume that every hand is going to showdown, or at least to the river, and that the attacking player "hates" you and is determined to "outplay" you at every opportunity.

Also, how would you handle the hostility? Basically, for him this has now become a personal matter, and his aggression is cranked way up, and he is being obnoxious whether he wins or loses.

Sorry for the length of the post, but this is a new one for me, and I want to extract as much money from this SOB as I can. I've been playing poker in cardrooms for 20 years and online for a year or so, and I've never seen anyone get so incensed at me or my play.