Part I of an interesting (and odd) opponent-dependant hand

[elysium]

hi mm

no no. that's not the issue. the issue is avoiding a dangerous situation against a very good, highly experienced pro. you can beat him. but you first must stay outside of his range in marginal situations by suppressing his ability to throw punches at you.

if you have had an opportunity to study mason's playing style against these type opponents, you would see how mason contains their aggression early on by putting them into a position of only being able to show a strong move by betting out, not being raised. the pro bets, and mason will envelop him in a cocoon with a suppression call, keeping the pro away from playmaking ammo that he would know how to use with deadly effect; and it's their ability to levy devestatingly strong, crushing plays, when afforded a check-raising opportunity or reraising opportunity, that must be taken into consideration. you must first respect these type opponents before you will find occasion to beat them. the value of betting sags considerably when you take into consideration losing control of the table to the person under whose control you would least like the table to be. you'd rather lose to ralph or henrietta since they will not make you pay the fullest amount those times you find yoursellf trailing. they will make mistakes that find you saving a bet or two, albeit that you still do lose; but when facing jim "texas tweezers" dandy, or martha "sandbag" moneyhouses, if you bet into either one of them with so much as a tail light out, you will be made to look embarrassingly deficient in ability. they will make you pay the fullest. and whether you think that he or she might be making a move on you when the A hits, you still must accredit them with holding two unknown hole cards of some value. when the A hits, there aren't many other non-made hands that they could have called the flop with, and no draws. this is very, very bad. when you get check-raised, highly experienced opponent is thinking the same thing about your hand. he knows that you have at least something and that you will call his check-raise. he is making a check-raise for value.

could it be a bluff? yes it could. even if you knew that it wasn't, however, you must still call. you need to be aware of this beforehand. when he checks on the turn, he is doing so to check-raise or fold often enough that together with the lack of value a bet by you has on the turn, the better play is to check it down, avoid a nasty big mo shifting event and in so doing perhaps induce a shot by him on the river, instead of a fold (although here you want him to fold), and give yourself the ability to limit your risk to 1BB rather than 2, on the one hand, and pick up perhaps 1 or 2BB rather than none on the other. if he has something like a big double over-carded pocket pair that he would have called you down with, it will be tough for the table to figure that out, and they will likely think you got in the maximum amount yet again, in keeping with your mystique of invincibility; which, by the way, can be of great assist in close spots.

you beat these type opponents by getting into marginal situations against the weaker opponents who you might draw-out on or nose out on at the wire. when the better players see you consistantly showing down slightly better hands than those of your opponents, and getting into cyclical steamroll events against the table when the situation finds you betting and them collapsing under the weight of your bets, the pros fire up. but they come in weak tight. in mid-firefight, you can feel their knees weaken as your betting. when they are induced to jump in out of a sense of sportsmanship, rather than from an arousal induced by the greed factor of good hole cards, you can catch these pros momentarily forgetful that it took a lot of hard work on your part to condition the table as thus, and they find themselves amidst the formidable incline of plane necessary to get up to the top of the hill and as they are scaling upwards, the heavy burden they must shoulder in addition to their own cumbersome weight as you pile on the weight of your betting action, forcing them to make decisions at improptu times. if instead, you make it footrace on level plane, the pro will win often enough to prevent your taking control of the table.

betting when checked to on the turn, gives this highly experienced pro the terrain needed to run the race on his terms. he can fold or check-raise. he can call. he can do whatever he likes. ralph or henrietta will call. pretzel pete findaway will make you pay the fullest. that type opponent must be kept at arms length of ammo. that type of opponent must be contained in these marginal areas, and bet into strongly when you have the better of it. you don't knock these type out, you wear them out.