Shorthanded rock. how to play?

[PAUL-IN]

i was in a shorthanded game, six handed, nlhe. this rock is not really a rock, plays loose until he catches a monster pot and then shuts down unless he's got a premium hand. therefore, it's difficult to make him commit a significant amount of chips into the pot unless it's done preflop.

the other players were not great and i could have just picked on them, but i decided to raise with whatever i had whenever he raised preflop, hoping to hit and have him pay me off. i know this is dangerous and potentially costly and stupid, but i wanted to find a hand where he'd commit all of his chips with a hand one pip lower than mine, or maybe he'll make a bad call.....comments?

[tdomeski]

How often will he fold pre flop when you reraise him? If the answer is not that often then you have to ask yourself how often you can steal the pot after the flop? I'd think according to your description of the player you can steal post flop a lot with this guy, so why reraise pre flop? You are just putting yourself in the position you want him to be in.

[jmark]

If he only raises with premium hands and plays super tight how are you going to force him to make a bad call and have 1 less pip than you when you're reraising with random hands?

It seems like you would want him to fold to your bluffs, not call.

[tewall]

Unless you have something like AA, you want to see the flop cheap, flop the nuts or something like that, and have him pay you off. Either that or raise pre-flop if you can later take the pot away from him, which you could do with any two cards. But if he's hit a pot so his stack is large compared to yours, he might be willing to call you down, so that could be dangerous.