Blind Battles: Hand #8

[TStoneMBD]

Villain is a tough, solid, tricky player. He loves taking hands to the showdown against you so he may or may not call down with ace high. You think his preflop 3betting range is 44+, A5o+, A2s+, TJs+, QJo+, K9o+, K8s+ with some random hands thrown in.


Everyone folds to you in the SB and you raise A7o, BB 3bets, you call.

Flop is T38r

He bets, you call(?)

Turn is a 3

He bets, you checkraise planning on checkfolding river. Good? Should you call a river bet on certain cards? If so which ones?

What if the turn is a 4 instead of a 3?

[Digs]

I think about half his range will fold this and you're getting 2:1, looks good to me.

I'm really not sure if the turn doesnt pair the board. You'll probably have more ace broadway calling but I dunno if it would drive the % fold we get of his range all the way to 33%. My gut says it'd still be profitable but I think it's close.

[cartman]

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He loves taking hands to the showdown against you so he may or may not call down with ace high.

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I must have a fundamental misunderstanding of some kind. Because in this hand, and virtually every one of these blind battle posts (which I appreciate very much!), it looks like any attempt to make him fold fold a better hand must be -EV. You are in a position here in my opinion in which aggression can only hurt you. Unless you improve, I think you should just check and keep calling as long as you continue to think that is a better choice than folding. The way to exploit a player who "loves taking hands to the showdown against you" in an situation like this to play almost purely for value.

I would very much appreciate if someone could set me straight because I evidently need it. Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks,
Cartman

[TStoneMBD]

i usually prefer checkraising this turn rather than taking a call/call line because the opponent will fold a better ace to the turn checkraise alot and its a very powerful metagame tool since he cant trust your checkraises in the future. if the board is draw heavy and i think there is a decent change hell call the turn checkraise with a weaker hand and bet the river i usually wont make this play, or perhaps ill checkraise turn and checkcall river but thats usually a loser. this a pretty good board to be making this checkraise on because there arent many weaker hands that can call the turn besides QJ. ive been making these checkraise turn/checkfold river lines with ace high alot lately and they have been working well. its also extremely unlikely hell be bluff3betting this turn.

[Danenania]

I like the checkraise check/fold. Makes him fold a 6-outer and occasionally a better Ace. Also sends a good metagame message. I think automatically going into check/call down mode with A-high against tough opponents is a good way to get eaten alive in blind battles at limits above 10/20. These opponents tend to figure out what you're doing pretty quickly and will value bet you to death when they see you go into check/call mode while lowering their bluffs to a very low (but still existent) frequency.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He loves taking hands to the showdown against you so he may or may not call down with ace high.

[/ QUOTE ]

I must have a fundamental misunderstanding of some kind. Because in this hand, and virtually every one of these blind battle posts (which I appreciate very much!), it looks like any attempt to make him fold fold a better hand must be -EV. You are in a position here in my opinion in which aggression can only hurt you. Unless you improve, I think you should just check and keep calling as long as you continue to think that is a better choice than folding. The way to exploit a player who "loves taking hands to the showdown against you" in an situation like this to play almost purely for value.

I would very much appreciate if someone could set me straight because I evidently need it. Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks,
Cartman

[/ QUOTE ]

I have almost the same exact question. Is there a need to play such aggressively out of the SB? First off, against a tough player and a solid blind defender (who will defend everytime because its an obvious steal attempt and your raise gives him 3:1 to call) is it worth it to raise with a hand like A7?

Looking at the bigger picture, against such opponents, it is unrealistic to turn the SB vs BB situation into a profitable one right? Break even would be fine, I think. So why are we raising A7 if the BB will call everytime? Certainly not for value, because we aren't even a big favorite against random hands and we are in a tough postflop position, considering we will miss the board 2/3 of the time and we are oop.

I really don't feel the need to play so aggressively and spew chips pulling fancy moves like these.

These are just my thoughts, and of course, I play nowhere near the limits a lot of you play, so go ahead and tell me if my thinking is flawed.

[Surfbullet]

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Looking at the bigger picture, against such opponents, it is unrealistic to turn the SB vs BB situation into a profitable one right? Break even would be fine, I think. So why are we raising A7 if the BB will call everytime? Certainly not for value, because we aren't even a big favorite against random hands and we are in a tough postflop position, considering we will miss the board 2/3 of the time and we are oop.


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Break-even out of the SB would be fantastic...but we have to make up the .25 BB we are forced to put in, which is difficult.

You seem to be a bit muddled about this. We don't raise A7o in these situations to try and steal the blinds, we raise A7o because it's a monster hand compared to BBs random hand. If he will call us with every hand then A7o is a raise that is for value, because he will be calling with hands like 93o, J6o, K2o, which cannot proceed profitably on many flops. Missing the board isn't a big deal with A7o if we are aware of the fact that a significant %age of our opponent's hand range has to improve to beat us.

To Cartman:

The worry about c/cing any time you have A-hi is that you will end up having A-hi more often than you have a medium-small pair, so your opponents will inadvertently be making amazing value-bets by overaggressively betting any pair. Our hand range becomes noticably skewed towards very weak hands when we c-c, since we attack with draws and made hands alike.

As a result, we must be sure to balance our play, occasionally c-folding A-hi on unfavorable boards, and occasionally c-c, c-c, c-ring TP so he knows he can't pound away at us with any pair, etc.

Surf

[cartman]

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The worry about c/cing any time you have A-hi

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By no means am I advocating check calling down every time with Ace high. I said to I thought it was best to call down as long as you think calling is better than folding. The thing is that on a T high board it is very likely that the preflop 3-bettor has either Ace high, two overcards, or a pair. I would be surprised if he ever folds a pair immediately to a turn checkraise and it sounds like from TStones description that he is very unlikely to fold a better Ace high either. Folding a 6 outer has a little value, but it isn't exactly a coup since he is only getting 7 to 1 after your turn raise. Also, if he has seen you pull this checkraise the turn move then give up on the river move before he may take the pot away from you with a worse hand. I am sure I must be wrong, but it appears that checkraising for value is ill advised as is checkraising for the purpose of folding a better hand. It it is for metagame that's a different story, but in isolation it strikes me as incorrect in this hand. Hopefully the light bulb will come on in my head at some point.

Cartman