20/40 thief (quick, before this gets demoted to SS)

[Jeffage]

I agree with Daver's post completely...

Jeff

[ErrantNight]

let him take the blinds again and raise him next time around when your hand isn't ungodly terrible.

[ErrantNight]

He's taking other people's money... it's not like he's stealing your blinds... and it's not like you'd try stealing if it was folded to you with T4o... so I'm not sure why you're feeling such pressure to show this guy what's up.

Sounds like you're frustrated and card dead. Either stop being the former and wait for the latter to change, leave the table and find another, or just take a moment off and get a coffee. Or a beer. Or a blow job. Whatever you're feeling.

[DeeJ]

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What should I do?

[/ QUOTE ]

drop down to 15/30 ?

[piggity]

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[ QUOTE ]
What should I do?

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drop down to 15/30 ?

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly, if you don't have anything constructive to add, you shouldn't be posting.

Thanks to the rest of you for making good points. I realize I'm likely matching a pattern that doesn't exist. I have, however, seen players who repeatedly take advantage of specific blind/late pos lineups to raise any 2 every round. I guess the point is to wait for a good hand even if this is the case. I do think I can lower my standards, though not all the way down to T4o.

[sweetjazz]

You can't tell from such a small sample what seat 1's range is for open-raising in the HJ. It appears he has correctly loosened his requirements significantly, so you should adjust to that appropriately.

However, three-betting with T4o is still a bad idea because (1) after just a few orbits, I doubt you have built up a lot of fold equity at this point, which is what you need to make this a playable hand and (2) there are still three players left to act and while they may be tight and passive, having one of them enter the pot (which will happen about 10 - 20% of the time, say) puts you in a bad spot where you will have to fold most flops and proceed carefully when you do actually get a piece of it.

The table conditions you describe make 3-betting with T4o much better than it ordinarily would be. Unfortunately, it would ordinarily be a very -EV move and now I believe it would simply be a slightly -EV move.

Even T8o would be pushing it and a hand like T9s is probably marginally profitable to 3-bet here. Of course, you are doing this largely for metagame reasons. You are trying to induce your thinking opponent to tighten up his open-raising standards in the HJ and CO, to induce into making bad calldowns later because he saw you 3-bet T9s before, and to generally have him think that you a LAGgy fish. So this is basically a play that you should stop making once you have shown it down once. And just because you got away with it the first time (say winning a pot without a showdown) does not mean you should continue to make such plays. Each time you make such a play, it generally lessens the EV of future plays (because you raise the suspicion level of your thinking opponent that you are 3-betting light).

So I am not willing to completely dismiss this type of play in specific game situations, but I don't think T4o is the kind of hand to make a stand with in limit poker, where your cards always do matter to a certain extent because you are limited in how much pressure you can put on someone to fold. And I have seen many players who try to make such plays overdo it to the point that they become the LAGgy fish that you are supposed to appear like. (Of course, most of them simply are LAGgy fish.)

So keep exploring metagame plays like these, but realize that it's possible to both underuse and overuse them.

[piggity]

Great post, sweetjazz. I think you hit the nail on the head.

[jason_t]

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I have T4o. What should I do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pick a better spot. Don't get in his way for the sake of doing so without something behind the effort.

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What should I do?

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drop down to 15/30 ?

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly, if you don't have anything constructive to add, you shouldn't be posting.

Thanks to the rest of you for making good points. I realize I'm likely matching a pattern that doesn't exist. I have, however, seen players who repeatedly take advantage of specific blind/late pos lineups to raise any 2 every round. I guess the point is to wait for a good hand even if this is the case. I do think I can lower my standards, though not all the way down to T4o.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand you are playing live and are thus extremely bored, but if you are so desperate to prove that you can outplay this guy, you can probably wait for a king or something suited first.
-James

[Mike Cuneo]

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What should I do?

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drop down to play money ?

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