Off the wall blind defense strategy

[skp]

I am at a buddy's house and shooting the breeze with him as he plays a little 30-60 on party.

On 4 different orbits at different tables, his blind is open-raised by either CO or the button and no one else calls. He 3 bets with 9s9d and Js4s and just calls with 8h8s and Ah9h.

I ask "what gives?"

He says that when playing against a steal raise, if he has a playable hand in the big blind, he will 3 bet if his first card is black and just smoothcall if his first card is red.

I then LOL.

Anyway, his strategy is:

a. demented;

b. generally flawed but is at least the start to developing some sort of effective randomization technique to keep your opponents guessing; or

c. meritorious particularly if you allow for on the spot adjustments depending on recent hand history.


Care to discuss?

BTW, the guy is a winning player so, even though I LOl'd at his answer, he's got me thinking about it enough to post about it here.

[DcifrThs]

i think this is pretty interesting, i tend to go 2 lines through the wars like this,

i 3 bet most of the upper limit of the "playable hands" and rarely 3bet with the bottom of the range. then either bet the flop and usually call a raise and decide what to do on the turn (note*just usually how it plays out but is not necessarily a 'strategy'). when i call its with a lot of other playable lower card/suited hands (which i occasionaly/rarely/ 3 bet with), but i checkraise lots of flops and make opponent makes decisions later on in the hand.

either way i think i have some randomization but to nowhere near the degree your friend does.

i think that any huge benefit to this is somewhat/totally/or more than offset by the cost of not often getting action on isolated hands...but it does get you action on your total set of hands played. i.e. you just 3 bet 3 black first cards and got caught bluffing vs. a button player. now you get AA in the bb but the first card is red...you SHOULD 3 bet now b/c he's more likely to call you down or get fancy w/ you. however, the strategy says call.

so if we work some past hands or recent situations into the strategy then certainly i think there is some merit and id love to see his bb and sb total strategy (only bb mentioned here) and win rate from his blinds.

good post though skp,

-Barron

[scott8]

I actually like it alot.
This is the out of the box approach that might hold more answers to winning play than one notices at first glance.

[pokerhooker]

I like this approach for randomization. However, I think I'd use this more for the bottom to middle range. I'm always 3-betting my monsters.

[AceHigh]

I vote A. I don't like 3-betting with J4s. Against a steal/raise there are many hands that are correct to call that would hate to get 4-bet preflop.

[andyfox]

d. not terribly important since the hands are all "playable."

As you know, some players sometimes raise or fold after looking at only one card. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Lawrence Ng]

[ QUOTE ]
As you know, some players sometimes raise or fold after looking at only one card.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny you should mention this Andy,

From time to time as an excercise on my hand reading skills in live games, I'd often raise without looking at my cards, but I'd give the perception that I did look at them to my opponents.

This created a rather interesting way to play the hand whenever I smelled weakness and would be aggressive during post-flop action.

Apart from creating a crazy loose image showing down T-5 offsuit, it also heightened my sense of awareness towards other players since I did not have to concentrate on what I had.

Lawrence

[brick]

[ QUOTE ]
From time to time as an excercise on my hand reading skills in live games, I'd often raise without looking at my cards, but I'd give the perception that I did look at them to my opponents.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've wanted to try this for a while.
I think I'll try it tonight.

[andyfox]

One session I remember, I had a fair number of skirmishes with a player with whom I was somewhat friendly. I won most of the battles. When he got up to leave, he said, "You know, I only beat you one hand tonight, and that was the one I didn't look at my cards."

[AceHigh]

I'd like to invite you to try this strategy in the Party 30/60 anytime. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]