Finally understanding the drag of 50BB stacks & benefits of position

[mythrilfox]

Last night I was playing 1/2 heads up against a mega-LAG, borderline maniac. He would routinely overbet the pot for 2-4x the amount. On a number of occassions he would bet out like $25 into an unraised pot with just the blinds. I lost the hh, so here goes on this one:

First of all, I hate the blind structure on party, where button is second one in. But I'm SB / non-button this hand, and I raise to 6 with Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

I don't routinely open out of position with somewhat marginal hands like this, but this is only the second time I had done it, and it was sort of a blocker for him to raise big after I flat-call. I also felt like I needed to start taking the initiative.

Flop comes 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Pot is 12, I bet 10, he calls very quickly. Too quickly. I know he doesn't have much, and even though he is mega-LAG and has me beat, I know he will lay whatever he has down to proper aggression.

Turn 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

But here's the problem. If I really had something, would I lead the flop and then lead the turn? I had already trapped him once that night (when I flopped two pair), and if I genuinely had a good hand here, I would most definitely try to trap him again. If he were at all aware of that fact, he could severely punish another pot-sized bet on the turn by raising all-in, and obviously I couldn't call with Queen high. Hell, if I were in his position, even I'd re-raise the turn all-in. But check/raising is hard, because he will tend to overbet the pot anyway, and I can't be guaranteed he will fold to a check/raise push since he will have committed himself.

I check. He bets $50 into a $30 pot, leaving me with 35 behind. I fold.

Of course, the fact that the 8 hit the turn severely diminishes the value of this play, since, given my read, he may have had an 8 or a 6 or a low pp. And he's not laying down trip 8s, but he might lay down a pair of 8s. But that's not important. Imagine the river blanked. This is a severe problem I had all night against this player. Even if you wait for your good hands, they have to coincide with the times that he mega-bluffes the pot. And sometimes I'd go like 20 minutes without hitting a pair, and he'd end up stealing every pot with his ridiculous 6x pot bets.

Of course, had we been deeper, I could genuinely execute some nice counter-bluffs. As it is, he almost commits himself with a single bet! I can't even be guaranteed he folds to a counter-bluff, since he'll have committed himself by that time. Solution: don't play heads up against a borderline maniac like this?