Sqeezing Blood from a Stone

[soweak.]

I posed the question (in the IRC chan) on whether or not it is correct to play straightforward with the nuts against a rockish player or to attempt deception and earn a few extra bets on the river.

First off Hero is playing pretty tight, and has shown down some good hands, but also some lucky ones. Villan is the Rockiest rock in the bunch. After about 150 hands he is 6% VP$IP and 2% PFR, he is very passive.


Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">5 folds</font>, MP3 calls, <font color="#CC3333">CO (SuperRock5000)raises</font>, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, Hero calls, MP3 calls.

Flop: (6.50 SB) 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
Hero checks, MP3 checks, <font color="#CC3333">SuperRock5000 bets</font>, Hero calls, MP3 folds.

Turn: (4.25 BB) A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">SuperRock5000 bets</font>, Hero ????

My line is that a cheak-raise will scream flush, and if he has two pair he only has at most 4 redraw outs. So the question is, when a rock is being aggressive, should we let him just keep betting, or do we show our strength now on the turn?

Thoughts?

[mtdoak]

Easy C/R. Yes, it screams flush, but if he has AA, KK, or AK, you might be able to get 4 bets in. Would you rather checkraise him when the board pairs and get trapped?

[Hybrid_11]

raise, if he likes his hand hes calling down anyway

[eric5148]

First of all, there's two basic types of rocks (I'm very familiar with rocks because I play UB a lot). First type is the weakies. They assume everyone else has the nuts if they raise postflop. Then there's the "I-only-play-premium -hands-and-I'm-not-folding-it -because-I-should -win-whenever- I-play-a-hand" type.

So, if you think he's a weakie, wait till the river to raise. If he hates to fold postflop then raise the turn and he'll call down.

[sy_or_bust]

A checkraise actually screams semi-bluff a heck of a lot more than flush. Against a Villain who only likes a handful of cards in the deck, this is even better, because AK is on the board and Villain has at least KQs and probably better. I don't think a player like this typically waits around for a huge hand just to fold something like TPTK to a turn raise. If he plays so few hands, you probably have no useful read on his aggression factor anyhow. Checkraise.

[Justin A]

I think a bet-3bet line on the turn is best.

Waiting until the river is bad because there's a lot of cards that will kill your action or give you a worse hand.

[HajiShirazu]

I would checkraise, these types usually call down in places like these. Bet looking to 3-bet as was suggested isn't a bad line but a lot of these guys will simply call down with the same hands they would have called the c/r with, fearing the flush.

[lmbree]

I like the turn c/r. Any river diamond and he probably insta folds. If the board pairs, he probably has to slow down a bit. If he has any aggressive tendencies and seems like he is paying attention, I may go for the river c/r too on a blank. Act as if I was bluffing the flush and see if I can get him to bet the river. This is def. FPS, but every once in a while I do it to make me feel like i'm good.