Blind Play Against Aggressive Opponent

[CoolDuck]

Hey Guys,

I'm probably going to get torn up my next 3 to 4 posts.  I got absolutely dominated last night.  I think I lost 40 to 50 bb (and one session I made 20 )

Anyway, here's one from this morning.  The big blind is semi-loose, aggressive.  Not enough of a sample size for PT stats.

<a href="http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/flash/replayer.swf?pokerhandid=315860" target="_blank">http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/flash/replayer.swf?pokerhandid=315860</a>

What do you think of my line here based on the board?  The 9 is such a strange card for him to donk bet, but there's very little that I can do. 

I won't say anything else, analyze it for yourself and tell me what you think.

[Coughy_boy]

Muck it.  Shuffle and deal.

[CoolDuck]

Muck it.  Shuffle and deal.

Obviously..   but what about the hand itself?

[Tony]

Preflop and flop are standard, but why did you raise the turn?  A typical aggressive player checkraising that flop will do so with flush draws, any 7, 5 or 4 or better, any pocket pair and maybe overcards with a bdfd.  Some of these pairs will also make draws like 65.

Given that it's a blind-steal dynamic and the fact that it's a drawy board I don't think he's folding the vast majority of these hands on the turn, so why raise?  You have a gutshot, a king overcard and some showdown value so I'd probably just call and hope to check it down on the river.

When he just calls the turn raise he probably doesn't have 86 or a 4, since he'd have three bet.  So I'd narrow his range to pairs or a missed flush draw at this point.

On the river he's either less aggressive than you thought and waited until the flush draw missed before betting his straight, or he had a hand like 99, 97 or 98.  Or maybe he had 96 or a flush draw with a 9 and didn't want to miss value.  There are certainly a number of hands containing a 9 that bet that river for value.

[CoolDuck]

Preflop and flop are standard, but why did you raise the turn?  A typical aggressive player checkraising that flop will do so with flush draws, any 7, 5 or 4 or better, any pocket pair and maybe overcards with a bdfd.  Some of these pairs will also make draws like 65.

I raised the turn because I thought there was a chance he was bluffing and because I thought I would have some fold equity.  But I think that's misconceived, because with a draw he's calling anyway. 
Generally against aggressive opponents that check-raise low drawy boards I like to hit them back if I have any kind of draw.  I'm calling any K, 8, or 6.  So possibly 10 outs, but more like 8 effectively. 

I'm thinking a better line here would be to just call the check-raise, call the turn bet, and then wait till the river.  How do you typically deal with this Tony, when an aggressive blind check-raises?  I don't like the thought of him winning the river when he barrels every street, but I guess I'm better off letting that happen then I am being overaggressive on boards where I don't have much chance of pushing him off.

[Coughy_boy]

but what about the hand itself?

Mucka mucka mucka.  Muckomatic.  Keep laying them odds, and good luck on your trip to Variance Town, pal.

[CoolDuck]

but what about the hand itself?

Mucka mucka mucka.  Muckomatic.  Keep laying them odds, and good luck on your trip to Variance Town, pal.

Great advice.  An aggressive player raises on a draw heavy board in the blind.  And 8-10 of my outs could be good.  And I should just muck.  Muck the flop, turn?  You need to be more specific and give some reasoning behind your answer.  Otherwise it's just a useless post.  Like, stupid turn raise Duck, just call because he won't fold as an example.

[Tony]

Yeah in this situation I call the turn and make a decision on the river unimproved.  But unless he's VERY aggressive my default is to fold the river.

It depends though.  If I felt my image was such that he might be trying to run me over, I might call down to show him I can't be pushed around.  It's definitely not that bad to show down, there are a number of missed draws and you're getting decent odds.  Then later in the session you can give more weight to his river bets.  A lot of people will just give up on the river when their draws miss though, so I tend to reserve k-high call-downs for the most aggro villains, it's not something I do a lot.

Just make sure if you do call down that you make a note of what he shows and adjust in future.  Also bear in mind that he'll be less likely to barrel you with air later in the session.

[Tony]

Duck, another way to think about the turn raise is to consider what hands you would checkraise the flop with yourself.

In my case for example, I'm cr the flop if I estimate that I have significantly greater than 50% equity, and I'll also cr my draws for balance.  The point being that after cr the flop I'm betting the turn pretty much every time, and I'm almost never folding to a turn raise.  If they call the turn I'm also betting the river the vast majority of the time whether I miss my draw or not.

All aggressive players in blind-steal situations like this where the ranges are wide, will play in a similar fashion.  So I normally don't raise the turn unless it's for value.

Bearing this in mind, raising the turn as a semibluff has limited value in my opinion versus good players who know they should be showing down a lot in these situations.  Having said that I'm sure we should be raising the turn as a semibluff at least some of the time, otherwise the villain could never call down without the proper odds.  So I don't think raising is terrible and it's good that you're thinking about balancing your ranges and mixing up your play.