blind defense against a very loose stealer

[slik]

I'm interested in hearing how to play the big blind when the button is seemingly open raising when ever it's open folded to him. Pokertracker has him stealing at 50%, but I think this is skewed towards the low end because hes folding hands when it's not open folded to him. He is a TAG otherwise and over a few 100 hands he's running around 24/22/3. Obviously I'm going to play more hands from the big blind, but when I do how frequently should I 3 bet preflop? From observation, he autobets the flop nearly always, so perhaps taking the initiative away from him out of position may not be the best idea. As far as heads up play goes, they say button should open 80% of his hands and the big blind 3 bet his top 1/3 of hands, but I'm not sure this is best if button is autobetting every flop. What would be your strategy?

[Harv72b]

PokerTracker doesn't count it as a steal opportunity unless it is folded to the player in late position. So if it says he's stealing 50% of the time, that's a true stat...although it's very possible, even likely, that he's stealing from the button more than 50%.

What do I do? 3bet with most hands that I'd be willing to take to showdown unimproved, both for value and because it's usually going to be easier to play them postflop that way. Also 3bet with a few other hands that have good suckout potential if he does have a real hand (i.e., suited connectors). Vary my flop play between check/folding, check/calling, check/raising, and just leading into him...regardless of the strength of my hand or draw. So every once in a while I'll just check/call with TPTK, sometimes I'll bet into him with a gutshot, other times I'll check/raise with bottom pair, etc. A good portion of the time I'll just check/fold, both because I have no hand and because he's going to start playing back and making it more difficult for me if I never do.

It really comes down to the psychological. My goal is to get that player to look down at his 97s on the button and decide that it's just not worth the effort to raise my blind, or better yet to get him to the point where he's going to show down ace or even king high every time I play back at him. In a dream scenario, make his postflop play so transparent to me that I can make perfect FTOP decisions against him every time.

[slik]

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts. Perhaps I had selective memory and just remembered the last session when he seemed to always raise my blind as the button. Thanks for the pokertracker clarification.

I think your last sentence hit the mark -- while we want to make his play predictable, we have to make sure ours doesn't become so. I had an issue with frequently 3 betting preflop when I played hands, as it may give too much info on my range of hands. But I think it may be a better way to make him back off if he realizes that he needs to invest 3 bets to steal the blinds.

So when I defended, I rarely 3 bet preflop and instead c/r'ed a lot of flops -- thinking that a flop c/r appeared stronger than a 3 bet preflop followed by a bet .. though I'm not convinced on that either. Also, I hate playing ace high hands out of position when I'm the preflop aggressor. If an ace doesnt hit, I'm pretty much confused. But your points about not becoming predictable and preventing him from raising preflop are so clear that in my haste had somehow avoided them.