A Heads-Up Hand

[ML4L]

Hey all,

Thanks for the replies so far. Just to guide the discussion a little, here is my original post again...

3/6 online. Game had been full ring, but it broke quickly, and now is HU. Not much experience with my opponent; over 75 hands, initial impression is that he is a LAGtard, running 30/25 full ring. However, since the game has gone HU, he has been playing extremely TAG. Over 30 HU hands, he has yet to defend his BB (my button has been 50/50 mix of raise/fold). On his button, it has been an 80/20 mix of raise/fold. I've defended three times: I check-raise bluffed one flop and folded to a three-bet, check-folded the second, then, most recently, check-called the flop and check-folded an overcard turn. So, I would imagine that he views me on the weak-tight side. We've each three-bet once preflop; neither bet was called.

I would say that, at minimum, his preflop range is AA-99, AK-AQ. If it turns out that my read is correct and that, despite his tight play HU so far, he is actually a stupid LAG, his preflop range gets considerably wider in this spot. Additionally, I think that his double-barrel range would be fairly wide; he just successfully took down a pot by doing the same thing. So, with each of the hands, we have a different issue:

1) With AA, do we try to gun it out with an overpair on the flop, or let him hang himself a little, at the risk of letting him catch or some card coming that kills the action?

2) With 98o, Bayes Theorem indicates that we are ahead on the flop 50% of the time, even if his range is AA-99, AK-AQ. How do we best leverage protecting our hand against extracting more from bluffs? Can we avoid stacking off to an overpair while doing that?

3) With 53s, what is the best way to leverage our fold equity: get all-in on the flop, or see a turn? The 8's might be scare cards, and there is some chance that he gives up with overcards.

While some posters seem to be dismissing this hand, it touches on three common issues that come up in NLHE, both shorthanded and full ring. So, I think that the discussion should center around the above concepts and how the ideal line changes as the x% chance that he had trash preflop changes, along with his double-barrel frequency.

Again, all thoughts are appreciated.

ML4L