common and tough spot / hypothetical scenario

[ACynicalOptimist]

your holding: ace-high, usually decent kicker. So let's say A-7.

your opponent: thinking loose-aggressive player, doesn't pure bluff but semi-bluffs at every possible opportunity (when he thinks he has 6 outs or more, but very frequently as little as 6 outs)

the situation: you make a normal raise to steal the blinds with your hand, and he does something which, let's just say for sake of argument, gives you a very good idea of the range of his holding - i.e. in this hypothetical he only 3-bets in the small blind with the following hand range: 8-9 suited, 9-10 suited, and any 2 paint cards both suited and unsuited, as well as any pocket pair deuces through 6's, and ace-rag from A-2 to A-5. So we're assuming he has no better or worse holdings than any of these hands, and we can also assume that the Ace-x hands are less likely to be in his range since you have yourself have an ace. Also, let us assume that the by far most frequent of his range are just two off-suit of JT, QT, QJ, KJ, KQ.

The Flop: 8-rag-rag. for now let's say rainbow.
He bets, you call (maybe some would argue for raising here; I usually call and I certainly think a fold is a bad play)

A) out of the following turn cards: (7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A), which ones do you fold, call, or raise.
B) How would these answers change if the turn card brings a flush draw?
C) How would these answers change if the original flop contained a flush draw and the turn card put 3 of a suit on board, and you either had the 7 of that suit or 0 of that suit.

D) and now the big question I have. How would the answer change if somehow the pot were bigger than it would be under this hypothetical scenario. The reason I ask this is I often find myself unwilling to raise, say, the turn of a King, and then when the river is a Queen, I have let J-Q suck out on me, or if I fold I have let JT bluff me. At the same time, raising the turn of a K if opponent in fact has KQ or KJ would be spewy, no? Essentially I don't know when I should go into call-down mode or still try to defend against a 6-out semibluff, particularly in "larger" type pots.

Obviously I know there's no easy answer to this, but any insight would be helpful. The LAGs who constantly re-steal my ace-high hands with 2-paint type hands and intermix their turn play with semibluffs/value bets are really crushing me lately.

[Moneyball16]

I think you could find good answers for this using PokerStove. I think it would be really useful for what your looking to find out here. Even more useful than the advice you would get here since your ranges are exact in this hypothetical scenerio.

[JDalla]

you could try raising most flops, and then reevaluating at the turn, perhaps checking through for a cheap SD. (they may not bluff the river because it is so easy for you to snap them off - just one bet closing the action.)

However, many LAGs will start 3bet bluffing the flop when you do this, which is tough. Basically what I try is when they start doing this I just play straightforward for a while, playing the flop very hard with a pair, a monster, or a strong draw with an ace or a king in hand.

If they pick up on that then start throwing out some bluffs, but some of these Lags never really adjust and will always get to showdown with their K highs.

[joker122]

Regarding A, B and C:
you gave him such a tight/weak range that getting to showdown is going to be correct no matter how the board comes, let alone a totally innocuous board like 8xx. even with really ugly turn and rivers like QJ he’s still going to be pair-less 25% of the time so you'd never fold getting 7.5:1. (though that would change depending on the info you had about how often he 2 and 3 barrells compared to how often he gives up, since, for instance a 3 barrel might always mean a pair or better). as for raising vs. calling, raising any turns cards other than an A or 7 doesn’t seem to make any sense. However, raising vs. calling on a 9-2 turn is actually much closer and I had trouble figuring what is best using stove.
Your “big question” is harder to figure out and I’ll get to it tomorrow.

[ACynicalOptimist]

whatever happened to tomorrow? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

anyway, I've been dealing with it better as of late, I think. My conclusion is that a big factor which I often don't take into enough consideration is the "mood" of the table and players. Based on who's been winning or losing, who just took a bad beat or who just sucked out, and if and how many bad beats have been occuring, etc., I try to get a sense of whether or not my opponent in a particular hand is more inclined to be playing ABC poker or running a semi-bluff on me. Between the mood and my own current table image, I'm able to more effectively come to a decision about calling/raising/folding in these tough spots. I still think there is this really difficult point when the pot approaches a size at which a 6-out semi-bluff raise by an opponent should sometimes be countered with a reraise, because otherwise you're letting the semi-bluff succeed (your opponent will know to value bet/bluff any time another paint card hits the river, and in medium-sized pots you're giving up way too much by folding all the time and also paying off a lot the times you're behind.)

meh I guess I didn't really solve my issue but just cop out with the standard "it depends, and requires judgment" answer