Strategic thinking against good players

[Heisenb3rg]

This is just a random peice of insight that really hit home to me today when I was playing a good player HU @ 5/10 after dropping 1500$ at 25/50 live, then quickly dropping 1500$ HU at 5/10 with a sick run of cards.

I realized after a while I was getting bluffed out of a lot of pots. However, it wasnt just when I had air that I was getting bluffed out. It was when I would appear meak and he would represent scare cards to fold out my ace high/low pair.

IE flop is AQ5, I c/c. turn is 7 , I c/c. if the river was anything but a King , he would give up his air. But he would also bluff a king correctly thinking that I would fold out a hand like 56.

It was then a strategic concept dawned on me.

When you are playing a good player, chances are high that he will be aware of your perception of his range and thus use scare cards to bluff you. It is then your job to asses how much "air" he can have in his range and assume he bluffs a large percentage of that.


6-max example:

you call a 28/18/2.0's buton raisers open in the BB with 67

Flop comes 57T, you c/r, he calls.
Turn comes A.

You can assume there will be a very high chance that he will bluff raise this card , or use it for a free showdown, because PFRs often have a very high Ax distribution and you as the defender should know that.
However, he'll probabily think this way whenever he sees the ace, no matter what he has. Since he has so much crap like K3s and the like, you have a very profitble bet/call down , or possibly even a 3-bet.

Instead, put this same solid player UTG and you have a lot more problems because A high is such a larger percentage of his range.. Depends on the player, but against a player who erred on the tighter side, youd probabily have to fold to a raise. (although I would not bet the turn against an UTG opener).

Summary:
Good players use scare cards to retake initaitve but often do not asses what % of their range will hit that scare card and what % of their range they should represent it with.
You can thus exploit them with this knowledge, finding tough folds in certain situations, pushing them off better air in others, and inducing bluffs in another.

Then you can go into levels.... and thats when the beauty of limit poker starts revealing itself.

[sethypooh21]

uhmmm SHHHHHHH....

[acehole60]

Well put. I'll think some more about that.

[sethypooh21]

Seriously though, the way to combat this is the screwplay. TAG CO raises, I defend with a5, flop comes xxx, I check/raise. Turn is A, GREAT spot for a screwplay against a thinking TAG, imo - I know I walk right into this one all the time. (Though some people use this line way too often and screwplay like 77 or KQ here...)

[Heisenb3rg]

[ QUOTE ]
uhmmm SHHHHHHH....

[/ QUOTE ]

ummm just realized its too late to delete the post.. I really was going to after I read this lol...

[yourface]

nice post heisen,

now your poker secrets are MINE

[danzasmack]

fwiw heis i can see you thinking this hard right through my laptop when i play(ed) with you lol.

[BrassMonkey]

Isn't bluffing on scare cards something that good players do against other good players all the time? Perhaps I'm missing something specific to the range comments that you made, though. C'mon, dammit, don't go hushing up now!

[thepizzlefosho]

this is a pretty good post and hopefull the people that don't already think about this stuff won't read this.

I think it is especially applicable to picking off river bluffs in small pots in HUHU. But also as you were saying it really should help against LAGs and TAGs in deciding when to make calldowns on scary turn cards.

you mention 3-betting as a possible alternative in your 6max blind defense example. If the villain just calls your 3-bet what line would you take on a blank on the river? I can see arguments for both c/f, c/c, and b/f. (also I am assuming if you get capped on the turn you are c/f'ing the river UI)

[Absolution]

I just wonder why you would play a good player heads up. In a short-handed game I can see having to tangle with them if the table has a few fish. I guess it's difficult to avoid these days, but I just get up if I'm constantly faced with these situations.