Defense against the squeeze play...

Garland · #1 10-25-2007, 12:50 AM

In a local casino, I’m playing $40/$80 limit 3 or 4-handed and sitting in the 9 seat. Next two players comes a man and a woman. They could be a couple, but they are at the very least friends as they are often whispering in each other’s ears between plays. By their play, they clearly aren’t passive or very fishy, nor are they soft playing each other either.

So the woman sits in the 8 seat to my right and the man sits in the 7 seat two to my right. And when it’s my big blind and it’s folded to the button, the guy raises his button, and the woman looks at her cards from SB and 3-bets, and I fold my trash and they play out their hand (no showdown). Ok, no problem there.

But then it happens again. And again. And again. No less than 4 times within say 45 minutes.

So basically I’m feeling squeezed and other than simply racking up and leaving is there any rational and reasonable defense here?

FWIW, the rule in this casino is when it gets short-handed, you cannot change seats.

Garland

disjunction · #2 10-25-2007, 01:00 AM

[ QUOTE ]
In a local casino, I’m playing $40/$80 limit 3 or 4-handed and sitting in the 9 seat. Next two players comes a man and a woman. They could be a couple, but they are at the very least friends as they are often whispering in each other’s ears between plays. By their play, they clearly aren’t passive or very fishy, nor are they soft playing each other either.

So the woman sits in the 8 seat to my right and the man sits in the 7 seat two to my right. And when it’s my big blind and it’s folded to the button, the guy raises his button, and the woman looks at her cards from SB and 3-bets, and I fold my trash and they play out their hand (no showdown). Ok, no problem there.

But then it happens again. And again. And again. No less than 4 times within say 45 minutes.

So basically I’m feeling squeezed and other than simply racking up and leaving is there any rational and reasonable defense here?

FWIW, the rule in this casino is when it gets short-handed, you cannot change seats.

Garland

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand the problem. If they are playing any two on your blind, they are throwing you money. To make even more money, decide in your head how much action it will take on your part to make them fold. If you think you know this, you will make even more monies.

As long as they are not colluding (and maybe even if they are, with these preflop ranges), you will make money if you loosen up, play hands that have 30% equity against 2 opponents with wide ranges, try not to fold these big pots postflop, and rake in the $$$. You lose $40 every time you fold, but the first pot you enter has $320 of their dollars in it.

Sevenfold · #3 10-25-2007, 01:05 AM

[ QUOTE ]
And when it’s my big blind and it’s folded to the button, the guy raises his button, and the woman looks at her cards from SB and 3-bets, and I cap it the third time they do this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Garland · #4 10-25-2007, 01:09 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And when it’s my big blind and it’s folded to the button, the guy raises his button, and the woman looks at her cards from SB and 3-bets, and I cap it the third time they do this.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

3rd time or no, it's really difficult to cap with 62o. Each time she 3-bet, my high card was no higher than an 8. And pre-flop hand range defense really wasn't the point of this thread.

Garland

HOWMANY · #5 10-25-2007, 01:33 AM

I'm not sure I understand. Are you suggesting that she is colluding to get the pot HU with the button or is it that she just happens to be 3betting the small blind every time the button opens the pot?

If it is the former then leave. If the latter then just adjust your capping range or coldcalling range to adapt to her large range. I suggest you start by capping more often to find out if the button will fold for 2 more because this is very good for you if he will. If he calls the extra 2 almost always then I suggest calling 2 in the bb much more often than you normally would and playing poker postflop. If you are not suggesting that they are cheating then your question is really no different than "what do I do if the cutoff raises every time on my button?" or countless other "what if my opponent does this?" questions that can all be answered by expand/decrease your range to take advantage of them in the best way possible.

AngusThermopyle · #6 10-25-2007, 01:38 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure I understand. Are you suggesting that she is colluding to get the pot HU with the button ....

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what his post and title suggest to me.

HOWMANY · #7 10-25-2007, 01:39 AM

That's what I thought at first but it seems that the obvious response to this is to quit.

btw you can't change seats shorthanded at the Bike? That seems pretty retarded. What is "shorthanded" defined as?

AngusThermopyle · #8 10-25-2007, 01:46 AM

Since this was originally posted in B&M, OP might have wanted to know about his options talking to the Floor, etc (maybe get him to look at the hands one time to see if it is "shady")

Garland · #9 10-25-2007, 03:06 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Since this was originally posted in B&M, OP might have wanted to know about his options talking to the Floor, etc (maybe get him to look at the hands one time to see if it is "shady")

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, this is what I was aiming at. I don't know why this got moved to Medium Stakes as I'm not asking what hands I can play from BB; I'm asking about if I should suspect collusion. How does the floor ever gets involved in anything like this? And I guess, how long I should "take it" before blowing the whistle. Since I know poker by nature is aggressive, and they are two good players they could in fact be just playing their cards hard against each other, which I have no problem with. However, if their plan was to bet/3-bet me each time and at the end of the session chop up the big blinds I folded in the parking lot, that would not be kosher.

Obviously, I could quit (but in this case the other two players were so weak that I thought I could exploit them). But I'm really looking at the overall big picture as I'm sure I'll bump into them again. It's a small poker world here at $40/$80.

BTW, this did not occur at the Bike. This happened at a local casino in the Bay Area a couple of months ago.

And a side question would be: What are people's experience with collusion in live play in general and how was it handled?

Thanks,

Garland

3rdCheckRaise · #10 10-25-2007, 04:28 AM

Dude
It sounds to me that you were folding hands that you wouldn't be able to call a raise with anyway (8 high, 6high etc). I would suggest that you loosen up a bit and call 3 bet with the hand that you would call 1 raise and cap anything that worth 3 bets. If you feel that you being squeezed post flop then you can talk to the floor but i wouldn't. Great collusion is saving bets and not giving you odds postflop and sounds like they doing the opposite.