Blind Defense, A high OOP, missed flop.

[elena_elphie]

Here is a situation that comes up fairly often in my games that I am not sure I am dealing with well. Suppose this is a live 20/40 or 40/80. Villain is a typical regular, probably breakeven or a small winner in the game, that is to say, plays somewhat too loose preflop but not completely nuts, steals on the button around 30-40% of the time, is capable of trickery but a little too passive postflop.

An example:

Villain raises on button, sb fold, I 3-bet w/ AT in the BB villain calls.

Flop Q84 rainbow, I bet, villain calls.
Turn 6, I bet, villain raises, I fold.

Standard right? I just feel like I'm getting pushed around here sometimes.

Does anyone have a general strategy for dealing with these situations. I feel like I deal with this much better when I do have position. I do check the turn here as well sometimes, most regular villains know I am capable of checkraising the turn, so my check is not an open invitation to bet.

[Clarkmeister]

In that spot when they call the flop on a board that uncoordinated I frequently just check behind and call the river.

[elena_elphie]

I do that with position, but I am OOP in this scenario. That's where it gets tougher.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
I do that with position, but I am OOP in this scenario. That's where it gets tougher.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, I misread. My mistake.

[goofball]

That spot sucks a lot in general. It mostly depends on my relationship with the villian and I like these kinds of spots live a lot more than online. I feel like how I deal with turn raises is still the biggest leak in my game. I think a lot of the time you should keep betting. Depending on who villian is he could have some kind of gutshot there, or he could be peeling with all sorts of crap, frequently you should just keep the pressure on. If I'm against a villian who's flop call means my hand is no good I'll just check and fold the turn. If I'm against a villian who I feel is especially tricky and likely to try to get tricky on me I'll frequently check and call the turn attempting to communicate that I'm just checkcalling down in annoyance, then I'll decide on the river but usually fold if he bets.

I think this spot is so immensely player dependent it's hard to discuss in general terms. Even if you don't have a big history with a player there's always just a ton more specific information live.


Online I tend to just crawl under my desk and click the mouse randomly in these kinds of spots.

[Dan BRIGHT]

if you check and call they will generally know its a defensive check and you intend to showdown. Often they wont value bet their small pair on the river once you do this. Also, they wont see draws on the board and figure you must have some of it, so they sometimes wont fire another barrel with their KJO bluff machine


still on that turn I nearly always bet. I'm more inclined to bet vs passive people. Less inclined to bet vs a2o freeshowdown guy

[bobbyi]

I haven't played much 40/80, but in typical live 20/40, I'm pretty sure this is the right way to play it. When you find yourself in this spot several times and aren't lucky enough to catch a piece of the board during any of them, it is easy to start getting paranoid that people are taking shots at you here on the turn, but I think that is usually unfounded.

As you know, my experience is with our Muck 20/40 game, so if the games you play in are more aggressive now that you are in california, this may not be true.

[elena_elphie]

I think that:

Bay101 20-40 = Muck 10-20 & Bay101 40-80 = Muck 20-40 in terms of game texture and difficulty.

I know that whenever I get paranoid and decide to call a raise w/ A high it is almost always a bad idea.

[elena_elphie]

I'm thinking of doing that sometimes, right now if I chk the turn I always either chk/fold or chk/raise. I'm trying to figure out when chk/call is appropriate so I have all three options at my disposal.