Sound off on semi-bluff defense...

[McStackin]

I know much of this is situation dependent (of course) but I will try to be somewhat specific:

2 players in pot deep stacked, hero in position, hero with TPTK - no spades, board with two spades. Villain is LAG with history of raising his draws. Villian check/called preflop and is about 35/15.

Do you re-raise and try to get him off now before the next card comes out?

Do you shove and go broke to the occasional 2-pair/set?

Do you call and see if he misses (pot size control) and shuts down? (I hate this one).

Do you back off and get out with a loss of the pre-flop raise and the flop value bet and not lose a deep stack in this instance?



How do YOU handle the somewhat obvious semi-bluff line?

[no eff eks]

This question is just too open ended to give a good response. Overall in the situation you described I'd be stacking off with TPTK, but often times it's better to be passive....

So yeah, my answer is basically "it depends".

[McStackin]

I hear ya - "it depends" is the best answer here.

I'm stacking off about half the time - depends on what I've seen my opponent go all in with in the past. With no such read he will probably get the fold equity out of me.

[ShoveOrFold]

How does a villain check/call preflop?

If you are playing micros, just stack off with TPTK. A 35/15 will get it in pretty bad against your range alot.

But one thing in your post that you are missing is board texture. There is a LOT more to board texture than just suits. Also you should know how your villains are reacting to cbets, play in raised pots, play oop, etc.

If you are afraid to play deepstacked without the nuts, then just go to a different table and play 100bb deep. You give up too much equity by playing scared, and quite frankly, most micro limit players don't know how to play too deep.

Also, you included no post flop lines. Is he c/r?, leading?, How much are we cbetting, etc. When you try to make these hypothetical scenarios its VERY VERY difficult to get a direct answer. Since poker is NEVER played in a vacuum, you will never get that direct solution that you might be looking for. If you want more help, look through your data base for about 5-10 hands that you struggled with in these scenarios, analyze each street, and explain your reasoning behind each play, and what you put villains on on each street. Then post the couple hands you have most trouble with and get better responses. If you aren't looking through you database after every sessions/couple sessions to look for tricky spots, you are giving up money in terms of EV in your poker career by limiting your potential to grow as a player.

[McStackin]

"How does a villain check/call preflop?"

I meant limp call, not check call, sorry about that.


"But one thing in your post that you are missing is board texture. "


I figured the term semi bluff meant 2-to-a-flush or connected cards for the str8 draw on the flop. I think I mentioned two spades out on the flop. I should have been more specific. Sorry again.

If you are afraid to play deepstacked without the nuts, then just go to a different table and play 100bb deep. You give up too much equity by playing scared, and quite frankly, most micro limit players don't know how to play too deep.

I should have said that I wasn't afraid to play deepstacked in the slightest, nor was I afraid of stacking it off w/o the nuts. Maybe I could have mentioned also that I'm not scared or giving away equity to fear. My bad.

The question was more theory than anything else. The villain's line could have been lead w 2/3, or min check raise your 3/4 sized c-bet. Doesn't matter. I was making conversation. I was looking for answers that depended on filling those blanks along with an answer. A discussion. "Sound off" means just that in most forums. For example 'a min-raise on the river from a fish usually means the nuts' type axiom. As there are so many others.



"Since poker is NEVER played in a vacuum"

It's not really?

"you will never get that direct solution that you might be looking for"

I want looking for a direct answer.


"If you aren't looking through you database after every sessions/couple sessions to look for tricky spots, you are giving up money in terms of EV in your poker career by limiting your potential to grow as a player. "

My goodness, can you flame me some more please? Say something condescending about my mother. Reading your post makes me feel like I'm reading from a micro-stake chat window. Are you sure my win-rate is lacking? All due respect, I am a student of the game like not many others. I play 5K hands a day and I study poker for an hour or more every day.

Oh well, never mind. Maybe it's a bad post. I was thinking it might end up beng an awesome archve/sticky type informative post for all to learn from. Don't worry, won't be doing that anymore.

[Qgel]

I could try to save the thread but unfortunately don't have any sexy girl pics to post

I will try to answer OP's question though

1st thing I want to say is you should be very unwilling to stack off 200BBs deep with just top pair. Against a LAGtard who doesn't care how deep you are it becomes a little closer but it still is generally a bad idea.

What to do on the flop is very dependent on the exact texture since a flop with 2 spades could be both A22ss and KQJss. Huge difference, right?

So anyway lets assume it is only semi coordinated like AT7ss. Stacking off 200BBs with AK here is usually lighting money on fire since even against a somewhat wide C/raising range coming from a laggy/spewy opponent we are usually either flipping a coin or drawing close to dead. 100BBs stacking off is more or less ok but 200BBs we should just call and reevaluate the turn since we don't want to flip a coin 200BBs deep and folding is too weak since we think we could easily be ahead. On a really bad turn card we can easily get away from a hand if he does barrel.

You might say that he could easily bluff us off on the turn if a scare card hits but I strongly disagree. From his perspective our hand looks either like top pair or a draw so if he decided to checkraise us with a top pair hand himself he will be just as scared of a spade on the turn as we are so if he bets we are miles behind nearly every time.

On a blank turn if he checks we can feel very comfortable about our hand and just bet for value/protection. If he leads again, depending on his betsizing we actually have all 3 options available and without history I can't hypothetically say which one is best.

Another thing that you seemed to completely ignore in the original post was position. All my comments are assuming we're in position. OOP is a bird of different nature I would probably call the flop raise and probably C/fold or C/Call on the turn w/o position depending on what comes but I'm not really sure.

Yet another very important thing that influences a ton of decisions is villains turn/river tendencies. How likely is he to C/raise semi bluff the flop, barrel a blank turn and then, say, shove a blank river when he misses? Since this is all hypothetical we have no way of knowing. You just describe villain as "LAG" but all that tells us is that his preflop ranges are wider than TAG's If you mean a 35/15 well that's not a lag that's more of a loose passive with some aggresive tendencies which again affects a lot of our decisions so it is overall just hard to think of one best play for that same situation.