When trying to exploit a particular opponent, the most important question to ask yourself is, “What are the situations where his range is either tighter or wider than it ‘should’ be? When does he build pots with hands that don’t warrant such a show of strength?”
This is the same opponent from yesterday’s hand, we played again last night. His style had changed somewhat as he was no longer tilted and the aggressive dynamic wasn’t as fresh for either of us. Also, we weren’t as deep. He was check-raising a lot of flops, especially dry ones, with everything from air to middle pair to sets. As a result, I’d been floating him and calling him down light, and he’d been making some good thin value bets on the turn.
To combat this, I decided to double float on a dry board and then bet the river. Since he couldn’t very plausibly put me on a hand that needed to bluff, I thought he’d have to fold a lot of his thin value range. I also didn’t expect him to triple barrel bluff, which is important.
In choosing the right spot for this, I was looking for both a board with no obvious draws and a hand that could nevertheless have a little bit of equity against the top of his range. Here’s what I came up with:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($2840)
BB ($7755.25)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 9
, 8
Hero bets $60, BB calls $40
Flop: ($120) 2
, 6, J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $70, BB raises to $220, Hero calls $150
Turn: ($560) 7
(2 players)
BB bets $320, Hero calls $320
River: ($1200) 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $790, 1 fold
Total pot: $1200 | Rake: $0.50
Results:
Hero didn’t show 9, 8 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $1199.50
On the flop, I have the double-double gutter. In other words, six cards will make me a pair (which at that time would be enough to put me ahead of his range), and eight more will make me an open-ended straight draw.
I’m definitely not looking to semi-bluff raise the turn. Stacks are deep enough that I’d have to fold to a shove, and I think I can bluff the river more cheaply, or maybe even make a hand.
It’s tempting to just check back when I pick up showdown value on the river, but I think a bluff is still more profitable. It’s very very hard for him to put me on less than KJ when I call twice and then bet the river, and I think I can fold him off of better hands from A8 to QJ (and there are actually a lot of combos in there, he was pretty loose pre-flop).
This match went badly for me, and at the trough I was stuck more than 8 buy-ins (though still up from the night before, thank you very much). Between the two nights, we’d been playing for about 6 hours and had a cordial relationship. I won back about 2 buy-ins, and suddenly he told me had to go and quit quite abruptly. I checked a few minutes later and he was still playing on other tables, which really pissed me off. It’s definitely polite in a long heads up match to give some warning before you quit a big winner, but if he really isn’t comfortable playing me any more, just say that, don’t lie and say you have to leave. Just goes to show you what an ego-driven game this is. Even when they are admitting they are outclassed, people hate to say it out loud.