The Sheriff's Dillema

"The Sheriff" - A more passive player that likes to call down bluffs, and seems to always think someone's bluffing. "The Sheriff" is even known to keep calling the "bluffer" to induce further bluffs, with the intent of reaming more and more money off the "supposed" bluffer in the end.

I recently discovered a phenomenon in 100+ NL Hold 'em I called the "The Sheriff's Dillema" nicknamed after a mistake Sheriff-like players make a lot. This holds true when you cant get a "visual" read on someone, i.e. you cant see their face in real life (online), or if you can you cant get a solid read on them visually.


A hand will illustrate this:

Suppose you have AA at a 200 NL (blinds 1$-2$) game (no fish up here lol!) and the board comes J74 rainbow and you are 1 on 1 with another opponent, with position on this opponent. You have raised to 10$ pre-flop (5x BB), so this puts the pot at 20$. Now, suppose he checks, you bet 10$ (no need to bet too much here as the board is fairly drawless), and he minraises you back to 20$. Each of your stacks stands at 200$ a piece.

You are now faced with a Sheriff's Dillema. Your opponent could be bluffing and just hold AK or even AJ. Or your opponent could have 77 and have you railed. So how do you know which? Well if you are a "Sheriff" you simply call him. Of course he will keep betting more and more until he's all in on the river, regardless of what he actually holds. The "sheriff" simply calls down all the bets, and pays off the set and calls down any bluffer.

Now suppose instead, you reraise him back another 20$. Now any bluffer and any AJ is going to be scared. The bluffer will most likely fold, and the AJ will simply call. The 77, because he lacks position, will be forced to reraise you back or face a check-check on the turn followed by a corkbottled pot on the river (corkbottled pot = pot being to small to make serious money off of without overbetting). If you are raised back a substantial amount, you can then make the laydown with much more certainty.

This is important, since most of the time people aren't bluffing, so the "Sheriff" is paying more people off than pay him off.

Good observation. Passive play screws your reads all day long. It's important to know when it's correct to call down against a loose aggressive player. Passive beats loose aggressive. Just make sure you have a set of sevens in YOUR hand.

I think a big mistake new players make is raising at the wrong time, and calling at the wrong time on a flop. If your hand is strong but vulnerable, it's time to measure your opponents strength. There are three reasons I see to raise on the flop, though I'm no expert....

1. For information
(to measure the relative strength of your hand).

2. To protect yourself against a draw
(Or make a draw pay extra).

3. To make your opponent fold right there.

If you have the best hand, and it's not all that vulnerable against few opponents, then it's the wrong time to raise an opponents bet on the flop. Especially an aggressive opponent. there are good times to smooth call aggression, but you can't leave your hand unprotected just to make a point.

I played against a guy last night who would see every single flop. Then he would min bet every single street if first to act. He would min bet, and you would raise him with top pair. He would call and min bet right out on the next street. It would screw with you because often a really strong hand min bets to induce a raise. This guy was doing it to induce calls so he could draw on you.

One hand I raised him every street to 5 times his lead bet. he called every street and showed down 5th pair. A pair of 5's ace kicker on a 9 5 K T 6 board. I flipped over K8.