HU hand vs thinking player

[Fnord]

Stars 10+1 HU SnG. Best game I've yet played against a non-FTR opponent. He's thinking, capable of making moves but folds a *bit* too often (there is a good argument you should never fold pre-flop and I think he's folding 10-15% and not drawing quite enough on the flop) and can be picked off. He's shown turn bluffs and caught me in the act as well. Also, he appears to be too passive on the river, missing some of the thinner HU value bets. Finally, he recently made a comment "gg no matter what man."

He's playing about 90% preflop and my guess is raising around 25% pre-flop.

PokerStars Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind t50 (2 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

Fnord (t1980)
Button (t1020)

Preflop: Fnord is BB with A, 8.
Button raises, Fnord calls.

Flop: (4 SB, t200) 4, A, 6 (2 players)
Fnord checks, Button checks.

Turn: (2 BB, t200) 3 (2 players)
Fnord checks, Button bets, Fnord raises, Button 3-bets, Fnord ????

[elipsesjeff]

Cap it, raise the river as well. A thinking player is more likely to have a marginal hand that you beat in this situation than a non-thinking player. If he has a set you've got to pay him off.

[Fnord]

Cap it, raise the river as well. A thinking player is more likely to have a marginal hand that you beat in this situation than a non-thinking player. If he has a set you've got to pay him off.

Cap and lead, call a river raise? What if the river is the 2 or 7?

[Demiparadigm]

As you played it, I call down from the turn 3 bet, and check call the river unimproved. There is nothing that you legitimately beat here.
I don't mind a flop cap, but leading the river on a scare card is probably losing chips. I would check to induce a bluff.
I really would consider leading the flop, though. I think it makes the whole hand easier to play.

[Fnord]

I really would consider leading the flop, though. I think it makes the whole hand easier to play.

I almost never bet the flop HU out of position after the other player has the lead pre-flop. Too easy to check/raise with any piece or bet the turn if he checks behind. Once he stops auto-betting the flop, then I switch it up and start leading into him.

I'm of the school of thought that if your opponent bets the flop over 90% of the time, then leading into him can't be correct.

I really would consider leading the flop, though. I think it makes the whole hand easier to play.

I almost never bet the flop HU out of position after the other player has the lead pre-flop. Too easy to check/raise with any piece or bet the turn if he checks behind. Once he stops auto-betting the flop, then I switch it up and start leading into him.

I'm of the school of thought that if your opponent bets the flop over 90% of the time, then leading into him can't be correct.

Unless he'll raise 90% time as well, right? :)

[pokerfanatic]

ummm i would probably cap the turn and lead the river/call a raise...

[|~|ypermegachi]

i call, and bet a non flush on the river. there's no reason to believe he didn't hit a set or some weird 2 pair, and it will get very expensive to cap and bet/call the river.

[Fnord]

it will get very expensive to cap and bet/call the river.

Good point. There is a tourney strategy component to this hand. We're throwing around 200 chip big bets at this point.

[elipsesjeff]

If I could go all in at this point i would. If this were a LHE SNG I'd try to get as many chips in the middle as possible.

[chardrian]

Why no flop bet or preflop 3 bet?

[Fnord]

Why no flop bet or preflop 3 bet?

I explained my flop line.

Pre-flop, consider:

o I like to keep the pot small in these pre-flop. My opponents make horrible post-flop decisions and by keeping the pot small I can exploit this by passing on some small edges and not trying to run them over. Once a pot gets capped pre-flop, it's much harder to make a truely horrible mistake post-flop if you refuse to fold.

o He's a thinking player and I expect him to strongly rep an Ace. If I 3-bet and the flop comes Axx I doubt I'm getting much action besides call-call-call from a worse hand. If I 3-bet and lead out of position on a board without an Ace this could be a difficult hand against this particular player.

o At this point I'm looking for a spot to really cripple him so I can apply hyper-pressure (BTW, I won this hand and then torched him with aggression set-up with my prior passive play and his short chip stack.)

o His chip position is such here that he's not desperate to make a move, yet can't afford to spew chips. It's money time and we both know it. I think he's less inclined to raise trash in this spot.