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I know I need to defend this hand -- should I fake tank?
I was in a pretty aggro 1/3 game that played quite large.
One of the biggest things I've been working on this past year is realizing where I am in my range, what hands I need to defend on what runouts, what hands I need to turn into bluffs ("Do I bluff with this hand or is it a check-fold for SDV? Do I have better hands to bluff with here?" etc).
Two regs in particular always have bluffs in their range and like to unload:
1. Maniacal Asian who loves to attack dead money (especially when people just call straddles) and weakness (strong tendency to bet when checked to). Has balls of steel and absolutely abhors paying off.
2. Quiet young white kid who plays very TAG preflop but likes to barrel off his missed draws.
So I found myself in a lot of spots where I know I have a hand that I have to defend on the river. Player 1 or Player 2 bets, and I toss a single chip in to hear, "I missed."
Maniacal Asian made a comment after a couple of these, "He just snapcalls, doesn't even think about it."
This is a level of live poker where there is quite a bit of tanking, and "soul-reading."
The fact that he picked up on the fact I was snap-calling a lot of these (honestly, trivial decisions) gave me pause however. I mean, I didn't do it ALL night, there were a couple of decisions where I had to think a bit about betting, raising (the right amount) and a couple of calls where I had to figure out if a different player had enough air to warrant a call.
Should I be taking a bit more time even though I know what I'm going to do?
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