Testing The Aggressive Opponent's Self Control

md261 on April 16th 2010

PokerStars Game $46+$4 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50)
Seat 2: Player 2 (3305 in chips)
Seat 3: Player 3 (1890 in chips)
Seat 5: Villain (2470 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero (1335 in chips)
Villain: posts small blind 25
Hero: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ac Kc]
Player 2: folds
Player 3: folds
Villain: calls 25
Hero: raises 100 to 150
Villain: called 100
*** FLOP *** [Ad Ks 2c]
Villain: checks
Hero: bets 115
Villain: raises 220 to 335
Hero: calls 220
*** TURN *** [9d 8c 2h] [3d]
Villain: bets 350
Hero: raises 500 to 850 and is all-in
Villain: folds

The Flop decision

The Villain in this case was aggressive and tricky. I would usually consider checking behind but I thought that would probably raise suspicion with this opponent, as opposed to sucker him in, as I have played with him many times before, and I C-bet often.

With that in mind, I decided that the most likely way to get action from all made hands, semi-decent hands, and nothing hands, would be a small C-bet. This opponent may lack the self-control to avoid check-raise bluffing with nothing, out of position with a weak hand like 77, or just total air. He would be hard pressed to fold a King to a bet this small, and may feel he should raise for value with an Ace as I look so weak.

An important consideration here is that I am clearly way ahead and the best case scenario for my opponent is that he is check raising with a gutshot and has 3 outs (technically I could be beaten, but I'm just losing my stack in that case anyway, so I'll remove that from my considerations and just focus on extracting value from inferior hands).

Rather than checking behind and attempting to induce an unlikely small bet on the turn, against this aggressive opponent the weak bet may look like a scared pocket pair, a cheap steal attempt, or just may be too disrespectfully small for his aggressive blood to fold to.

The rest of the hand played out pretty standard. I called behind as I wasn't really worried about being outdrawn, and it may get an extra bet out of a bluffing hand. He followed up on the turn and I didn't have many chips behind, so I stacked it in giving him great odds for a call, but he folded.

md261