THIN! (Part 8)

One of the first principles of poker education is that playing out of position sucks and therefore should be avoided. However, sometimes seeing a flop out of position is unavoidable, and moreover you do give up value by being TOO tight out of position. I have been working recently on playing better out of position. Again I think it's one of the more difficult aspects of the game, but essential to be a well-rounded player and be able to adapt to games where all the players are trying to get positional advantage. Position is important, but at some point a stronger hand range outweighs the advantage of position. A key element of playing well in position vs. aggressive players means making some pretty thin check/calls and check-raises. Here are a couple of examples in blind vs. blind situations where I was pretty much obligated to raise from the sb and got called by the bb:

Seat 2: bruechips (SB) ($125.90)
Seat 3: BB ($12.75)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bruechips [Kc Th]
bruechips raises to $1.50 (Pretty standard, although if I were deep with the BB and he were an exceptional player I might consider just folding. That's obviously not the case here.)
BB calls $1

*** FLOP *** [2h Qh Tc]

bruechips checks (The outcome of this hand probably would have been the same if I had just bet/called rather than check/raised, but possibly not. Anyway, my thinking was: if I bet and he raises, I have to call. Pretty much any hand he's going to raise a continuation bet with he'll also bet/call with if I check/raise. He's certainly not folding any hand that beats me, so bet/calling and check/raising both get all the money in against the hands that beat me or that have huge equity like Ah9h. Check/raising, however, gets more value out of hands that I beat like worse tens, and total air. The only danger is if he checks behind, and I give up a free card to a hand like A3 that then catches an A to beat me. But I decided to just take that risk and go for the check/raise.)
BB bets $2.50
bruechips raises to $12
BB calls $8.75, and is all in
bruechips shows [Kc Th]
BB shows [Td Jd] (Indeed, check-raising earns me so razor-thin value)

This next hand is a little more interesting since I'm deeper with the big blind, so there's 3 streets of action:

Seat 2: bruechips (SB) ($115)
Seat 3: BB ($84.90)

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to bruechips [Js Ad]
bruechips raises to $1.50
BB calls $1

*** FLOP *** [8d 3h 7d]

bruechips bets $2.25 (Standard raise and c-bet on a rag flop. He calls, which I think he would do with a pretty wide range, including hands like 55 that he thinks is probably good but doesn't want to bloat the pot with)
BB calls $2.25

*** TURN *** [8d 3h 7d] [8s]

bruechips checks
BB checks (This doesn't change my perception of his range that much except that I'm pretty sure he doesn't have an 8 now. I doubt he'd slowplay trips on a board that has lots of straight and flush draws on it.)

*** RIVER *** [8d 3h 7d 8s] [Qc]
bruechips checks (This is a somewhat close decision. I could bet here to represent a Q, which is well within my range, and try to make him fold 55 or 76. But I'm not positive that he'd fold those hands - 6-max players can be very sticky, especially blind vs. blind - and I think I probably get more value by checking and letting him bet air, which I beat. The key is that I DON'T think he could value bet 76 or 55 if I check. Of course if he himself rivered a Q he will value bet that. But that's really the only hand that I could see him value betting here, and the only hands with queens in them that get to the river are ones with diamonds in them. There are a whole host of other missed straight and flush draws that he would bluff with that I can snap off, so I decided to check/call. It's a weird situation where I think his hand range is stronger when he checks behind the river than when he bets it. If he could somehow check and then make a bet with me on whose hand his better, then I'd bet on his hand. But since there's no way to check and then make me fold, he has to bet, which then makes me think that I have the best hand often enough to call.)
BB bets $6
bruechips calls $6

*** SHOW DOWN ***
BB shows [Ts Jh] a pair of Eights
bruechips wins the pot ($18.55) with a pair of Eights

-BRUECHIPS