Defending vs. 3-bets again...

Brackchips has been telling me for a while that I should post this hand, and I'm finally getting to it, so here goes. The overall thought in this hand is, there are several ways to punish 3-betters, 1) 4-betting light, 2) slowplaying a big hand, and 3) calling light in position to take away the pot on later streets. Against observant players, you can't do 1) and 2). But you also can't do 3) without doing some of 2). That is, you can't 4-bet light if you're never 4-betting your big pocket pairs, because your 4-bets have no credibility. At the same time, you can't call with only speculative hands and then raise tons of flops and turns because your opponent knows that you won't hit boards as often as you're making plays at them if your starting hands are all weak. Personally, I try to mix up 1) and 3) when I have a weak hand (IF I decide to play the hand - obviously some of the time I'm just giving up and folding), which means that I have to mix up slowplaying and 4-betting my big hands as well.

Second thought relates back to this post from a while back, where I basically say that floating a rag board in position in a 3-bet pot gets very little credit. After making that observation, the way to exploit it is to float the flop with some strong hands.

Overall, this board came out perfectly for me in that I had vastly under-repped my hand, and he get a river he thought he could rep when he didn't have the goods. This allowed me to get absolute maximum value in a spot where I don't there's any other way I could win his whole stack at a deep table. Of course, the board could easily have come out differently where I might have either lost value or lost the pot entirely. But here's how this one played out:

Seat 1: SB ($103.85)
Seat 6 (button): bruechips ($100)

*** HOLE CARDS **
Dealt to bruechips [Ks Kc] (BOOOOOOOOM!!!)
folds to me...
bruechips raises to $1.75
SB raises to $6
bruechips calls $4.25 (Here's where the interesting part of the hand starts. As I said before, I have to slowplay big hands sometimes preflop to protect the times when I'm calling just because I'm in position and I want to take it away later. Another point in favor of doing this is that this guy was a pretty tight player, and this deep, even button vs. SB, I don't think he'd put too much more money in preflop without AA or MAYBE AK/QQ. However, most 6-max players, even tight ones, feel like they are repping big strength by 3-betting and then barreling away, so they will usually keep pounding until they meet resistence. I'm hoping that's what will happen in this hand.)

** FLOP ** [5h 9h 7d]
SB bets $10
bruechips calls $10 (PERFECT frop. Two things: I'm not that worried about the flush draw. Don't get too scared about flush draws in three-bet pots, particularly if you're up against an infrequent 3-bettor, as there aren't that many suited cards in his range, and after all, only 1/4 of his suited cards just hit a flush draw. I'm also not THAT worried about a set, because I think he'd probably just call me preflop rather than re-raise this deep with 55/77 to set mine. It's certainly possible he has some 67s type of hand that has a lot of outs now, but in all likelihood he's drawing to 2 outs with QQ-TT, or 3 outs with AK/AQ.)

*** TURN ** [5h 9h 7d] [2s]
SB bets $24
bruechips calls $24 (I just called preflop, just called the flop, how great a hand could I have? It looks for all the world like I have 66, 88, 98s, maybe QhTh or something like that. He's either betting for value against those hands or betting because he thinks I'll fold them. Of course I'm way stronger than that (if you don't know, KK is WAY stronger than 88 on this board with one card to come), and when you're at the top of your range given your prior actions, in general you shouldn't be going anywhere. I could raise here. But I decided to just call and give him a chance to do something courageous on the river, because I think he might be folding QQ-TT if I raise here, and certainly he'll fold A-high.)

*** RIVER ** [5h 9h 7d 2s] [As]
SB bets $63.85, and is all in
bruechips calls $60, and is all in (Obviously not the greatest river card, and I did time down a bit before calling. But when you see a card like this on the river, don't think "Oh, come on! I rope-a-doped him this whole way and then he rivers me!!! So sick!! So gross!!! Bleh bleh barf barf barf." Just think about whether you have the best hand, that's it. And when you think about it, even though he's a fairly tight player, he's got to shove this river with like 100% of his range that's NOT an A. He's repped strength from the beginning and then the A comes on the river, which I'm very unlikely to have unless I called down with an A-high heart draw, which would be pretty ghey, or I now hit aces up, which is also kind of improbable. I would have had to have called preflop with Ad9d or some such hand. A5s or A7s I probably fold on the turn, if I had wanted to get sticky on earlier streets. Really his view of most of my range is what I described before, middle pocket pairs and suited connectors that got stubborn with pair+straight draw. Finally, since my range is fairly weak and scared of the A, why would he shove if he did have, say, AKo or A4 of hearts? He knows that I'm not going to call with 88. He knows I'll be calling if I do have A9 or slowplayed a set or straight. He might as well just check/call. It's possible I'm wrong about that and he'd be shoving AKo and Ah4h too, but even so, getting 2:1 on my money and all those bluffs in his range, I found the call button.)

*** SHOW DOWN **
SB shows [Td Tc] a pair of Tens
bruechips wins the pot ($197.50) with a pair of Kings

Whew, got it right this time!

-BRUECHIPS