Puzzled (LONG)

Been playing a HU player lately who makes isildur look like a nit.

The postflop stats and hand stats are over 6.8k hands, the basic stats are filtered for the last 3800 hands at the higher stakes.

Generally guys like this just go broke but this guy has some kind of twisted method to his madness, I have no idea why the ALL-IN EV has me under as well since I swear he won like 100000x flips.

I think near the last 3-3.5k hands the adjustments I made were pretty optimal and I started slowly crushing him then losing flips and getting bad beat back down.

I'll comment more on what adjustments I found to be optimal vs him after some discussion, not even sure if it's correct...

But it consisted of pretty much playing small ball with him OOP and 3betting him small pre and controlling the aggression, and really tightening up my calling 3bet range on the button.

I'll also post some of the biggest hands later, didn't want to make the wall of text/images even bigger than it is.

The graph vs him just mind boggles me.

Some notes about bet sizing

- Opens 3x on button every hand.
- his standard 3bet whether I min-raised or raised to 100 was 400.
- his 4bets were always 3x my 3bet.
- Flop cbets whether single raised or 3bet pot were ALWAYS 2/3 pot.
- Turn cbets in single raised pots were always 2/3 pot or full pot.
- Turn cbets in 3bet pots were 1/2 pot (20%), 2/3 pot (40%), full pot (40%) depending on board texture.
- River cbets were always 2/3 pot - allin overbets, generally he bet 2/3 or full pot though.
- His raise of cbet sizing were generally like I bet 388 he raises to 1752 on turn or check raises flop cbets from 122 to 480.

Doesn't seem to me like you're adjusting correctly.

For starters:
Vs. high 3bet, open up your calling range/start 4betting more, not the other way around.
If he always makes it 400 no matter your betsizing and 3bets 27%, you can just keep minraising the button.
OOP you can probably still 3bet quite a bit, but I would make my 3betting range top heavy as opposed to polarising it since he doesn't like folding on the flop and doesn't 4bet preflop anyway.

Specifics also depend on his preflop open and call open stats which I don't think you posted (I guess they're pretty high).

Is this €10/20? What site? Are you a HU reg or just playing on the side?

Honestly, I think I'm just running bad.

First played me at 5-10 and kept increasing stakes with a brief stint at 50-100.

Also there is high 3 bet and aggressive, this guy is just on a level above and beyond that.

Have played a lot of HU and first time playing with a guy as aggressive and plays the aggression well.

just thinking in very simple terms, since you dont make reasonable hands in HU very often, the more aggressive person wins up to a certain point. I think you should focus on some other ways to take aggression back as well such as leading flops, check call/leading turns. and of course probably slowplaying a decent amount more and having extremely wide value ranges and wider bluffing ranges in all spots.

very general advice of course, but i think just making a few minor tweaks would defeat someone playing so out there

On February 04 2012 11:33 Pulda wrote: Doesn't seem to me like you're adjusting correctly. For starters: Vs. high 3bet, open up your calling range/start 4betting more, not the other way around. If he always makes it 400 no matter your betsizing and 3bets 27%, you can just keep minraising the button. OOP you can probably still 3bet quite a bit, but I would make my 3betting range top heavy as opposed to polarising it since he doesn't like folding on the flop and doesn't 4bet preflop anyway. Specifics also depend on his preflop open and call open stats which I don't think you posted (I guess they're pretty high). Is this €10/20? What site? Are you a HU reg or just playing on the side?

+1

On February 04 2012 12:39 Daut wrote: just thinking in very simple terms, since you dont make reasonable hands in HU very often, the more aggressive person wins up to a certain point. I think you should focus on some other ways to take aggression back as well such as leading flops, check call/leading turns. and of course probably slowplaying a decent amount more and having extremely wide value ranges and wider bluffing ranges in all spots. very general advice of course, but i think just making a few minor tweaks would defeat someone playing so out there

slowplaying is good but leading flops, c/c leading turns u have a little bit backwards I think. These, I'd consider adjustements to passive guys on flops/turns. C/R flops, C/C flops to C/R turns is way better against aggro guys imho.
Widening ranges is obviously good adjustement too vs them.

his stats look about right vs a 100% min opener.


slowplaying will get you destroyed vs an aggressive player, maybe if you do it a small amount and do it in good spots. But if you slowplay too much how are you meant to play back at them in other ways. They will just win every pot when you try to bluffraise them at any point.

other than that i need more information on how you both play and not just stats, but i agree with everything pulda said

Not really, by slowplaying I mean TP too. He'll not get destroyed because he'll have enough hands to call him down / make plays on turns+rivers. I guess it depends on the style and how you want to solve it. I prefer shifting my play to later streets since if someone is bluffing so often OTF then I prefer to pick more money up later and let him bluff more

Here are some of the big pots played, obviously I won most of them since he never gives up and keeps calling me down.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313729
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313732
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313734
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313735
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313736
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313737
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313740
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313741
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313742
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313743
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313744
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313745
http://www.pokerhand.org/?6313746

On February 04 2012 12:39 Daut wrote: just thinking in very simple terms, since you dont make reasonable hands in HU very often, the more aggressive person wins up to a certain point. I think you should focus on some other ways to take aggression back as well such as leading flops, check call/leading turns. and of course probably slowplaying a decent amount more and having extremely wide value ranges and wider bluffing ranges in all spots. very general advice of course, but i think just making a few minor tweaks would defeat someone playing so out there

Yes in the end I realized just flatting his raises OOP and letting him keep the aggression postflop was not really working since I was just not making hands often enough and he's just missing the boards way too often so I started donk betting a much higher % balancing it with some nutted hands, marginal, and air.

He adjusted to this by proceeding to raise my donk bets much higher frequency once he noticed I was doing it at a higher % from him folding a few times.

The very last session with him I really feel I had a good grasp of the dynamic and actually did pretty well but still see what others think.

btw I've tried opening as a minraise, 2.5, 3x vs this guy. The bigger I opened pre the less he 3bet me pre and folded more so I decided to go in the middle and mixed in random 2x and 3x along with the standard 2.5x

25% 3bet is pretty high but I don't think it's other worldly obscene or anything, but there's still nothing you can do without cards vs this type of player but wait it out. Not sure I'm reading correctly but it looks like you're only down 4-5 buyins over 7k hands which is nothing. Be patient and don't let a little variance get you off your game.

On February 04 2012 21:03 NMcNasty wrote: 25% 3bet is pretty high but I don't think it's other worldly obscene or anything, but there's still nothing you can do without cards vs this type of player but wait it out. Not sure I'm reading correctly but it looks like you're only down 4-5 buyins over 7k hands which is nothing. Be patient and don't let a little variance get you off your game.

Yeah, a bit frustrated but keeping composure not really letting his plays tilt me.

I'm actually up small at 20/40 and down a lot at 5-10 and 10-20 so it's a lot more buyins than 4-5.

One point throughout all the sessions when I actually caught cards I stacked him for like 10 buyins in 20 minutes. So it's most likely just variance that he's holding his own this long but at the same time it's pretty sick that I never really pulled ahead the entire time over a decent sample.

If he is a good competent player i would never try to wait it out as I would probably get completly crushed, gotta combat aggresiveness w agresiveness and do it better than him, hes gonna have shitty ranges all the time so buckle up and get ready for some swingy poker