HU - fighting the miniraise

Well a few weeks ago i were playing HU against a 600nl regular, i wont type his nick so he doesnt find this thread lol but lets just say he is a funny dinosaur sex (lol lest see who gets it) which is ridiculously loose and agressive in 6max games.

He destroyed me hard with the PF mini-raise mainly because of betting proportions, let me explain.

He mini-raise every hand in the button, 100% PFR in the button, even 72o he was going to pop it to $12 (600nl) i tried to counter it by 3betting very light to $42, many times he folded but then he started to 4bet to $100 which left me in a really really ugly spot, if i flat here oop im gong to get outplayed very often, if i 5bet to like $200 i commit myself to a shove and he can easily fold/shove depending on his hand crushing me, also if i mini-raise to like $150 its only 50 more for him and if he has any kind of non- horrible hand he can also outplay me postflop and all my choices in general seemed EV-, even flat calling oop against a "ANY 2" range.

So how do you play against this? do you overbet your 3bet? or do you make a very very small one? simply play oop?.

i know it sounds silly but the betting proportions just gave him such a huge edge i didnt know how to fight against that properly

Call more hands OOP and take more stabs because of your stack to pot ratio.

wow this is a very interesting question, i am anxious to hear thoughts. good post baal.

just play more hands OOP and start minraising the button yourself if you think the strategy is so optimal

sounds like you're adapting pretty well, he's probably just running range hot

Ive been thinking about how to defend against this strategy for a long time myself. I mean basically he's having his way with you. Youre playing every pot on his terms. He's always in position, and he makes the same move with bluffs/monsters. Ive been thinking about how to defend against this, and I can only think of one thing that is +EV. Fold every single time you have nothing worth playing. I would also suggest doing the exact same thing to him to neutralize the blind thievery. This whole strategy is based around deception, so when the tables are turned I think hes going to have a hard time making the hero calls when you bet half pot on the flop.

If you call 100% of his minbets eventually he'll know youre either folding on the flop, or folding on the turn unimproved. This is even more costly. And the few times you connect with the flop, he'll actually have a hand and stack you. Just dont play into the strategy.

Well "mirroring" his strategy might put me on a close to even situation, however since he has more experience on it he still has an edge with that if we had the same skill level, and even so the objective here is not to mirror it but to counter it and to give me an edge over it.

lol isn't actually that good(hes not bad tho). Ive played him on 2 occations. The worse way you can counteract the minraise is by 3betting more. Your inflatting the pot OOP with marginal holdings, and you also have the 4bet to worry about which will destroy you. If you start 3betting MORE your playing right into his hands.

Mainly the biggest advantages of the minraise is, it forces opponents who can't adapt and 3bet tons, to try and inflate the pot OOP so to (in their mind) reduce the positional disadvantage, but its obviously not the case, and just makes thing worse. It allows people to call 3bets because they have to be smaller(btw the worse thing u can do is try to 3bet BIG like 4.5x cuz that just makes the 4bet that much sexier for them).

So basically those are the advantages of the minraise. You are FORCED to flat more preflop. Hands like K5s and 78o become much more "flattable". Best way to counteract it is by adapting leading and checkraising flops more into your game (and checkraising turns but that is more complicated hehe) also you dont want to overdo it. Also, anyone that doesn't know how to use the minraise to counteract frequent 3bettors is likely to get owned by frequent 3betters.

EDIT: I guess i should add one more thing, that is the fact that checkraising now becomes more powerful when you're flatting more because your range for 2 pairs becomes incredibly larger, and so its easier to balance your ranges. Also tho, make sure you mix in leading tho, and not jsut checkraising those 2pairs. or else he will just pot control often with hands like weak top pairs and your gonna burn money trying to stab turns and barrel rivers. (not to mention ur gonna induce 3bet bluffs from real good players)

i know the exact answers to this question

i'll tell you for 1000$

i'm not kidding

also there is no need to mirror his strategy when YOU'RE in position, as he does not 3bet THAT much, he probably does it less than the average. (among good regs)

He among with me is probably the laggiest 600nl player.

On July 16 2008 17:42 Rekrul wrote: i know the exact answers to this question i'll tell you for 1000$ i'm not kidding

thats ridiculous dan.

On July 16 2008 17:42 Rekrul wrote: i know the exact answers to this question i'll tell you for 1000$ i'm not kidding

lol

how is it ridiculous
the guy has a headsup bracelet

On July 16 2008 17:42 Rekrul wrote: i know the exact answers to this question i'll tell you for 999$ i'm not kidding

obv you need to start limping all your buttons to show him you can play gayer than him.

When his min raising he is not inflating the pot big enough when he has a monster hand. He is going to win a lot of the small pots.

Increase your range to call slightly more weaker hands (u guys will probably be playing every other hand). 3 bet a little more marginal/stronger hands so that you have control when u want to play pots > 100 dollars.

I dont see the problem really. I mean, its not much diffrent than playing a loose agressive villian who raises 3x preflop with everything. The only diffrence is that villian is stealing cheaper, but in turn gives you a better price to see a flop on your big blind. Also, villian is bloating the pot less when he is in position which obviously is a good thing for you when you are in the BB.

Dont start 3-betting like a madman, you are just bloating the pot oop giving him sweet implied odds to own you in position. Stick to your "normal" 3-betting range and just 5-bet shove Ace rags, monsters and some garbage if he 4-bets you a ton.

Other than that I think casinocasino supplied the best advice in this thread so far.

a GREAT thing to incorporate is to call a little bit more oop and to lead alot of pots. it becomes difficult to start check/raising a bunch of flops (seeing as how small the pots are and how easy it is for him to outplay you). on the other hand, by leading alot of pots you can put a little bit of pressure on him by forcing him to float/repop light alot.

maybe my logic is a little off, but the calling alot and leading was giving me quite a bit of trouble for a little bit.

On July 16 2008 17:56 ggplz wrote: how is it ridiculous the guy has a headsup bracelet

haahahah

I played this reg on tilt today who was 3-betting me like a madman so I started minraising preflop. He kept 3-betting me like every other hand and made some really huge 3-bets from time to time despreate to build a pot big enough to get him unstuck and thats like the worst possible thing you can do. Its a very retarded "counter" which is super ez and profitable to play against.