You are defending from the blinds against a super-aggressive player sitting at late position. You look down at QJ off-suit. Should you fold, call or raise? I say: “Let them bluff”! Playing poker out of position can be a bit tricky and can cost money, especially when defending with no premium hands. I have already shown how to defend with suited connectors, but what happens when your hand can be easily dominated? The fourth episode of the video series about online poker strategy discusses such a poker hand, making use of some amateur magic tricks! I have deliberately slowed down the speed of the video, since I am just too fast performing the tricks! Lol!
The range of the hands that a player, who steals a lot, plays is very wide and includes a lot of air, drawing and weak hands. Holding a medium hand like any hand with face cards is going to act both as a bluff catcher but also as a value betting hand if it’s improved like the hand in the video. Weak players will often chase their draws aggressively and can’t really find the fold button when they are under pressure. In addition, they believe they should keep on betting no matter what, as that is the correct strategy they should apply according to all poker training sites, although they don’t fully understand the meaning behind aggression. Most often that strategy of theirs is the reason for getting them trapped.
On the other hand, playing out of position might be dangerous for some inexperienced players. As I discuss in the poker video, board texture is very important and you might have to make some hero calls if the cards don’t go your way, or even give up a nice pot. Try to keep the pot under control as much as possible, since you don’t want to invest a lot of money before bluffed out of the hand! For instance, if no Jack or Queen had been on flop, I would be willing to just call the flop bet and try floating, instead of trying to rebluff with 6 or less outs!
What is your poker strategy when defending from the blinds against an aggressive player? Do you think I should better call on flop instead of raising for value? Do you agree with the turn action? Let me know in the comments below.
