Hiya, coming back to (small stakes 6 max online) poker after a long time and I feel lost in blind defense against good regs(which are now 3-4/table instead of 1-2).

Example: 1/2 sb/bb structure
btn is a bit loose and quite passive, so I've been getting to play with my sb a bit more than usual.

bb is a good reg, against me I have not seen exploitive behaviour, but we have been fighting a bit sb v bb for half an hour or so this session and a few time previously. I've played straightforward against him, mostly c/r flop when I hit a pair or draw and folding weaker hands. I've c/r turn with a good holding once.

4h folded to me in sb, I raise, bb reraises and I call. Flop A94 rainbow, I don't hit anything. I check, he bets, I....fold?

I'm folding alot of my range here and feel weak/exploitable. So I decide to see what happens when I don't.

I call. Turn A. I check, he checks.

River 3, I ....

Questions:
1. Without a pair or draw, what range of hands do you float flop with on this type of board? How do you proceed?
2. Do you have air in your flop c/r range? Do you barrel river?
3. What do you do in this situation when you still have air on the river? Do you c/c with k/q high here? Do you bet the lower part of your range? Does he fold K high here?
4. Any great resources where can I brush up on my blind defense? I've already reread stox.

1. Given your info, against this guy, I'm floating my entire range. You say he is a good reg and you two have history. Hence, i'm sure he gives you a wide range here preflop. (66's or better, Ax, Kx, suited and unsuited broadways.) and therefore his reraise preflop doesn't say much. Given action I lead the ace on turn and C/C river unless you have a K,Q,J, or 10 and hit pair on river, then I B/F.

2. YEP! In fact, I'd check raise here! I think you can strongly represent a weak ace here. You said you've been check raising when you make pair on flop. Your raise and call preflop could easily be a weak ace..story makes sense! If he doesn't have the case ace, you might get him to fold a 9.

3. If I have King high and I'm wiling to call a bet, I'd rather raise and deal with reraise if it happens. I'm betting the lower part of my range. And the way you played it...C/C flop, check turn,...YES, I think he might fold a king to a river bet here. You called his flop raise, checked the turn..looks strongly like you have a 9.

Hmmm, okay, a quick reminder of some obvious things:

1. You'll always be playing out of position (OOP) from the SB to your opponent in the BB.

2. If your opponent was 'all-in' after posting the BB, it would be a fairly straightforward academic problem: Does your hand have at least a 25% chance vs your opponent's random holding as you're getting 3-to-1 from the pot. Other sites and sources will tell you exactly what hand or hands represent this bottom range - anything with more than 25% is +EV. You can adjust accordingly if you want to factor in the rake...A time charged game requires less adjustment especially in a 6-max game with a speedy dealer.

3. If you and/or your opponent only had a stack size of 2 big blinds, your hand would only to have a ~40% chance if you raised every time and he called, i.e if you won 40 out of 100 times you win 100 big blinds ([1.5 bb already in pot + 1 'called' bb] X 40) nd 60 times you lose 90 bb your raise of 1.5 bb (posted blinds are already considered to be in pot)... you can say the 10 bb accounts for the rake/drop (and dealer tip?). Obviously, if you can even factor in some expected percentage range when your opponent will fold, your hand can be slightly weaker.

4. The situation gets more complex as you begin to factor in more bets over more streets, but the point is that your hand selection relative to your position and the opponent doesn't have to be super-tight.

5. On the level of meta-game, it's usually enough, especially at the low-limit and the bottom rungs of middle-limit, to show the opponent to your left that you have the ability to play.

6. Observing any individual hand in a vacuum is like asking what effect an irregularly-shaped grain of sand will have on the tide - they're all irregularly shaped.

Good Luck and Good Hunting!

1. overcards-to-nine+ (Sklansky's advice). Check-call turn if improved. Maybe donk sometimes (opponent dependant)
3. Your good king is not air. I'm sure the villain would call blank river with k high. The board is safe and paired()
4. just put him on a range, define your own ranges for check-calling, check-raising etc. Define how he reacts. You played against him two hours and lost? I'm sure he conbets A-x-x 99%. Why he checks the turn? He gave up? He putting a trap? Value-checking with 55 to call river 100% ?