Fighting a Bully-Should you lower your start card standards?

[JasonG]

Just played 2 live S&G's last night, $ 40 buy in. I played way too tight against a bully at each table. It cost me to bust out at 4th place for both.

The problem is any time I was check raised, it was heavy. 4-6x the BB, or bet against before it got to me, I didnt have good cards to go heavy against, with normal holdem standards for good cards in consideration

Bullys seem to be my major problem. I can read them & this served me well to win a $500 prize game the othr day. But many times I have tried to fight back, I was the underdog, only to survive a few times

At this low an entry level or at any level, should I lower my card standards against a bully? Perhaps this is similar to playing heads up vs a full table. You open up and play cards that you normally would not during heads up. If you are sitting there with a JKo and the bully does a typical $ 500 bet when the BB is $ 200, to me calling does nothning. Raising to $ 1000 might not scare him ( Usually a LAG who will call $ 500 more? ). An All In risks everything that for an "ok" hand.

Perhaps if you call the $ 500 and bet on the flop or check raise him? If if t comes to a show down and you are still in the game with chips to spare, will the psychology show that I to can be aggressive? Even if you didnt win the hand, you are showing that he neds to think twice about check raising you.

Any feedback would be apprecaited.

Thanks!
Jason

[bagheera]

take my advice with a grain of salt, nothing is more relevant then your personal evaluation of the skill and current temperament of your opponent and the table.

anyhow, here's how i'd pursue bullying... (unless i recognized that i am outclassed)

preflop ~ wait them out. unless the blinds are coming around fast and hard, you or another player will have their number soon enough to call them on it.

aside from that ~ loosen up before the flop, buy in as often as you can when its cheap. dont actually expect to PLAY these hands though, this is just to reinforce the bully's opinion that his betting is working, and that you will lay down so long as he bets more.

dont reraise them. dont bet. if they're bullying, they should be doing enough betting for the both of you. just let it play out to the river... and when you're confident you have the hand, come back at them as hard as you think they will bear.