Adjusting Against a Semi-Loose/Passive
I had an opponent earlier at lolNL (50nl*) and made an adjustment about 40-45 minutes into our session together that I have questions about. So far I had been opening something like 40% of hands (22+, Ax, any two 9+, any two suited 8+, offsuit connectors, suited connectors, suited 1 gappers) from the SB. He had been doing a lot of calling preflop along with very, very little 3-betting (he 3-bet once during our session and that was his JJ v my AQs aipf). He was calling about half the time preflop and rarely donk betting. He wasn't folding often to a c-bet (41% as I look at PT3 right now after our session), but was folding a lot of turns whether it was a "scare card" or not (I was consistently betting the flop for about pot). He was rarely check/raising the flop (he did it once the entire session of about 230 hands, I don't know what he held). The only time I saw him check/call two streets was very early in the session with K9s on K44J9 two-tone with a flush draw on the flop that he wasn't drawing to where he also checked the river when I fired two with 87s with the flush draw. If I checked the flop, he would sometimes bet the turn as a bluff, sometimes check/fold, and sometimes check/call with something like 2nd or 3rd pair or a draw -- it was hard to get a feel for any big tendencies here. Early in the session he saw me do that 87s hand and another hand where I fired two with a gutshot + bottom pair when a scare card came on the turn where he called down with a flush draw and caught a higher pair than on the river. I'm pretty sure he saw me as being fairly aggressive with two-barreling at that point since he check/called 2-3 streets a few times in the next 20 minutes with bottom pair + overcard, middle pair worst kicker and Ace high, and I beat him each of these with a top-pair or two-pair type hand.
I decided that with how often he was just calling and then calling on the flop without showing any real aggression, I should take advantage by changing my opening range a little as well as tightening up on what I c-bet the flop with.
I thought that the hands that I'm really going to gain from are hands that make top or middle pair on the flop, since it seems my focus should be on how often he's calling pre, check/calling the flop, then checking the turn. So I dropped {86s-64s, 76s-54s, 87o-54o} and opened my high-card type range to be any two 8 or better and any suited two 7 or better. The actual number of hands I'm opening doesn't change much (I think) but it seemed more logical to be opening these hands than the lower connectors and gappers given how little fold equity I had on the flop.
So is this anywhere in the right ballpark of being a correct set of adjustments? Is the BU open range change too fine of an adjustment given my lack of experience in this type of thing?
