So this range raises in EP and maniac 3bets? Hmm ok. Depending on maniacs postflop spew factor I could play very loose here or very tightly relatively speaking.

a) preflop + postflop maniac = I call everything I play: 22+, A2s+, ATo+, K9s+, KJo+, Q9s+, QJo+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s.

b) preflop maniac + postflop not so maniac = I call some hands: 55-TT, A2s-A5s, A9s-AJs, AJo, AQo, KTs, KJs, KQo, Q9s, QTs, J9s, T9s, 98s and I'll 4 bet some hands: JJ+, AQs+, AKo, KQs, QJs.

my 2 cents.

Are you concerned with some of your less showdown-able hands about potentially putting in 4 bets pre (when the TAG caps the maniac) and then facing 2 bets on the flop and not closing the action? Like A5s with a BDFD, maybe a 3 str8, and an overcard to the board in a 16 bet pot but facing 2 and having the original bettor still able to raise.


I'm not saying you're wrong in your ranges, but I think you have to be really careful not to over-fold yet still having to worry about the TAG having a dominating range.

4bets preflop 3 Way with the best position and dead money being worst case scenario? I think the weaker hands in my range might be slightly -ev, but this isn’t what always happens.

Are you really calling 3 bets cold on the button with QJo?

I think it’s a decent sized mistake to just call the 3 bet in this specific situation. Everything I’d want to play I would 4 bet. That doesn’t mean there aren’t spots where I just call 3 cold. There are. This just isn’t one of them.

If the maniac’s range is as wide as you suggest and the opener’s range is as narrow as you suggest, I would treat it as if were 3 betting the opener.

+1 and thanks for this.

Bare in mind I only regularly play 20/40 half kill and live shot taking done was 60/120 in Vegas and Commerce only so I dont play this high but I never call 3 cold unless I misclicked live which is quite rare for me.

Online, I may have done it once or twice but dont think I misckicked call 3cold at 50/100 shot taking on CEREUS.

This is my default; without a read that there's lots of value to be had postflop I fold ATo, KJo, QJo.

I don't think that this happens often enough to merit it's own thread but it's interesting enough to at least bring it up here: At what point do you really, really want a player to call HU pre-flop? This came up today:

Player in CO posted a kill. He has last action unless someone raises in front of him. Folds to him and I raise J-10o OTB, blinds fold, CO looks at his cards. A snap call is any Ace, any pair, any 3-gapper or better, a suited hi card, suited connectors. But he's thinking 1......2......3. At this point I'm thinking his hand is pretty bad making mine easy to play. Then 4....5.....6. He has trash and my hand is super easy to play and I started fumbling my chips which sometimes can induce a call. But it then goes 7.....8......while he's forcing himself to play good and fold (which he did). So, what, do we start praying for a call at 5 seconds?

He's getting like 3.5 to 1. He is going to outflop you with awful hands enough that you never want to be called, even with position. Not that you should care.

Even if I get out-flopped the other player may not realize it. Say he calls w/ 10-2 and the flop is K-9-2 or any other sort of thing similar. Not that there aren't players that will never fold but that's a bad spot for them when I c-bet.

Say you have Q8s and they call and check raise that flop.

Preflop when it’s down to just them and I have JT. I want them to fold

I’ll take the 3.5 BB now

Q-8s would be a snap call and I proceed accordingly. The player can wake up w/ a big pair and 3-bet me. Let's remember that there IS gambling involved. The question was how accurately can we assign a range to the other player's hand after a 5+ second delay.

Ofc, getting the money right now w/ my raise is most of the reason for the raise in the first place.

The fact you are snap calling this flop with no pair and no draw is why I want them to fold PF

Sure, we might run into a tough spot but it's not like we started w/ trash. Raise, hope to take it down right now, then try to play good if we see a flop.

Just to make sure we are on the same page


I raise JT and Q8s pf

I’m just saying I want the poster to fold pf when I do.

Honestly in LHE, nearly every time you raise preflop, you should be hoping everyone else folds.

Same page, a fold would be ideal.

A really solid idea for playing 3/6 and I'm not talking the small denom chip game.

I'm lost, or maybe my HU LHE is just really bad. But I don't think I'm understanding posts 1887 through 1889. Howard, on K92 (say rainbow) you're bet-calling Q8s as the PFR. What is his XR range? What turn cards will you continue on?

In that spot I don't think many live players are XR a deuce or a gutshot, and at 8/16 they may not XR a nine.

The first part is pretty simple: We are up against 3 blinds w/ J-10 and position in a full-kill pot which is out of many player's comfort range. I don't have to run a sim to know that J-10 has good equity in this spot. We can't just call so we raise and hope to take down the substantial amount of blind money and, if we happen to get called, at least we have something to make a decent hand with.

When I made the post it was bec the other player took so long thinking about calling. My play is intended foremost to pick up the blinds but once the other player demonstrates that he's got utter trash I can play pretty easily. He's likely to fold to any bet when there's even a single hi card to his bad hand. Some ppl will call a K-9-2 flop but we are going to have to fire another barrel and hope for the best.

The Q-8s was brought up by TheHip as a hypo that I might not have understood at first thinking that he could assign that hand to a person that had waited that long bec they'd snap call w/ it and it'd never take that long. I don't think that's what he meant.

As far as what I do if I get called is this: Check back a rag flop and bet any Ace-Face that hits the board. If I flop a pair I throw a party.

Thanks for clarifying.

I'm with you on the JT and I thought your original post was thought provoking. Although I never replied, I my intuition is that we pretty much always are cheering for a fold without a very premium hand, but I guess that means the kill should be defending near 100%? Maybe not quite 100%. (We know we don't have aces or kings but he doesn't know that.)

Incidentally the kill should be open-raising pretty wide here.

Yeah, it was specifically the Q8s hypothetical that confused me. I thought you were saying you'd bet if checked to on a K92 flop and then call a check raise, or at least that's what TheHip implied you meant and you seemed to go along with it. Anyway, thanks for clarifying.

If I raise [X][X] to isolate the kill then I'm cbetting K92 whether or not the kill tanked before defending preflop. If [X][X] is Q8 no flush draw then I'm folding to a check raise. I had thought both the bet and the fold to a raise were pretty standard.

We are never getting c/r'd on a flop of K-9-2 after another player takes 5 seconds to call. He'd have called quickly w/ hands like K-9o, K-2s or maybe even K-2o. 9-2o should not be in even the liveliest player's range unless he's had a lot to drink. We want to pick up the blinds as a first choice but it's not a disaster if we get called. We just do the best we can post flop.

Well, I would probably tank with 96 preflop and then snap XR middle pair in this spot, but I agree live randoms aren't doing that.

Don't tank that hand! Suck it up and fling the chips in! If you need it there's often liquid courage sold in poker rooms! j/k ofc. And if you are in that spot w/ that hand/flop you're not exactly in a WB/WA situation but I wouldn't c/r the flop.

NM that idiocy above. Here are some sims:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

990 trials (Exhaustive)

board: K 9 2

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
9h 6h	64.04%	634	0
Jc Ts	35.96%	356	0

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

990 trials (Exhaustive)

board: K 9 2

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
9h 6h	92.02%	911	0
7c 7d	7.98%	79	0

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

990 trials (Exhaustive)

board: K 9 2

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
9h 6h	77.17%	764	0
Ah Qs	22.83%	226	0

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

990 trials (Exhaustive)

board: K 9 2

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
9h 6h	64.65%	640	0
Jc Qh	35.35%	350	0

Go ahead and c/r the flop!