First time posting. This is more a theory question. In the micro limits my experience has been that the majority of players are loose passive to loose aggressive. What percentage of times do you call down with A high or bottom/mid pair to a VERY loose aggressive player? What percentage of times do you attack a calling station with your A Q suited when you miss flop against a calling station with an unknown hand (Villain 80 VPIP)

My questions are due to the fact that I feel I am calling these very loose players down and seeing fairly large swings. How can you deduce when the players have it or they don't.
ie. Calling Stations always call and Loose Aggressive acts like a maniac which turn me into a calling station.

Welcome to the forum!

The best thing to do is post some hands that you are unsure about.

There is too much that goes into the decision to call down or not to be able to give you a definative answer to your question. Things to consider are: The player, pot size, history, ranges, relative strength of hand, reads, What they think you have and how you might respond, board texture, do they have missed draws on the river, will they turn a made hand into a bluff, will they value bet a worse hand than yours, is their range polarized etc etc!

I mean the answer to "how often I call down v a maniac with no pair" is that it depends. How much value can they have (reason to fold more)? Do they miss value (reason to fold less)? What's the board texture (762-2-9 is conducive to a lot of high card calldowns, QJ7-8-6 is not).

Here is an example of one of the concepts I'd like to discuss. This example was in a short handed game - 3 handed. Player was very Loose aggressive and raised button. SB (Loose Passive) folded. I am the BB and call with As 10c.

Flop: 2c 7s 8c

I check he bets. I call.

Turn: Ks

I check he bets. I call.

River: 3c

This looks good. The river is not the greatest card with the club hitting but it's not horrible like if the Jc hit. The K is a good card for him to barrel on the turn and perhaps keep firing on the river. Since he is loose and agro he could have a wide range of UIP hands you beat.

I'd prob call here. We beat some straight draws and random air balls, and we have the Tc (which hurts as it blocks busted straight draws, but also helps as it blocks flushes). Plus we have busted straight draws in our own range to fold. So I'd pay the described man his money here.

The Villain barreled off on river. Say we ran this 100 times do you call down every time? 50/50? What would make you fold?

Same question.

The Villain barreled off on river. Say we ran this 100 times do you call down every time? 50/50? What would make you fold? When would you fold?

I'd also like to use the same example but the Villain is loose passive and scenario changes. This example is in a short handed game - 3 handed. Hero raises button with As Tc. SB (Loose Aggressive) folded. Villain is the BB who is loose passive and calls raise.

Flop: 2c 7s 8c

He checks. I bet he calls.

Turn: Ks

He checks. I bet he calls.

River: 3c

He checks.

Do you continue to barrel the whole line? Should you check turn or river or at all?

You're asking the wrong question. We don't look to randomly do something with a hand in a binary problem like a river decision between calling and folding. We execute the more profitable decision 100% of the time.

As described this hand is firmly in my check calling range because I'm looking to not be folding many rivers versus described player. If he proves to not barrel off enough, this hand could fall out of my check call range. Randomization is only applicable between call or fold when the decision is roughly 0 EV.

In this case, if you're folding more than 16% of the time, then your opponent can bet very aggressively and immediately profit. So you need to be ranking your hands on the river and being sure to continue with at least 84% of them. Generally, A hi hands w/ a club in them will almost always be a call here.

To further illustrate my point, let me change your hole cards a few times.

Situation 1) AcTc

Call or raise?
Well, when we call, we win the 6.25 bets in the pot 100% of the time as we have the nuts. But when we raise, we win the 6.25 bets plus whatever fraction of the time our opponent calls the raise (let's ignore 3 betting and stuff). So say he calls it 90%, we expect to win 7.15 bets and win at minimum 6.25. So raising weakly dominates calling, why would we ever call?

Situation 2: 6d5d

Call or fold?
Well if we call, we expect to win the pot 1% of the time (the random times he has 54 or 64). Given our investment, we can estimate that this call is worth -0.94 bets. By folding, our EV is 0. While calling isn't weakly dominated by folding (in some weird cases it does better), it's clear what the better decision is.

While hands like AxTc aren't as clear, we do know:

1) he's loose and aggressive
2) he has lots of incentive to barrel off on this runout as these aren't good cards for our range.
3) what our approximate range is

In this case, you'd see that your range consists mostly of binked flushes, 33, and a whole lot of weak showdown hands, along w/ whiffed straight draws. Depending on your strategy, folding the whiffed straight draws will likely get you close to 16% folds immediately, and then you can start folding the worst of your A hi. AT would be a big stretch to be a fold.

If it's 3-handed and BN is very LAG, then I think the best play is to 3bet pre and take control of the hand. You're crushing his range. Playing passively oop vs a LAG is not the way to make money. You have to fight back and show that you can't be run over.

On this board I would double barrel and decide between betting riv or check call. Not sure what the best riv play is tbh because I'm not familiar with short handed play.

Either way I'd rather be the aggressor in this spot with your hand. You rate to have the best hand by far or your aggressive bets can induce folds. But when you fall into a passive check call game, you end up at his mercy, then making wrong decisions and eventually bleeding your chips to him.

I think this line is fine. I'd x back and see a showdown as you might have the best hand. But the main point is that you have a read that villain is loose passive. That means he's a station. Don't bluff the stations!

Three handed poker is different than a full ring game. The range of hands you should raise or call with pre-flop is expanded. One important question is are your opponents experienced short handed players or are they full ring players sitting at this table hoping it fills up soon.

I use to make a lot of money in online poker sitting at empty full ring tables and playing full ring players heads up or three way. This situation would only exist for a few hands. Either the table would fill up and not be short handed anymore or the full ring players would leave. I'm not even a very good short handed player, but I was way better than the online full ring players. Now that I play live, tables will break if they get short handed because live players will not play short handed.

When you say this player is "very Loose aggressive", do you mean by full ring standards? If that is the case, he might be playing much closer to optimal in a 3 handed game.

In any event i would show this hand down.

That's the thing about loose aggressive opponents, they have many many value combos, which actually allows them to bluff much more often than tighter players.

I don't mind Three betting pre if the Lag can be induced into excessive action. Typically I prefer to just call pre flop with a hand like this. Obviously this is a strong hand vs a Lag button range , but I like to see how the flop comes and then play appropriately. I don't think it is a good idea to try to induce a lag into folds through aggression. It's more profitable to induce bluffs, especially in small pots. The way not to be pushed around is to be stubborn in the right spots with your showdownable hands.

Calling pf seems fine but then we have the CR the flop no?

Why would we want to xr flop against a barrel monkey?

Because we want to put money in with what is very likely the best hand? Are you suggesting waiting for the turn?

He actually has to call us down With worse. His bet bet bet range is going to look vastly different to his bet
/call call call range.

Thank you everyone for the conversation.