Villain (500$): Maniac on the bad side, playing around 80% of his hands, raising between 20-30% probably. Standard opening size seems to be 15$. He is on a heater and has won pots with speculative hands. Calls a lot with trashy top pairs and will take stabs at any point if he thinks there is any "weakness" what so ever. In relation to hand, have seen him 3 bet 99 preflop against a raise and call, and push it hard post flop. So I expect him to go strong preflop with hands he expects to be best.

Hero (Covers): Tight but to villain probably seems pretty aggressive since I have the God seat on him and have been isolating his limps relentlessly. Gives me the eye when I raise his limps and has been sticky vs. me post flop.


Villain raises UTG + 2 to 15$, folds to Hero in MP with JJ, who 3bets to 50$. All folds to villain who snap calls.

Flop is 892r (103$)

Villain checks, I cbet 50$. He quickly asks "How much is that?" and then aggressively raises to 120$ while staring at the board, not moving.

What is your plan for the flop, and for future streets if you continue with the hand.

How many times has he check/raised?

Tbh there haven't been to many spots for him to do so. All the players to his left were on the nittier side, while the loose money was to his right. In pots he has been involved in he has actively raised bets and bet in stupid spots when checked to, even when obvious other players were bluff catching.

No c/r that I can remember though.

Villian is all over the place it seems. I really have no idea.

I mean, the eye-balling you because you keep raising might have pissed him off and he's just bluffing with absolute air, but that's highly unlikely.

The snap call sounds like A10+ and suited connectors from the villians description.

I really don't know. I'm waiting on the experts to answer this one.

villain sounds like the guy who overvalues top pair and hates to fold in general. just overly aggressive. QQ+ he´d probably 4bet pre being oop and with his image, so i think we can safely assume big pockets are not in his range. we block the straight draw too a little bit.

his small raise doesn´t look to me he is straight out bluffing, and obv we are crushed by 89, 88, 99, 33, which are all in his range. this is just a small portion of his range though. 8x, 9x,TT, maybe 66, 77, may "put you on AK and try to end it right here" kinda stuff, which i seriously think are in his range; and we are ahead of this range by good margin imo.

if we just call, we tell him we don´t have AK, but something decent. if we jam, we get it in against the few draws, the strong hands and maybe get rid of his weak range, although i´m not sure about that. against this type of maniac, who also seems to hate you , i kinda click it back to 210. i can totally see him going crazy with A9 or something.

if he calls, jam almost all turns maybe except a 9. if he jams flop, obv call when we play it like this.

i don´t think just going ahead and jamming it in is much of a mistake too. he might still not be able to fold his top pair, whatever we do. precisely TT is probably almost impossible for villain to fold.

click back raise>>> shovin>>>calling>>>>>>>>>>>>>folding imo. folding is out of question for me.

I'd probably just flat preflop. There's decent chance we end up isolating this guy with a call anyways; and if it happens to go 5+ ways to the flop, whatever, maybe we more enter setmining mode. BTW, what happens if he 4bets us? If we don't have an easy obvious answer to that, we shouldn't be 3betting.

As played, on the flop we have to ask ourselves whether we feel committed against this guy or not. The SPR is 4.5, and typically this is a pretty good stack off case, but I'm not really convinced it is in a 3bet pot (where the villain here is getting 13x implied preflop + about 2x immediate = 15x which ain't horrific). If we're cool with stacking off against the maniac, I'd pot+ the flop and shove the turn. If we're not cool with that, I'd check back the flop and almost play bluffcatcher (which really ain't a bad idea against a maniac guy who is attempting to attack weakness).

As played, I guess we were cool with getting stacked due to flop bet. I'd probably just flat the raise which will enable him to attempt a ~PSB bluff into me on the turn (where I'm looking to get all the money in).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Sauhund, interesting post. The main reason I posted this hand was because I wasn't sure whether calling the flop raise or clicking it back was the correct play. Your hand range for villain was spot on with mine, and I think you are right that a click it back is the superior play for a couple different reasons (I obviously didn't cib).

Gob, my standard here is to flat preflop against almost all villains. I just thought with history and villain's tendency to fight for pots with money in them 3betting would give me a good opportunity to have him make a huge mistake.

Here is the next action:

I think for a few seconds and call the c/r. Turn is the 2c, Villain attempts to snap bet 250 but then is called for a string bet and only bets 125. If played like this, we are just committed to calling down right? Anyone jam or fold?

Definitely flat the flop c/r to let villain hang him self. I also would consider flatting the turn bet and call any river shove/get it in. You're way ahead of his range. When you 3bet him pre and bloat the pot you have to play just like you would have had you flatted and it was heads up. When you 3bet in his eyes you're playing right into his trap. He is giong to try and get you to fold at all costs or pay him off when he hits huge and unfortunately this board isn't making me fold to him. If he has you he has you. most of the time he doesn't.

Guy is reppin so much strength it stinks. He's attempting to protect a hand he wants to get to showdown or he is just bluffing. Either way pop him with a min raise and get him to tilt it off with practically anything.

i´d definitely jam now with these stack sizes, if he has some kind of equity or has us crushed, he is definitely continuing, but i highly doubt he is gonna fire that last bullet on rivers unimproved. if we were deeper, we obv have to go into call down mode as played, but in this case we only have around 1/2 PSB left after calling, so too late to pot control, and, as said above, he is far more likely to go with the hand now if he happens to have smth 67, T7, JT, or even 9x, than commiting himself on blank rivers.

Considering we are pretty deep, I think flatting pre is best. You have position on him and you can value town him hard on favorable boards while at the same time controlling the size of the pot. I understand that you should be ahead of his range with JJ and a 3-bet is for value, but I think you end up in spots like this where you play in a bloated pot. If playing in a bloated pot was your plan for this hand, I don't see how you can ever think about folding. Either jam if you think he is overvaluing one pair hands, or just call and let him bluff off his stack on later streets.

what was your turn and river action, OP?

Turn 2, I call 125, river 3, I call the rest, villain tables 72o. In retrospect, since he likely shuts down with a lot of his bluffs when I call the flop c/r, but will have a lot of 20% hands like he had that he might either go with or forfeit his equity share with, I think raising flop is prolly best

lol, i love villain. you played it perfectly imo if he is capable of bluffing with total air as shown, i just thought he was more likely to shut down if missed and would realize by your flop call you are probably going the whole way.
obv not, this is not a maniac but a spewtard
wp, i probably gave him way too much credit...

Well he did turn trips, and in theory he might have shut down if he didn't catch up. But yah your word for villain might be more accurate.

Ultimately, the bolded passage is the key read in deciding whether Hero should take the lead on the flop or allow the Villain to remain in control.

Pre is standard against described villain. Not 3b an aggrotard with JJ is criminal. Flop is easy call of c/r