Hero ($1000): Late 20's reg, other regs know I'm a solid winner in the room, TAGging it up tonight due to presence of V1 and another high VPIP player (we'll call him V2).

Some hands of note in the orbits before this one:

Hand 1 - I pick up JJ in the SB, someone raises to $12, V2 calls, V1 calls, I 3b to $66 with $380 effective, V2 and V1 quickly call. Flop comes JT3 and it checks around, turn Q I lead for $115, V2 calls, V1 min-raises to $230, I shove, they both call, river bricks and I scoop. V had T4

Hand 2 - I pick up JJ in CO, four people limp including V2 and V1, I raise to $17, four people call. Flop comes J97, V1 donks $95, I shove $500 effective, folds back to V1 and he calls, turn A river 6 and he shows T3 to scoop a big pot back

Hand 3 - I have 44 in late position and two people limp, V1 raises to $15, I call, other two call. Flop K94 and V1 bets $30, I flat with $500 effective and V2 also flats. Turn K and V2 checks, V1 leads $100, I flat again, V2 shoves $230, V1 tanks for a long time and folds, river bricks and V2 has Kx. Pretty sure V1 did not have a king on that one.

V1 ($1200): Playing every hand, calling huge bets with draws, triple barreling top pair, won a big pot from V2 with 26o against 58o on a 2-6-7-2-9 board, and has also showed down 27o on a 2-7-K-Q-7 board and called a gutshot for $200 earlier against two pair and hit it on the river. The first hand I sat down he open raised to $35 UTG+1 and everyone folded. Has limped a lot and varied his PF raise sizing from $4-35 regardless of number of limpers

I'm UTG+2 for this hand. Hero dealt QQ

V opens to $45 UTG. Hero?

Given your description of him, he seems to very quickly turn passive in the face of aggression. As such, I like a small raise to about $150, allowing us to fold to a raise from any player (since from your description of the other players, we're only getting 4B by KK+ presumably.) This would include folding to a V1 4-bet by the way.

Assuming V1 calls, and everyone else folds, we have an SPR of just over 2. This low SPR, his high VPIP, combined with his propensity to stack off with ANY piece of the board allows us to commit to any board, even A or K-hi boards since he will call with GSSDs and possibly lower pairs.

3bet to 140 - 170

Where are you getting those reads from?

Have you taken note what kinds of hands correlate to his bet sizing? In general, the more somebody raises, the stronger their hands are.

When this guy nukes it to $45 utg, effectively a 22.5x raise, im going to approach this situation very cautiously. Unless he has shown the capability to make these huge raises with garbage hands utg, i think a flat call is probably the best line.

3betting a 22.5x utg raise, with QQ, is so bad

OP, he plays transparent enough. Im comfortable to call and play post flop here

How is your br situation, are you comfortable playing for stacks?

You said his usual opening range is up to $35. He opened this time early and beyond that. In my experience, if hes not on immediate tilt, that could be a tell for a huge hand. People dont pick up on when action players do something unusal like that, because hey he must be bluffing all the time.

This sounds like a pahwm. Next street?

Varied his PF raises from 4-35..... Then comes out with 45 in EP.

Even from a maniac this is a BIG hand IMO, bet sizing makes almost all villains hands at this level face up.

There is danger written all over this IMO.

I agree that anyone coming along for the ride here is narrowing their range regardless of a call/3-bet situation.

I disagree that the larger the 'raise' the larger the hand though ... I DO AGREE that the larger the '3-bet' the larger the hand in most cases. Being UTG somewhat grays my thinking since why raise so large UTG to take down what pot ... there is nothing there yet so I still want to proceed with caution here.

The one thing we do know ... he is going to continue!! So I like to flat here and just set mine. We are IP and even though the whole rest of the hand is going to be 'iffy' I don't want to get whacked by someone behind if I 3-bet or get into a flip against even AK here for 'no reason' other than to flip.

The best place to make money against these guys is post-Flop when you know how strong your hand is relative to the board IMO. This is a good call-call-call-raise spot if you are comfortable with your hand but I still don't mind folding out to any A/K/crazy Flop bet either.

Spew to set mine here? Not really when you know you are going to ge paid ... and if you end up folding on the Flop, then it's a small investment to future action with this V. GL

3 betting is not bad here. I think you have to 3 bet bc I just don't think he is ever bombing it with KK or AA. I really think he has AK a lot here. People play AK ridiculous pre flop bc they are afraid to play a flop when they miss. It you feel like taking a flip I raise to 200.

Actually quite the opposite, this is a perfect spot to set mine here, disguises your hand against a maniac, great odds, Think potential flops when you hit, and easy to get out on tough situations.


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Unless you're at one of those tables where the standard open is $45 (doesn't sound like you are) I just flat call, weird opens like this are monsters a large % of the time... a 'monster' from a villain like this could easily be 1010 or JJ as well so I'm pretty happy with a large number of flops. Obviously if we hit a set I'm comfortable playing for stacks.

this, ill probably just take a call down line

on an ace or king high board i would call once and reeval on the turn

Everybody is suggesting a flat but what do we do on low board ?
258 board or JTx board ?? Stack off or call down or fold ?

Do we fold to any A or K board ?

Since we are flatting this, on a low board that doesn't give you a set I am trying to keep this pot semi small, this is also easier since we will have position on villain.

It is going to depend on his bet sizing on the flop if a scare card hits but without getting a good idea of the flop it would be close to a fold or a call/call/call line. Obv if you hit your set I am jamming the pot button and trying to get stacks in on pretty much all boards. (V will put you on AQ at most on for example a Q94 board IMO)

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So we agree ... keep reading my first post...

You have to look at all non-set making boards pretty much the same. My assumption is that he will fire at all boards regardless so when you flat to set mine just be ready for another tough decision as he could have 'any' set or AA/KK/AK here. He just used a polarizing bet to open with for whatever reason to get a better read on the rest of the table. Even maniacs know that they aren't going to get too many bingo players to call a slightly larger than normal raise ... even from a maniac!!

I think I call most any reasonable bet ... >$100 ... and see if he double barrels. GL

Lol, you cant call if you are just looking to setmine here. You are calling because QQ still has massive playability

Why on earth are we ever checking back flop in Hand 1 on that super wet board with these villains?

This hand seems like a standard 3b against this villain and probably bigger than normal. However, you say he is limping a lot. Does this then assume that his limping range < raising range? or is it just a button clicking situation where he decides what he is going to do at that moment and goes with it?

I'm not advocating to call just for a setmine as I stated a call/call/call line could be taken as well depending on what the flop looks like. I'm just making a point that I think calling is a better move than 3betting preflop.

Yes calling is way better than 3betting

Why? Are you scared he might pile AK?

I mean Dude's VPIP is off the charts and look at the hands he is showing down. If your argument is that he will shut down with anything but the top of his range that doesn't seem remotely possible. He is not folding anything that he is opening.

I will concede that we need a bigger read here on his opening tendencies. I mean he opened 22x here...has he opened much before and if so what did that look like (sizing, showdown, etc.). But in a vacuum flatting here against this villain is losing value IMO

call , then call down on basically any runout , maybe jam river too if the board looks good

Lol, this sounds like my game, except for the 1/2 blinds instead of 1/3. Yesterday at one point in my 1/3 NL game (maximum $300 BI), I was sitting with a stack $950 and there were still 3 bigger stacks on the table, lol.

I actually find preflop very tough here. On the one hand, are we really pumped about the possibility of getting 4bet 500bbs deep? I'm typically not with QQ. I mean, V would have to be an uber-drooler-maniac of the utmost to be willing to get this much in preflop with something worse, although can we really ever fold to this guy?

If we flat, it will most likely create a HU pot with an SPR of around 10 with us in position. This ain't too bad, unless V is fond of firing big PSBs. It also perhaps allows a loose cannon to 3bet behind us, in which case if we're sure the loose cannon is FOS we could take down all the dead money then / setup a super easy stackoff postflop.

If we do 3bet, I'd like 1/6 of the stack to go in preflop, so I'd go ~$165 (which isn't really too much of an overbet). My plan would then to get it in postflop with a couple of ~3/4 PSBs on the first two streets. But do we have a plan if he 4bets? Obviously we **** our pants first, but then what?

ETA#1: And even though we aren't necessarily setmining, I really do want to see a flop for the 1/8 times we do flop a set and are then laughing postflop (whereas raise/folding automatically prevents us from doing so).

ETA#2: And also +1 to slim's comment regarding checking top set on drawy board with idiots in hand 1, yuck, pot that thing.

GmrconservativeG

3bet for value and to discourage other callers who are in position. Ideally when we 3bet everyone else folds and V calls and we play the pot heads up versus him in position.

It would also help to know how often he raises this huge.

Seriously, guys he opened 22x utg. You guys want to 3bet a 22x utg raise with QQ?


Unless i have a specific read or history that this villian has enough garbage in his range when he nukes it to 22x utg, there is nothing to do here but flat call

Just because he is always in hands and has shown down 27 or whatever the hands were (on mobile) OP has gave no reference how those hands went preflop which is exactly the information we need for this hand, did he raise it? Limp it? Limp/call it etc etc. And I certainly think even a maniac can fold out to a decent sized 3bet.

And let's say we 3bet it to around 150 I would say to be reasonable? What happens when he calls then fires 250 on pretty much all flops? What happens when he 4bets to 400+? I think calling conceals the hand and gives us a more straightforward path, which is exactly what we want when in a hand with a maniac and having position gives us many more options on how to manipulate him. I'm really interested in your (and others) thoughts about this hand. Seemingly standard 3bet spot but I do think there are more profitable ways IMO.

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Edit - and the fact that OP mentions raise sizes up to 35... But then says that everyone folded to 35 so could have been a premium... And then he opens to 45 this hand?? We just need more info on preflop action rather than post at this point.