Hi all
BRAND NEW TABLE

v appears to be an absolute maniac raised 10 5 suites UTG TO 20

H: I’m on his direct left and raise UTG TO 13 with AA folds to him in the B.B. HE 3 bets to 45 and we 4 to 100

He calls flop is 10 10 2 rainbow he checks and we check it back expecting him to bet any turn

Turn is a 9 and he jams..

We obviously call

Did we play optimally?

4bet a little bigger. Rest is fine.

What are stack sizes? 4 bet probably needs to be bigger and you might just want to shove then.

4b 115/60/125

I think we can be opening $15+ in UTG. Our 4bet is rather small imo. If he's calling $100, he'll call $110... $115, $120... I think I'd go ~$140 myself. Makes it easier for him to stack off with PP and some AKs post flop when SPR is below 1.

Post flop, the chips are getting in no matter what. If you think he'll bet any turn then I like the flop check. Otherwise, I'd lead small, like $65 or something.

I have 300 dollars to start

I make it a bit more on the 4bet, like $110+. Postflop I like with reads given, there is no turn you fear and you can bet yourself if he checks again.

I'd probably 4-bet a touch higher but I think $100 is fine. Line checks out fine as played.

Will be interested to see results. In 99% of my 1/2 experience, a 4-bet is either AA/KK, so curious what he'd flat you with here. Hopefully not 99 or TT.

Q10 off lol

just call his 3bet preflop. 4betting AA in position against this player is a mistake. You want to give him the lead in the hand so he can bluff off his whole stack to you. If by just calling you let him catch up and beat you then so be it. But by 4betting we allow him to outplay us since even a maniac like him is going to give you credit for having something that you probably wont fold.

If he flops a pair you are going to stack him no matter if you 4bet him or just call. But when you 4bet him you are going to shutdown most of his bluffs.

When you 4bet small here you might as well turn your hand face up and say go ahead and play perfectly against me.

Our only read is this guy open raises T5ss UTG and people who do that don't 3bet in order to fold to 4bets. More reads go ahead and flat, this much info 4bet.

I agree that 4 betting small is not good.

The guy called our 4 bet with freaking Q-10 off. That fact alone tells me that the our 4 bet is excellent. If he is calling garbage like Q-10 off, he likely continues against our 4 bet with his entire 3 bet range, wich is a pure goldmine for our valueheavy 4 bet range.

Yeah honestly this guy was a pure maniac I could tell just by his actions even though I’ve only been playing with him for like half an hour.

The reason I 4 bet so small was because I did NOT think at all he would fold for such a small sizing even if he was 3 bet bluffing and I think just maybe he could SPAZ as well and just ship it with like JJ OR QQ or something

I think I honestly played it well but just got crushed on the flop lol

OP, you gave results in <1.5hrs after posting. 3/4rds of Earth's population wasn't awake.

For those who subscribe to 4! more pre: what's your range when you 4! maniac here?
I would not want to 4! $110 with 99-JJ [would you?] so I am inclined to often times flat pre & let maniac hang himself. Plus, since he's that bad, you should be able to get a visible or bet sizing read otf. I'm not saying I'd fold the flop, but your 6th sense has a chance to kick in.

Look at the odds of V flopping 2pr+. I like my chances when maniac c-bets like 100% when I flat; even if I knew V had 2 suited broadway cards, but didn't know the rank/suit, I'd flat. Is that really all that terrible? We 4! $110, he calls, misses on 754r board & folds; he loses $110. He hits 2pr+, we lose $300.

He catches gutshot with overcard, calls our PSB, misses, folds to our PSB OTT.

QQ+/AK for me. If I have time to see what he 3bets with I would probably widen this up.

You are wrong. People who open raise T5ss UTG can find a fold button when raised but if you check/call he keeps betting.

I mean he's a maniac why not just jam preflop, he's guaranteed to call right?(sarcasm) You guys are underestimating you're opponents. You don't take the lead away from a maniac. It's so mind boggling that you all think 4betting is smart when its lol bad.

4bet to at least 110 preflop. We need to give TT+/AQ+ a chance to shove light.

Other than that hand was played fine.

No reason to try and get tricky by flat-calling and allowing e.g. a K-high flop.

If you have evidence that he is 3-betting too wide then the better way to adjust is to start 4-bet/calling his 3bets with e.g. 99+/AQs+ and allowing him to fold his equity or to stack off too light.

In my view that's a better approach to take rather than to start flatting and allowing him to get away from his dominated hands or improve his equity against our range. With 80 in the the flop and 260 left in remaining stacks, this is an awkward SPR to try and outplay him postflop.

He 3bet/called with QTo though, so when we check the facts rather than your opinion, it seems like his fold button is not that easy to find.

Also, pretending that 4 betting is 'lol bad' is terrible poker thinking. You can make a case for flatting, it's wrong but not incredibly awful, whatever. Making out like it's the one possible action is bizarre. It's extremely difficult to be in a situation where 4betting AA pre flop is 'lol bad' but the reverse is certainly not true.

I like this.

Not quite the same but I notice that when someone gets out of line raising too often at low stakes, the table response tends to be to call wide in order to catch them out. Instead we should be looking to expand our 3bet range, probably 2nd nature to most peeps on this forum but still.

JJ+/AK until I see more evidence which might cause me to either loosen or tighten that range.

yeah he called a mini raise preflop. 4betting is lol bad. im not saying hes going to fold preflop for a mini raise, no one is. im saying he's going to fold after the flop when he misses, however when you just call his 3bet he is going to continue barrelling.

when he whiffs hes going to keep barrelling, possibly his whole stack. when you 4bet you shut that down. that is horrible.

you have AA min raising accomplishes nothing except to make your hand face up. this opponent was going to put more money into the pot anyway. cant you recognize that?? you're in position there is no need to 4bet this hand. its ******ed.

Raising with the nuts preflop is poker 101 for a reason...the cornerstone of winning poker is to put money in when we're ahead. You need a very compelling reason to not raise AA pre because not bloating the pot is lighting money on fire.

Every single time we could have got another raise in preflop with AA and don't, it's a disaster to our winrate.

This is very important because AA is where we make a good chunk of our profits, for a lot of people AA is basically where all their winrate comes from.

Now if we've seen this guy play for a while and we know that he shuts down whenever you show him aggression and barrels off whenever you check, fine, that's a compelling reason.

But we don't have that read. It's not in the opening post. As far as I can tell, we've seen one orbit and we know he raises with absolute garbage. That doesn't, in any way, mean he neccessarily is both a relentless barreller and a controlled folder of cards to aggression.

You are constructing a fantasy read out of information which is not there.