Hero ($250) - Tight image.

Villain ($800) - Complete maniac, bluffing like crazy and has been doing stupid things like calling off his whole stack preflop with Q7o.

1 limper
Villain raises to $15 on BTN
Hero 3bets to $55 in SB with AQo (no club)
Villain calls

Flop ($105) is Jh 7c 5c

Hero cbets $35
Villain instajams $195 effective
Hero ???

Can we call it off with Ace high here?

Broadly speaking this is a question you shouldn’t be asking in future. You need to have an answer to this a) before you c bet, b) pre flop.

In terms of this spot you need to win 36.4% of the time. Probably the best way to work this out is by using one of those range + equity calcs. Or at least understanding what range he has to be shoving for it to be profitable to call.

Yes, you need 32%.

If he really is jamming with little to no equity in spots then preflop, there are two main ways to approach playing with this guy.

You can either play passive, call the raise and promise to yourself not to fold if you hit the flop.

Or you can 3bet with the intention of not check/folding unless you hit the worst flops (e.g. monotone 876 not in our suit). Overcards on the flop typically have around 26% equity against an underpair so even if he doesn't have complete air you still have a chance. Needless to say a flop like JTT is a monster for our hand.

A third option is to really take some time to get a sense for his game, how crazy he is and work out a plan.

From the description given above, I prefer raising to 60 pre. There would be 120 in the pot and 190 in our stack. On this kind of flop, I cbet 80 into 120 and stick our remaining 110 in the middle when he jams over the top.

We flip our cards over, smile a little and make the guy feel comfortable.

If you don't like the variance, there is no problem at all with nitting it up and waiting for JJ/AK+.

Your stack size puts you in a great spot to double up. If you had 800 he would be much harder to play against.

As played, I'm not sure why we cbet so small but we may have induced. I'm happy to stick the chips in vs this guy and gambol.

If you're not willing to cbet at least 1/2 pot, don't 3! AQo pre. Betting 1/3 pot just induces light raises or shoves from maniacs and lets draws improve almost nearly for free.

I'm guessing villain isn't doing anything too complicated here, e.g. his thinking is "I have a piece of the board, therefore chips go in".

The problem is that we're still a pretty big dog against anything that has a piece of the board.

I think I can find a pretty nitty fold here, despite V's description, mostly because my games don't have people who stick it in pre with Q7o.

So how many buyins has he lost so far? Cuz the answer to what to do in this hand really depends 90% on how good your read is. The problem with assigning a range to this guy is that per your description his range is really 50% of hands. If that's the case, we're still not crushing it, but we're definitely calling here.

Why would I cbet 70% pot when the SPR is less than 2? Surely my options on the flop are either check, cbet small or jam? I just don't see a medium-sized cbet being effective when stacks are this shallow.

I think a large cbet of 80 into 120 looks scarier to him than a shove of 190 into 120 while still letting him know we're pot committed. This kind of player often likes to be the one to catch us bluffing or to scare us into folding. He doesn't want to be tricked into shoving into an overpair with a weak hand.

Just about any hand villain has, has at least 26% equity against us. Hands like T9 and 84 have 35% equity.

I'm happy to let him know we're committed to the pot and to fold out any equity he has delivering us a $105 pot without having to risk our stack. I don't want to bet small and induce him to shove with his entire range. We might even be able to get him to fold hands as strong as 53.

What do you mean "without having to risk our stack"? Surely you're not advocating betting $80 then folding to a $195 jam? Once we bet $80 then we'll be getting too good of a price to fold to a jam, so we might as well just jam ourselves if we're going to take that route.

I am suggesting making a larger sized bet and committing to the pot.

If he folds because we make a larger sized bet, our stack will not be at risk.

When we make a tiny bet of 35 into into 105, leaving 200 behind, maniac villain may think that he has fold equity and jam with the entirety of his range. Even his weak hands have around 25% equity against us and even though we would be a favourate against those hands, there is still value for us in folding out that enquity and taking down the pot unopposed. We won't achieve that by inducing him to bluff jam with a bet of 35 into 105.

Your flop bet is very bad against this type of player. Either c/f, or give yourself some FE and barrel it off.

V would have to jamming with an extremely wide bluffing range for you to be <3:1 dog here.
I guess if he jams with all flush draws you have a calling situation. Yeah, if you put in a wide array of flush draw hands that he'd jam with, you have 35% equity.

No, you completely misunderstand me bro.

I'm trying to compare a big Cbet vs a jam. I'm saying that jamming $195 is objectively better than Cbetting $80.

And the part in red makes no sense... How can you say that making a committing Cbet (a bet so large that we have to call it off) isn't putting our stack at risk?

Results:

I think this is smart. Top off and try to target the maniac and let him donk his stack off into you when you have a made hand. Let him rebuy, then be patient and repeat the process.

I'd lean to 3betting to $80 preflop, which will create a $160 pot where we could then open jam a ~PSB on any flop (or at least mostly the ones we whiff, probably checking the ones we hit and hoping to induce). 3betting smaller leaves us in no mans land too often when we whiff like it did here.

GcluelessNLnoobG

As mentioned above, playing against a maniac when shortstacked is *way* easier than when deepstacked. Topping off is only a good idea if we have a very good handle on how to play deep, especially against a maniac who will constantly be putting us in gross spots for big $$$ over multiple streets with us holding weak TP type hands (as we'll rarely make better than that).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Your 3b/cbet sizing is perfect. You can also shove flop sometimes too.

Its a standard fold as played but closer vs. villain description.

Still, its best to not give people money. Thinking about it like this "I'm not giving you money" has really helped my folding game which imo is the most important game there is.

This is a well played hand. c-betting larger without jamming is no bueno because you are either committing yourself to calling off or handing him more money when you fold to a jam.

In general you want to lower your sizing against very aggressive players. With weaker holdings that still benefit from a c-bet you lose less when you b/f, with stronger holdings you don't appear committed and you can induce villain to GII lighter.

Then we're talking about the same thing.

We're not intending to fold preflop or post vs this guy and we want to take the line on the flop that will most encourage him to fold (even if our air may have better equity than his air!).

You can certainly argue that your maniac is more likely to fold to a jam than a large cbet and you may be right (after all, you saw the guy!).

I think your guy actually does care about wanting to increase his stack and has some understanding of poker but obviously he's not afraid of variance. He's playing for the thrill and fun of "out-donking" people and its not very fun to be raised by a nit who has an overpair and then to jam into said nit after they put out their normal overpair cbet. It's much more fun to snap call a jam with bottom pair because you soul-read that the nit was bluffing with AK and would never make that play with an overpair.

As played, hero played it fine after the cbet. The other play would also not have been terrible.

If we were ahead preflop and villain calls our preflop raise with the entirety of his tange, we're likely still ahead post.

This is so very villain dependent. By betting small you'll often be enducing the maniac to raise with the entirety of his range and you'll have no idea where you stand in the hand or you'll let him draw to some ridiculous 2 pair holding which you wont spot until he's jammed for two times pot.

This is a good point. From what I've heard about this particular guy, having about 220 in our stack feels about right.

Yup.

And unless you are a deepstack crusher, I would likely table change once doubling up. In many ways, maniacs have the advantage over nitty players when playing deepstack because they are better at chicken than we are (probably unintentionally, but that's moot).

GcluelessdeepstacknoobG