2/5 $1500 eff at the Wynn vs aggro-maniac whale (raising/barreling every hand like crazy, thinks he’s tricky and will get paid off when he hits big, but apparently itching to give his stack away)

V opens $35 in CO, H 3! to $140 in SB with AQo, V calls (obviously, read ATC)

Flop ($285): K94r

Ideally, we would want to just bet small-ish on this texture, but there’s a chance this particular V will see it as weakness and raise as a pure airball bluff (seen him do it before).

OTOH, betting big once won’t get him off any pair or gutshot, essentially putting us in a crappy spot OTT as we will have to xf often since he is guaranteed to fire if we check. So betting once vs this player seems like lighting money on fire.

He would probably give up his apparently weak range to a double barrel OTT (excluding Kx that likely won’t fold) but that would turn out to be pretty expensive to find out.

What line do we take vs this maniac? Do we just close our eyes and bet $125, $275 and then check fold river? It would suck to punt off $540 to him doing this though.

What about the risk of getting our small cbet being bluffraised OTF? Yes, we will have stronger hands in our range too when we cbet small and would love to induce the bluffraise, but we aren’t going to play this guy again and he is ready to bust out soon. So is worrying about my range really that critical in this spot?

What are we doing with QQ-TT in these spots?

Against a real maniac you need a good portion of give up and check/fold this flop. With a real maniac you need to wait till you have value and then take him to town. If he starts folding to your straight value then you can mix in some bluffs. You had a strong hand preflop and whiffed the flop entirely, so a good portion of give up necessary.

I would also throw in some half pot c-bets. Partially for balance and partially because even a maniac is likely to fold the king high flop if he has air. Small c-bets don't generally work against a maniac, they just induce raises. Save them from when you want him to raise.

I would mix between the two. Roughly equally to start but you should bias the ratio based on how much he gives up if he missed the flop entirely. If he is the sort to call with air on the flop and see what you do on the turn then c-bet less often and barrel any turn when you do c-bet. If he is floats less then c-bet more often but give up on the turn some of the time.

If he is the sort to drag things out to the river before giving up then wait until you have some value most of the time. Don't raise him much preflop and don't c-bet air very often. If he won't give up you won't have trouble building a pot when you do hit so you need to just be patient and wait till you do have value.

If I check flop, he’s 100% betting flop with ATC though.

I was going to suggest maybe not 3!ing pre against this player and waiting until you have value OOP because you’re going to whiff this flop and be in this spot often. I was in this exact same spot the other night twice and both times I wished that I hadn’t of 3! pre (I won one of the two hands, but lost money overall because I cbet big on the one I lost and then it checked down after to the river with me losing.)
It feels pretty nitty to just flat this hand here, but I think against this type of player it might be easier to play if you’re comfortable in your postflop game (i feel like you def are).
I still don’t know though. It’s probably correct to mix in some 3!s here, or your 3! range against this player gets completely capped.
It’s a tough spot for sure.
As for the actual hand, I think cbetting half pot about half the time feels right to me, but you’re probably just giving away more money most of the time you do.

I think because of this check/call most of the other times you don’t cbet.
Or just throw up the white flag and wait for the next chance.

Vs. a Maniac/Fish/non reg we should just flat this preflop. Our 3bets gain EV by Fold Equity which we do not have vs this guy.

Here is equiab equities AQo vs Any suited hand/decent off suit hand.

I have this guy slightly over 50% of all hands


As you can see we are not that big of a favorite:

1) We are also OOP so even though our equity might be 63-64% we are going to under realize that equity.

2) We are 300BB's effective. high card off suit hands play very poorly in high SPR spots like this when we are very often going to have 1 pair type hands.

As played, just X/F. We are against a maniac, we do not have to play our range here, we can just play our hand.

These are probably the most frustrating/difficult situations to play imo.

Check/call and then what? He’s certainly not giving up based on what I’ve seen so far. Calling him down blindly?

No, you’re right. Check/call is almost def the worst option cuz even if you hit Queen, you’re still gonna be guessing two streets.

As I said, I hate these spots. It’s annoying because we’re often ahead here and it feels like getting run over, but I think we need to give up more small pots against this guy for less frequent bigger ones.

It might be close, but you will lose more vs a maniac by flatting anything in the sb. Besides in mw spots, sb flats are the biggest torch in poker. Worse than open limping.

I do like your overall thoughts though wrt equity realization vs wide no fold ranges. Interesting adaptation, I think I agree (other than when I am in the sb).

This.

I have this situation frequently in the 2/5 games I play in. Flatting with AQ and not c betting insures that I win the big pots and give in on the small ones.

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I was just watching a CLP video of David Tuchman uploaded last week where a reg is in this exact spot in the SB with AQo vs a maniac’s LP open, and he flats from the SB, which David Tuchman thinks is a mistake.

He proposes to 3b big in that spot for fat value against a range we crush. Not sure what his postflop plan is though.

Those big hands we’re waiting for (to reduce the variance) may never come. Or he may already bust out by the time we get them.

SB flats can be okay. The reason the popular 3bet/fold strategy has been adopted from the SB is because:

1) It doesn’t leave us with a capped range preflop OOP

2) It takes back initiative

3) Our 3bets (theoretically) have Fold Equity

4) We counter squeezes from the BB

Ironically, reasons #2 and #4 are null and void. Our maniac actually protects us from light squeezes from the BB. So the same reason we shouldn’t 3bet is the same reason flatting is better in this situation.

Almost all players have a losing winrate in the blinds, our goal isn’t to win, it’s to lose less than if we just folded.

I wouldn’t take much advice from CLP or Tuchman. They do think about poker at a high level.

Obviously we have a range advantage when we 3bet and get called but that is not the main consideration.

So basically you’re playing fit or fold vs him and letting him steal 80%+ pots from you in this fashion until you hit something? Feels slightly weak mainly because you may go forever without getting a hand better than AQo or flopping sets.

Would we not 3! AK in this spot either? It’s not much different.

Not true. When we call preflop with AQ/AK we can call a lot of cbets vs him.

If this guy is a real maniac and we have zero fold equity, then yes we have to make a hand vs him by default.

Also I am going off your description of the player. We don’t play ranges vs maniacs/fish. We just play our hand because they do not know any better.

Against better players we play a range because we have fold equity. And balance actually matters.

Two questions:

1. How can you begin to estimate the equity gap needed to surmount the disadvantage due to being OOP in postflop play? This is obviously a function of our and our opponent's skill levels. I had always assumed that a 10% point gap would be enough, assuming equal skill level. That's why I will sometimes 3B KJs from the SB against a loose BTN open (KJs is 57% against the range you posted). Maybe this is a mistake?

2. It is really hard to find hands which have more than 65% equity against the Villain range you posted. Basically just 88+ and AQs+. AKo has ~64.5% equity. If what you're saying is correct, you suggest it may be correct to only 3B a range of 3% of hands {TT+,AKs,AQs} against a 60% opening range. This seems excessively tight. Or am I oversimplifying your argument?

As played, Cbet/fold 1/3 PSB. Could be bluffing, but the crazed maniacs I've played with usually have it.

Given this particular opponent, widen your range/play more hands when ip. Agree on 3b here, only smaller sizing given his low fold equity %.

My strategy is vs this player specifically. Everything you have said is true vs an unknown and especially a reg.

1) Your “skill” against opponents when you have limited fold equity is not going to come from bluffs. It is going to come from your preflop hand selection and your ability to value bet thinly.

2) KJs would be a better 3bet than AQo here even though it has less equity against his range. Why is this? Because suited hands have more visibility postflop and over realize equity while off suit hands under realize.

We have an 11% chance of flopping a Flush Draw with KJs and by that metric alone we would be able to play it profitably postflop.

My strategy vs this opponent would be to flat in the SB with all of our strong off suit hands/low suited connectors/pairs under T and to 3bet all of our premiums + broadway suited connectors. Since we have almost no fold equity we need to 3bet hands that flop well + can flop top pair more often.

This is why 3betting a hand like 87s would most likely be a mistake vs this opponent. We will flop 2nd and 3rd pair too often in a big pot and be unable to continue vs aggression.

I normally will X/F in this spot. It isn't even necessarily unbalanced. If we're 3B'ing a range of suited broadways and large PPs, we should have plenty of value hands to continue with in this spot: AK, KQs, AA, KK make up a hefty part of our range. If you want to include some semibluffs, use your 3 combos of AQs with a backdoor flush draw.

Agreed.

If we 3bet tight like AQ+ and 99 + then we have literally the worst hand we can possibly have.

If we 3bet wider we have KQ, KJ as well as AJ, AT.

We can also continue postflop with AQ on a lot of boards. Boards like 229 we still crush his range and continue for value and we generally have 2 overs as opposed to 1, possibly with a gutshot at times.

If he has 100% open, 100% call 3bet and 100% bet flop when checked to then that money isnt going to be around for long and not forcing the BB out and giving ourselves a chance to win it all with a hand as strong as AQ seems crazy.

This part doesn't make sense to me. The value of suited hands against a regular opponent is that they make great candidates for semibluffing. But successful semibluffs require fold equity to be profitable.

If we have no fold equity (i.e., we are forced to win at showdown) then we should just look at raw equity to value hands. KJs has less raw equity than AQo, therefore is a less profitable 3bet.

AQ will flop a pair 33% of the time, whereas KJs will flop a pair or flush draw 44% of the time. So we will be able to continue with KJs on more boards. However, KJs is dominated by more hands than AQo when it flops a pair, when KJs pairs its Jack there will often be an overcard on the board, and AQo dominates more of our opponents range than KJs does (since V has a lot of weak Ax hands), so that balances it out somewhat.

Personally I think both KJs and AQo are slam dunk 3bets against this type of player.

I like the 3bet vs. this player and I follow through on this flop about half pot. This is a good flop for us. We really do take it down quite a bit, and if he calls, we can evaluate turn. If he raises, we have to fold and c'est la vie.

If we flat him pre with good/premium hands and only play when we hit, we could be in loads of trouble.

If Villain is only calling the flop with any pair or gutshot, then a half pot cbet turns an immediate profit.

On the other hand, if Villain is sometimes floating with backdoor flush draws and often floating with his Ace highs, then a half pot cbet is a disaster (unless we plan to double barrel).