Definitely have to 3-bet here crushing Vs range. Yes, you can call a cbet when you flat pre flop but you can’t call turn and river barrels unimproved. 3 bet regains initiative. While you might not have fold equity pre flop, you gain fold equity on favorable flops with initiative. Plus, we always want more money in the pot against ranges we are crushing.

It’s frustrating to whiff the flop but you are still betting here and barreling good turns.


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On the flop, equity to the pot is what matters. KJs will realize this equity far easier than AQo OTF.

EV and Equity are different. AQ has higher equity preflop but lower EV.

This is the best player ever to x/c your range against. If he's really a maniac with a wide range then you can x/c everything since he's betting all his bad hands. x/c with the intention of fit or fold is pretty awful, we are calling because we have the best hand a ton of the time. We can also consider turning our hand into a bluff later since he's a bet station.

Lots of words for a flop check

3b pre is std imo, id bet flop half pot. He’s gonna make a lot of mistakes post so with an equity edge and skill edge i’d rather play a bigger pot. Yeah we underrealize equity but flatting here from SB sucks

I don’t really want to call him down with AQ high and be shown a pair of 2s FTW.

Why does it suck?

It won't be 80%+ but OOP against a stationary leaning maniac sure, I'm giving up a lot in this sort of situation. AQo will whiff a lot but some of hero's raising hands will be pairs that can bet for value and sometimes hero will flop a draw that can semi-bluff. Hero doesn't always need to hit the flop to have a betting hand. And I will c-bet here sometimes, just not as often as I would a normal player.

OOP against a stationary leaning maniac most of the reasons for c-betting air don't apply. You can't bet him out of the hand when he has a better hand, you can't control the pace of later streets by betting now and you don't need to maintain balance or obscure your play.

Against any stationary leaning opponent your mostly waiting for value and getting paid when you have it. Yes, that means sometimes you will be sitting there for long periods of time waiting and sometimes it will never come but that variance for you.

And as a side not, even against a more normal player you shouldn't be c-betting this situation every time. It's a good situation for c-betting so you should the majority of the time. But it's such an obvious board for c-betting that you need to give up a few times just for balance.

Just for me to be clear here QuadJ, are you more in favour of flatting or 3!ing here pre? Or mixing it up? The thing that I mostly dislike about not 3!ing here is capping range on other premiums, but I personally think I play these situations better out of the blinds better against this type of V when flatting rather than 3!ing, but that could just be a weakness in my game that I need to work on more.
Thanks for this discussion all, I’m definitely gonna reread some of these posts and expect it to be helpful in the future.

We're almost a 2:1 favorite equity wise. That's huge. We don't need or want fold equity to make this hand profitable as a 3-bet.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say we're going to under-realize our equity. Does it mean that our equity is an over-estimate of our EV? I have heard the phrase before but never seen it explained well.

Anyway, even if we are forced to fold our equity more often with AQo because we have fewer ways to flop well, we make up for it the times we do flop well and have the potential to win a huge pot with one pair. Our equity in the pot is an under-estimate of EV.

High-card offsuit hands are not the best in high-SPR pots against good opponents who construct ranges well. This is exactly the kind of hand we want to have against a punter who doesn't construct ranges well. Making any pair post is going to be very profitable regardless of stack depth because the opponent doesn't have the ability to pressure us into folding a pair.

Pre-flop is a must 3-bet, I am 3-betting a significantly wider range than normal SB vs. CO. We want to get it HU with the maniac and we want to build a pot with a good hand.

Flop is a range check against a player who bets 100%. If you're thinking about c-betting, consider a x/r.

You guys make this stuff too hard. The first two decision points are the easy ones. 3-bet pre because we have a good hand and check flop because villain always bets. Deciding how to react to his bet when we have A-high is the toughest decision in the hand. IMO x/r, x/c and x/f all have good arguments.

Also, lol at flatting the SB here being unprofitable. Obviously it is very profitable against a weak player when we're a huge favorite against his range.

Man. I cannot believe people still debate sb flats in 2019.

Well playing anything but QQ-AA/AQs+ sucks from the SB, but an almost 2:1 equity edge is huge vs a bad player. SPR is also barely over 5, so it’s not that low and if we stack off on Q high board whether it be by betting small or letting him spaz, or checking to induce barrels, we’re not really ever making a huge mistake.

Not sure why underrealizing our equity is even relevant at all. Whether we reraise or flat the SB against any raise, that will still hold true. Specifically if we flat here, the problem of underrealizing our equity still exists. If anything, it is worse bc we are gonna check our range over to him 100% of the time. Whereas if we 3b there are a # of boards we can bet/bluff, although not too many. And although OP believes he has no fold equity, it’s probably not true even if it is as low as 2-5%. Given OP’s huge sizing as well I expect V to fold a non-zero % of the time. It’s extremely rare in life for most things to have a 0% probability or 100%

Underrealizing equity happens with any hand from any position. This also holds true if we are OTB facing a raise from any player, and more true when we face a maniac who barrels too much. Or if we RFI preflop. Yes ofc it’s the worst from the blinds and being OOP. All that matters imo is that we are pushing an equity edge and putting more money in the pot when we have the best hand, in simple terms.

If he’s opening every Ax/most Qx here (a lot of combos) and calls the 3b, which OP implies, in a pot where $280 is in the middle and the SPR is 5, imagine how much his strat is getting owned whether or not we flop an Ace/Q. When we flop a Q he’s gonna lose a lot of money or even his stack, and a good amount on A too.

Then bluff raise him all in