Main villain in this hand is a LAG verging on maniac. He plays loose passive pre and turns up the heat vs passive lines, especially post flop. He’s fired a number of bluffs on the river but also goes for thin value go capitalize on his image. Also he’s kind of a station

Hero has TAG image. I showed down a hand earlier vs villain when I checked back an overpair on a bad board for my range. So he might give me credit for checking back TT-AA in this hand.

2/5 effective 1K
9 handed.
VILLAIN STRADDLES UTG 10.

Hero UTG AKdd opens to 40. Folds to villain who calls.

HU
(87) 965ssc
X x
(87) Turn Kc
V bets 50. Hero calls.
(187) Riv 5h
V bets 110. Hero?

My thinking is that turn was a range card for us but we got bet into? Seems strange since he could have gone for a check/raise if he wanted...
So now on the riv my first instinct is to snap call but can we value raise repping a missed draw? Maybe what do u do fam

It kinda sucks that V has a totally random hand here on this board because gross better two pairs, 7-8, and dumb 5x are all in his range.

That being said, I’m still raising for value here, our hand is too good against a random hand not to imo.

I’d raise to $275 or so and comfortably fold to a shove or reraise.

Did you consider raising this turn? Two FDs and tons of combos out. V is super wide from straddle. I’d rather raise this turn 100 to price out his draws and fold to a 3b than raise this river 275. We’re uncapped still and we’ve got plenty of Kings here on the turn.

I apologize in advance if this is a stupid idea but would love your thoughts anyway.

raise turn>raise river IMO, but i think the call button is good here too.

too many hands beat you and only some kingx will give you a call.

lots of things he can continue with on the turn you beat.

River raise is pretty thin, would rather raise turn. not gonna sweat missed value if shown worse kx

Pretty clear raise/fold spot. We now beat 96 & & all of his Kx. He’s going to show up will some total air/under pairs he’s turned into bluffs witch we will get quick folds from. Occasionally he has us beat, but if he does we will hear about it & it’s a pretty trivial fold.


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$225/fold.

Ew that sizing is so weirddddd (how can we be bluffing?)

I would think we need to polarize harder to missed flush/boat... and use AK as a merge.

Edit: we actually cap ourself with the play and open up to a 3bet bluff where we fold

Why are we so adamant about folding to a 3 bet on this river? It is a maniac after all.

Yeah I flat river, think raising turn better

Good question...

Hmmm, this one is interesting because the read goes both ways. He's sticky post so my first instinct is to raise turn as we aren't worried about him folding worse. I think I still prefer raising turn for this reason. I can understand flatting planning to get more value in position on the river though. If we aren't raising this river against a wide range and against a V that we expect to show aggression when we play passive then again it points to raising turn as best. AP, I'd like to make it 325 and eval. Depending on reads and previous HH we can fold or call it off depending on how close V is to maniac.

$275-325

I don't think raising is a good idea anywhere in this hand vs. a maniac who could have anything. It just lets him off the hook. If we raise river, is he really calling with worse? Yes, he's a station, but unless he's an idiot, he knows we have at least a K here.

I can get behind raising the turn because of all the draws, but if he re-raises, we have a serious decision to make -- this board is terrible for us (and he likely knows it, which might be a reason to raise/call).

I just flat the river.

If he's a non-thinking maniac who is overly aggressive and thinks you'll fold a K or better, by all means raise/call.

how can you raise/fold river?

your only value raise that can play x flop, call turn, raise river is kings full and you're still probably not getting that trappy with any set on the flop or turn (though I think there's a pretty strong argument for calling the top of range on the turn against this vill quite a bit). so you've got what ... 3 combos of actual river value here? if you're bluffing missed river flushes with any frequency above minuscule and folding AK to a raise, then you are over-folding the spot against a true maniac who is capable of 3b shove bluffing river.

the other aspect is that vill, even given his straddle and super wide range, has a pretty big range advantage on this runout/action. he can have every full house/quads, all the straights (suited and offsuit), and all the better kings (K9, K6, K5). perhaps he can fold his better kings to a raise (putting you on AA/KK), but I doubt he's folding a straight.

so I get that your vill can hero here, perhaps even without Kx, since your line looks kind of goofy, but my point is that he doesn't need to hero to have a profitable bet/call against your AK (and against your turn calling range) based on his actual river range advantage.

so we ultimately return to the question of should you be raising this spot to induce? it should be pretty clear to a thinking LAGgy maniac that your river raise doesn't represent much and you really "should" only call off a river 3b shove w KK, which you probably don't have. so there's some reason to expect that raise/call wins at least some of the time. I think it's really hard to say whether it's a winning play, though.

in terms of can you make this move and "outplay this guy this hand" and it be a winning play ... if you have a soul read, sure. There's a justification for it, and it's also a high variance move that's going to make you feel idiotic when he shows you quads.

in terms of approaching this as a river strategy in this kind of situation where your hand is probably a bit under-repped and your opponent is capable of over-reacting to his perceived range advantage, I would err on the side of preservation of capital here and just call. you're still going to lose a lot on the river when you call and I don't think your raise is going to fold out many better hands. your raise is probably going to get called by better more often than you think as well, and a river shove favors the villain bc game theory demands that you call off with some 2pair hands.

Yes - that's the point of raising. We need enough value raises to balance our myriad of bluff raises.

We have at least 12 combos of busted flush draws here that I would be checking flop and calling turn with:

AQ
AJ
AT
QJ
QT
JT

AQ
AJ
AT
QJ
QT
JT

I just call down. Seems super routine to me once I check back flop. If I thought he were truly terrible I might consider a small raise.

Since the V descript is "kind of a station", I'd mostly eliminate trying to bluff him during the session. Not worried about balance in this particular spot.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that if Hero held any of these hands and the hand was played this way (doubtful), that anyone on 2+2 would be advocating a raise on the river vs. a maniac who can also be a station. (And, no, I still don't think he's calling with worse -- not in this hand -- so I get your point but think it's moot.)

The board is pretty terrible for an UTG PFR range. None of the combos I listed want to bet/fold the flop nor raise/fold the turn. Checking them back on the flop ensures seeing a free turn which can turn great backdoor equity for the combos (as this hand shows).

If he’s never calling worse then we should be raising the six worst combos (QJ/QT/JT) as they have no SDV and don’t even beat his rebluff jams. I think we’re leaving a lot of money on the table by having zero value raise range here. If he’s truly a station then we should exploit him by raising and since KTs = AK here we have at least 21 combos to do it with.

I guess the question is how much of a station is he? And does the bluff/shove raised rivers?

Unless he's the ultimate horrible station, it's hard to imagine he's ever calling with worse than a K, and it's hard to see his having a K. It's also extremely hard to believe he's bluff/shoving the river over Hero's raise.

If OP can confirm either, I'll change my stance.

This is maybe the first hand I've seen posted that I'd be curious how PIO plays our entire range on flop, turn and river. Also curious what Minatorr has to say.

Main villain in this hand is a LAG verging on maniac. He plays loose passive pre and turns up the heat vs passive lines, especially post flop. He’s fired a number of bluffs on the river but also goes for thin value go capitalize on his image. Also he’s kind of a station

After rereading this description, I definitely think raise turn>call down>raise river

Hero also says he turns up the heat on passive lines, so unlikely hes repopping a raise without the goods since hero would not be taking a passive line.

how do you address the severe range disadvantage?

and what I mean is that on the turn we almost never have sets and straights and villain can have all of them (minus KK), as well as all of the 2p combos. our range is capped and he's uncapped, and not only that but since we know he's calling wide out of the straddle, he has tons of combos of hands that aren't going to fold (i.e. K5s).

thus, he has a much larger than normal value range (combinatorically) which also means that he can include a lot of semi-bluffs and pure bluffs in a bet/3b range.

thus, if we raise turn and he's thinking much at all, he should just 3b/shove over us with a wide range that includes every hand that beats AK and every hand that has good equity against AK, making our turn play a raise/fold.

the only hands we can possibly have better than AK on the turn are KK and AA (which we have much much less often than AK here), which means that we would be playing turn as a raise/fold with basically the exact top of our range. sounds like a game theory disaster to me.

call turn. call river. AK is a bluff catcher, and this villain likes to bluff.