BB $500 - very aggressive maniac, blew through his first BI in under 15 minutes. This is his first hand coming back from the cage.
Hero utg+1 $800

Hero raises $25 KQo, MP HJ & CO call, BB raises $125, Hero?

I'm $600-$800 eff with the 3 callers. Two are weak/tight/passive, one is nittish/aggressive.

Could this be a shove? I don't think any of the callers are calling with anything they aren't 3betting. Well, guess they could have AK. And BB could have a monster.

How did he lose his first buyin?

I think KQ is trash and plays itself here, if hes a real maniac he wont be folding often so unless you like flips I would muck it.

Can't remember specifically (it was a few days ago and I didn't write anything down) but he had been raising preflop often, cbetting often and then losing the hand.

And I love flips with overlay, if that's where we are.

If you don't mind the variance, then I think this is a jam. His range will have AK and AQ in it, but it will also have all pocket pairs and some J10s/109s/Axs. You're flipping most of the time, rarely a huge dog, and there's a lot of soon-to-be-dead money in the pot.

What do you think his 3 betting range is?

KQ doesn't do that great all in pre vs. most ranges but if this guy is super wide it would be fine.

I wouldn't rule out a call. Gotta figure you're good if you hit top pair.

what is the villain's 3bet range out of the blinds? Does he 3bet a lot? Do you have any 3bet sizing tells?

He's certainly not trying knock the field out by 3betting 5x over 4 players.

basically we're flipping against pocket pairs. He bet 25% of his stack so there's not enough room to 4bet/fold because if he flats he's sticking the rest of it in otf (and a possibly tilting maniac would most likley 5bet/jam it pre flop anyway) and I'm never flatting this OOP.

This looks like we're just flipping a coin with our stack. If you wanna gamble, jam it maybe you have a slight bit of FE otherwise fold which is what I would do.

Jamming is probably slightly +EV but I'd love it a lot better if we had AK. Given the description, I would just GII here and be prepared to reload.

Shoving I think is likely most ev+ math wise, but when flipping for $1050 pots, you also have to balance how ev- mentally(bankroll and tilt issues) it can be

You described the cold callers as weak/tight/passive or nittish/aggressive. I would forget about the overcallers because they are likely not strong. What is MP's flatting range? Does he regularly flat hands as strong as AK/QQ? Is he capable of adjusting to game conditions by flatting more frequently with premium hands to allow bad players behind to come along and/or induce a light squeeze behind him?

While the overcallers' money is likely dead money, I am not so sure about the MP.

I would also like to ask about the maniac's preflop tendencies. Have you seen him 3bet at all so far? What do you think his preflop 3bet range is?

This decision is really based on the agro villans 3 betting range. If he hasn't been 3 betting much then it think it's a trivial fold. Just because he is aggro maniac doesn't mean he 3 bets light. You said he spewed his stack away from opening too much and c beting too much. If he hasn't been 3 betting i think it's fine to fold.

If he has been 3 betting a lot I think shoving is likely fine. It's a thin value shove and I think we can get a better hand to fold some of the time(I'm referring to the callers ranges). This isn't a at in looking to make if I don't have a solid idea of villans range.

V is a maniac okay. What kind of maniac?
Have you seen him 3 bet before? What was his 3 bet range?

There is a guy I play against regularly... he is a maniac.
BUT he does not 3 bet with junk.

Working out your V's 3 bet range is key here.
As well as keeping in mind the possibility of other opponents' slow rolling capabilities.

There are two kind of maniacs I run into regularly in live poker.
A maniac who plays his 15-20% range hands like a spew.
Raises, 3 bets, bets f,t,r even when he misses.
Those players I'm not inclined to get it all in pre with KQo

Then there are the really loose maniacs... the drunks etc.
Those I'm happy to get AIP with KQo.

i think we can call pre.

MP could be flatting AK/QQ but could also be flatting stuff like suited connectors or any pair. I don't think he's the type to make good adjustments, nobody had really been 3betting, but I suppose trapping might make sense to him for some reason. Heck if he flatted AK/QQ it could be just to flat an eventual raise too. Interesting thought though and not something I would have spent much time considering.

Admittedly my reads are kinda bad here, this hand happened a few hours in and I didn't think it was worth revisiting until a few days after.

Hadn't seen maniac 3b yet but I'd only seen one full orbit from him.

I also think flatting kqo OOP is not the best descision. totally dependant on villans 3bet range, and if you think you have a decent amount of FE. because im a little nitty, in a vacuum i fold.

uhhhhh, fold

this is an easy fold based on this information.

I don't know why we;'re concerned with MP. I'm concerned with the 3bettor

Not sure what this is supposed to mean. One orbit is plenty of time to be reasonably sure that someone is a maniac. If an ordinary full ring player has a 20% VPIP and 8% PFR and someone raises 5 of 9 hands, it's exceptionally unlikely they are an ordinary player. It is much more likely they have a very wide PFR range than it is they picked up that many premium hands.

If a player played 0 hands in one orbit on the other hand, that wouldn't be enough to be sure they were a nit, because picking up 0 playable hands is not much less likely than picking up the expected 1 or 2. See Bayes theorem for a more technical explanation.

result

I was shocked when I saw that sierradave & johnnyBuz recommended GII.

My definition of a very aggressive maniac is someone who bets $125 pre in a 2/5 game with a range of 22+ A2s, A7o, K6s, Q8s, J8s, T8s, 65s, K9o, QTo, JTo. 28.2%.

A LAG isn't raising to $125 with the above range, is he?

Anywho, 84o [which is what V had] falls in the bottom of a range of 86.4%. That's outright stupidity.

However, even against that range, you only have 50.1% equity, there is no doubt in my mind that I can outplay someone this ignorant post-flop. Therefore, I would never consider flipping coins against him for my whole stack. It makes no sense to me to eliminate my advantage.

Even if you say V doesn't try to blow everyone out of the pot with AA/KK, & you remove those hands from his range you still only have 51.3% equity.

I would rather play poker against this guy than flip coins. If you are going to flip coins, you're going to need a helluva' lotta' money on you. When Johnny Chan won his 2nd WSOP title, he won 12 coin flips in a row when it was down to 2 tables, [where either he & or his V had AK & the other a PP] which is what gave him such a huge stack going into the final 9.

$500 * 12 = $6,000.00. No thanks. I'll play poker.

^ He also just got stacked (literally the hand before) and is tilting. Play poker vs. the rest of the table and make +EV gambles with the monkey. Easy game.

I don't like flatting here because it puts you in fit-or-fold mentality. If you didn't hit your K (say, A high flop), are you really going to call his shove? No. So just GII pre, wield whatever FE you have and see all 5 cards with a hand that is > his range.

I really don't like the flat pre.

shoving>folding>calling I think. Feels like calling is -EV on principle, too much of effective stack. Not sure.

If your image is strong, shoving folds out a lot of AQ and AK behind you, which is awesome obviously.

I think a call is terrible here as it encourages others to come along/re-squeeze and even if they don't, you're clueless on whiffed flops when V cbets and for the times you hit, he may just c/f his JJ.

It's shove or fold. Maybe even CIB to $285 to look super strong and then call it off/shove all flops.

OP, why are you opening KQo UTG at such a table in the first place?

I am not a fan. There are so many other ways to stack the tilting V. These V's just hand you their money.
What is your image to the V. Is he paying any attention to it? Do you have any fold equity?

Unless you are short handed, I love seeing UTG show KQ. I mark him as a target.
If I didn't have to act before the other three dudes, and they folded, then I'd consider it. Here, I'm out.