With just a $260 stack and a maniac at the table who won't fold to any reasonable raise, you're initial raise size is *way* too small, right? I either make it $30, expecting it to get HU with the maniac where I've now gotten in enough of my stack where I can stack off comfortably postflop on any board, or I limp to reraise (especially if maniac raises a lot and people have been calling him).

Our preflop raise sizing is just so bad and puts us in a terrible spot. We only get in about 6% of stacks and gave two opponents fairly decent ~20:1 odds to stack us. And yet we create an SPR ~5ish pot, where it will be virtually impossible to fold postflop.

I've got no problems with how you've played postflop, but on the turn you have have a much more difficult decision than you should have had you played preflop better.

GpreflopistheonlythingthatmattershereG

V2, who is described as a snug / tight / ok average player, just limp / overcalled a raise UTG, and called flop and turn donks from the maniac with preflop raiser behind him also calling the flop donk. On a 942r board. Start ranging him.

Considering at least 3 posters (maybe more) want to jam the turn, V2 would have to be a flat out idiot to do anything other than call with his set considering Hero's hand is face up on the table.

Gfoldingtotheturnbetandcallshouldbegivenseriouscon sideration,imoG

I'm advocating raising to $30 with a $260 stack, which is reasonable (right?), and make this head brain dead simple (and profitable) to play postflop.

Instead, we've gotten ourselves into this situation, where half the posters want to shove (which sucks as we mostly just get called by better and fold out worse) and the other half want to call (which also sucks cuz now we're giving both these guys great odds to hit their piece of cheese in a huge pot where we might be ahead). If everything we do postflop sucks (which I believe it does), then maybe we should do something different preflop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Go ahead and raise your AA to $30 then, get used to everyone folding. Again, would you raise all of your hands to $30, or do you just pop it up when you have AA/KK hoping that your opponents are too stupid to notice? I've seen it time and time again when all of a sudden a tight player pops it up to 10-15x preflop and this fish who "never folds" limp/folds this time.

Even suggesting a fold to this turn bet is unforgivable, can't believe anyone on this forum would entertain this thought. Raising is also bad because there really aren't any draws out there except maybe a pair + Fd on the turn (OP didn't list suits which doesn't help things). V1 could have literally anything, we're ahead of his range. V2 has sets for sure, but he also has a LOT of 9's. We assume he's decent based on the description given but I've seen a lot of spots like this where any ofsuit connected 9 gets flipped over. You're getting > 7:1 on a call at this spot and its more likely than 7:1 that the river just goes check check to you.

lol funniest. can't read his posts.

Not sure why you would really want to raise here. You likely fold donk who's dumping money in the pot and keep in the guy more likely beating you.

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I don't know what to tell you, we simply must play in different games. My default opening size at a lot of 1/3 NL tables I play at is $30, and I'm the nittiest player at the table, and I get all the action I can handle. To suggest that $30 is going to get everyone to fold, especially when there is a maniac at the table that "won't fold to raises", I find flat out laughable. But maybe your game with a non-folding maniac in it plays differently than mine.

V2 is one of the worst players I've ever played with if he's continuing calling preflop and the turn bet with lol 9x when our hand is face up on the table and we're still calling behind (what, we called the flop bet and call with UI AK?). Our ranging or our read on V2 (or both) is wack, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

We do play in different games then, but I don't see how your opponents are bad enough to flat 10x opens from a nit, but aren't bad enough to call 2 streets with top pair.

This might be my biggest pet peeve of people who post in this forum, in that for some reason some can't seem to comprehend these conditions. "A fish is a fish is a fish, they all behave the exact same way all the way from preflop for $3 - $30 to the river for $500", which of course is not the case at all.

The majority of regs I play with are (a) extremely loose gambooley preflop and (b) know *exactly* what is going on. My guess is that is the norm for most reg filled rooms.

They call 97s preflop for $30 against our obvious AA because they think it'll crack it enough to be profitable (they're wrong, but mostly they just want to have fun and see a flop), but then know exactly where they are postflop when they only have one pair (although again they may call a bet to try to hit their 5 outer, again thinking they are profitable in doing so, but they're wrong).

Preflop here isn't even close. This isn't a nit infested table. It's a table that has a maniac at it that "won't fold preflop to raises". Raising to just $15 with this guy at the table is just *so* lol bad.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Right...V2 calls getting 5:1 on the turn, must have the nuts .

It's all been said. This is a trivial call on the turn. Would any of the fish in your game ever fold AA here? Absolutely not. This fact alone makes this a neutral ev call at worst even if V2 has the nuts this time. You need to win this pot 1/8 times to make this call worth it, do your fishy regs play well enough postflop to beat you more that 7 out of 8 times here?

Love to hear everyone's ranging for V2 by the time he calls the turn bet.

My guess is that I'm going to have a lot of difficulty reconciling that range with snug / tight / ok player.

ETA: And I'm not even necessarily saying we have to fold the turn; heck, I probably couldn't fold for this price either (but I'm not saying that's right). It's just that everything we do here sucks (folding, raising, calling; they all suck, although I'm guessing one of them sucks slightly less than the others), and that's all due to preflop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

^ GG, there are a lot of 9x suited connected type hands in his range here. Plus he probably wouldn't limp 99, so giving him just 22/44 is really mubsy and bad imo. Turn is a must call for this price.

If he bets the river, then it's a fold.

We need to be good here 13% of time. To make calling correct. And we are going to hit an Ace on river 7.7% of time. And have 13% equity vs 99

No way you can fold.





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Pretty much agree with everything GG is saying.

Quick note on the turn call: what a lot of us hate is not really the turn call but the turn call plus very often folding on the river. Just saying it is yucky, not that we should fold.

Also... this is 3-ways! Almost no one is mentioning the maniac, but he's donking the pot and it may not mean much but he still wins the pot if he shows down the best hand and sometimes he does.

On the turn we're only going to hit an Ace on the river about 4% of the time, no?

But I'll admit I didn't notice our gutshot, so yeah, I get your point: we're getting great odds, we have outs if behind, V2 is also getting insane odds so also might be calling light even though he knows he's currently behind us, etc. Fair enough.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Ya, oops doubled our outs. So yes less than 4%.

Still not a deciding factor in decision.

You use math to base your whole preflop game strategy, and post flop stack off strategy (your are the SPR king of 2+2) Need to also use math here in your post flop call strategy.

Don't always need nut draw, or betting power (stole that from the great outdonk), to continue post flop.

Sometimes odds are there to play the passive fish roll.

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That's fair enough, however...

I originally come from a Limit background. In Limit at live small stakes, the optimum play on the river with one pair is to bet/fold it against the vast majority of opponents, even though we'd typically be getting an insane (from a NL standpoint) 12:1 or so to call the raise. This play can be the difference from being a winner vs loser (especially in high raked games).

So you can understand my trepidation of calling a bet in NL just cuz we're getting "good odds". I think we should strive to sometimes do better than that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

If the bet was $60 and action on river wasn't allowed. Would you call?

If so min-raise/fold the turn. Then you can check back river for your cheap showdown. Also an old limit play.

IMO, folding is asinine and super mubsy.

GL GG




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FWIW, my main argument in this thread hasn't been that we should fold the turn (I probably don't in game time either). It's that we should have setup a trivial spot for ourselves preflop.

Gthat'sallI'msayin'G

At the narrowest I'd range villain to all pocket pairs 99-22. Half of them have made sets, we crush the other half. He is not raising sets because the board is super dry and not raising the others because he is afraid we may hold a bigger pocket pair. No real value to raising, V2 only calls our raise with sets. (I am willing to stack off to the maniac) Certainly wrong to fold given the price here. ($30 against $190) Flat and see how much a showdown will cost. (I would probably throw up a little when a flush making 6 hits the board too.)

I would prefer a large preflop raise. V1 is playing anyway and it might get V2 to fold pre. I'd make it the biggest preflop bet that I've seen V1 call. Sets up an easy flop shove even if V2 comes along.