An absolute Maniac is straddling almost every hand. He often raises or calls preflop bets so there are a variety of people reacting differently. Some are limping to the straddle and overlimping the straddle; some in order to call and flop a hand, others to re-raise pf and get it in with the best hand vs the maniacs range.

1/2NL HomeGame

Maniac Straddles for $10 400 behind
SB: Generally weak/loose/bad/passive, covers maniac limp/calls $10.
BB: Hero, AQ, raises to $45 with 176 behind, (221eff pf)

5 folds
maniac folds

SB: Raises all in

Pot: 276 in pot
176 to hero

It appears the SB chose the path of limp/raising the maniac and we happened to get caught in the middle.
Once we have committed $45 of our stack, is it worth considering a fold here?

Hero absolutely believes the SB to have a "value" hand vs the maniac. The question I have is: what range can I profitably call with?

In this exact situation, what must his range be for AQdd to be profitable!?

I want to understand how to think about this at the table. All responses are welcomed, thanks!

Line looks fine to me.

Now fold.

Assume l/r is KK+ until you see it otherwise.

Yes. In fact I snap fold here, given that he made this raise after the maniac folded. he doesn't have "a value hand against the maniac," he has a monster. His range for L/RR the maniac may be somewhat wide, but once maniac is out of the picture, he's not continuing the plan with medium PPs, etc.

You have pocket pairs you're flipping with + pocket pairs that crush you + AK. Guarantee you aren't seeing anything you crush.

This is easy to range--everything you beat is a coin flip, everything else destroys you.

At 22+ and AK combos, you're 47% vs. V's 53%.

Fold.

Actually, given the dead money, we would take a 47% happily. We only need 39% equity to call. That said, there is absolutely no way V has a range as wide as all pairs and all AK. His range is more like half of the TT-QQ and AK combos and all of the KK/AA combos, with maybe just a splattering of PPs<TT.

We're crushed.

Yeah, I made my range overwhelmingly wide to point out how bad AQ is in this spot. V would basically have to have a ton of Broadway/SC combos to make this a call.

And, as others hand noted, obviously this V over-limped to exploit the maniac, and now that his plan is failed is either playing his big hand for value against OP (JJ+/AK) or just trying to be done with the pot now (less than that).

At the table you want to be able to understand what equity you need to call. The pot odds you are given is that you have to risk 176 to win 276. So the equity you need is 176/(176+276) = 39%. So you should call if you believe your hand will win more than 39% of the time. - In game, my mental arithmetic would be hmmm 18 to win 28, that's 18/46, which equals 36/92 which is roughly 39%ish. In this case I'd nail it, but you don't need to be that precise.

You'll get plenty of snap fold responses here because forum users for 2 clear reasons. 1. Experience tells us that Villain has KK+ very often. 2. AQdd doesn't perform well against a very tight range.

Understanding how the top hands do against various ranges is really a homework assignment. The more of the equities you memorize or at least familiarize yourself with, the easier you can evaluate an in game situation, as then you can spend your mental energy determining what range Villain would play that way.

What can you call with when you need 39%?
If Villain range is KK+, you can call with AA only.
QQ+ you can call with KK,AA
QQ+,AK you can call with AA,KK and barely AK,QQ

You're barely ok with AdQd if his range includes 55.

If his range includes AJ and/or KQ, then it's an easy call. (never happening here)

Allright, so we need 39% equity or more in order to call.

If we assign Villain the range of 99+ AQo+, our hand has 38.9% equity.

In this situation, receiving odds of 1.57:1, we should call if our Villains range includes 99+ AQo+. Otherwise, we should fold to the shove.

AQdd vs "22+AK+" is 42.4% vs 57.6%

Why is villain shoving half of the TT-QQ's? Specifically the AK/QQ's?

Also, if there is a splatering of PPs<TT, it seems like we should add more of the TT-QQ, and AK combos.

V range = AA-KK so often that considering wider range is a waste of time. Good raise. Snap fold to rrai

I am so bad at pokerz... I feel like after I commit $45 here, with 176 remaining it would take an absolute nit raising all in for me to get away from the hand.

I don't understand why if you know you're behind the widest possible shoving range and the equity in the pot is so close.

Within that wide range you have to at least assign some weight and the weight is strongly skewed to the high end, AK and TT+.

You aren't within 2% of a coin flip against an individual pair until you get down to 55 or so.

You are dominated by AA, KK, QQ, and AK? How many combos of that range are there?

What does V limp/shove into you 100% of the time outside of that range? JJ/TT? How many combos of those hands are there?

Below TT you can either eliminate PPs altogether or assign them lower weight in the range. Say, a decrease of 10% per pocket pair.

Is there any other combo V spews with? AJ? KQ? Doubt it.

Fold.

#1) I'm not sure I am vs the widest possible range possible. As Hero, i have been raising to $30-45 with a VERY wide value range. Things like 77's+, KJ+ QJs. Is it not possible this Villain has picked up on that and decided to shove a lower value hand with the knowledge he is ahead of my range? Or that I will possibly fold a hand with decent equity vs his current holding? Say if he held TT/JJs?

Note: also, many players will raise to say 90 and shove any flop with KK/s or AA trying to get action, while they will shove with all other "value" hands. 99-QQ and AQ+

#2) Because of the dead money in the pot, we are "coin flipping" vs a range of 99+AQ+.

#3) AA-QQ AK+ = 12+12=24 Combinations
#4) I think this guy never folds JJ's.
#5) JJ and TT have 12 Combos
#6) If we assign a decrease %chance of 10% per pocket pair, then we are actually ending up with a 20% chance villain is limp/shoving with 22's.... while I disagree with your logic of %of lower pp he is limp shoving... he may shove some of them, if we assign as many as you are saying, we should be SNAP calling in this spot because his range is then actually weighted towards pocket pairs and the dead money in the pot more than makes up for our small amount of equity difference.

____

at 99+AQ+ we are a virtual coinflip with dead money in the pot.
Any extra hands outside of this range is merely icing on the cake. If we can include any pp lower than 99's we would be making a mistake by folding....

Perhaps I have made a mistake of my description of the villain in the hand!

Your image according to V may be the tiebreaker in this spot. Is V giving any thought to your r/f range? Your r/c range? Have you been playing many hands in the last hour? Have you played many hands throughout your entire session?

If he is never bluffing, then you just need to determine what he should consider the bottom of his value range against your range and act accordingly.

weak/loose/bad/passive players don't expand their limp shoving ranges because a maniac is at the table, they wait for AA to do this even here. Even with KK they tend to wait to see a flop with no A before shoving, I fell the ranges here are all to wide for this villian, even Lapitador's. I would be utterly shocked if villian as described had less than KK here and surprised at KK even though there 2x as many combos of that as AA given our blocker.

I'm getting the feeling that you are attaching an emotional value to the $45. Once it's in, it's no longer yours, your investment, nor your commitment. It's just part of the pot. "After I invest $x" is a line of thought you want to avoid.

At a minimum just focus on the $176 needed to call vs. the $276 you can win.
Better yet, think about V shoving $176 to win $100, and evaluate his range in that regard. If you think about it that way, it will be easier to understand all the good advice in other posts indicating that V is on a very narrow range here.

Your raise sizing was good, now fold.

BTW...If I had AK, then I would call it off.

Ahhh, my language was less than precise. When I have a stack of 221, and put in 45, that's 20% of my starting stack. In a cash game, I am almost never folding preflop because I have reached a point where my SPR is less than 5:1, the odds the pot is offering is usually enough I must commit the rest of my stack.

I feel AQdd should be a call in the situation, but I can see the logic why that may not be so.

SPR is really designed for determining what to do when you have TPTK on a flop. It's not so much a PF thing. You need to determine your equity against a range and fold no matter what the SPR is if you dont have sufficient equity.

Actually, that's what you need to do post also, but SPR guidelines can be a shortcut for that.