I am not involved in this hand, but I talked about with an aquaintance of mine at the casino.

Cash game 1-2 NL holdem, 200 max buy in.

Player A - Seems like a pretty tight/solid player. Stack built up from 200 to 350.00.

Player B - An absolute maniac, has already gone back to the cage 6 times in the last 2-3 hours to rebuy. Loves going all in on a draw. He will not fold a flush draw under any circumstances. Also loves to bluff. There are stories about this guy, perhaps legends on some his ridiculous calls and luck. Anyways, he just hit a set of 7's on the river to break pocket aces so his stack is now about 400.00.

The scenario:

Player A is in middle position, Player B is on the cutoff. Player A raises to $25, Everyone folds. Player B - Snap calls. (I fold from the dealer position)/ The blinds fold. It is heads up.

Flop comes 9C 6D 2D.

Player A Bets out $75. Player B pauses for a while and then calls.

Turn Card. King of Diamonds. Kd

Player A hesitates and then says "All IN". Player B pauses for a minute and then Calls.

The turn card is a Jack of Clubs.

Player A reveals his hand, Ad Kh. Player B Has 8d-4d. Player B Scoops.

An Acquaintance turns to me and says "That was the best poker I have ever seen before in my life..I would have to fold there. he had the Ace of diamonds and rep'd the nuts."

I said to him it was crazy trying to bluff one of the loosest players in the casino.

What do I make of this? Who was correct?

In before lock but you are correct.

Standard hand. Acquaintance is a dumbass.

Player B didn’t call flop to fold a turned flush.

Player A ... lost more on this hand than I would have.

GII with top pair and NFD is a pretty common thing to see so this guy doesn't get out much if this is new and exciting to him.

Second it's pretty meh against a known station renowned for having all possible FDs and always chasing.

A should just check/evaluate or make a normal sized bet, depending on B's tendencies.

It depends how B plays when checked to while holding the flush as opposed to holding a pair. If he'll bet all his flushes (or bet them big) and check back all his pairs (or bet them small) then A can do better than shoving by checking and peeling to the bigger bets when he has odds. If B checks behind (or bets tiny) he has a straight draw or pair and A can bet non straightening cards for value on the river. A isn't afraid of a 4th flush card because he's got the NFD so doesn't mind giving a free card to low equity 2-pair/trips draws and can dodge the most likely straight cards on the river.

Conversely if B slow plays his flushes but bets his pairs then A can still more profitably check turn because then he gets a free card against B's flushes and still gets value from his pairs.

If B just goes mad when checked to and starts betting everything but only GII on turn with flush then A can either bet normal sized or X/C knowing V"s betting range is wider than his GII or raising range on this turn.

Only time shoving us a good idea is if B somehow will fold some of his flushes but bizarrely call with his pairs. Maybe if V will call all-in with his entire range here then all-in is +EV. But there are still potentially greater EV lines to take depending how predictable this known villain is.

Not the greatest poker move ever IMHO

On a more basic level:

Does A's turn shove...

Fold better? No.

Get called by worse? Quite possibly not even by a crazy chaser.

QED - stupid bet.

But the big take away from this is your acquaintance is more than happy to fold his small flushes to pressure

Yup, on both counts. I'll leave it open for a bit to see if any good discussion takes place, but this hand seems pretty straightforward and also likely to bring out trolling, so prob won't stay open long.

Yea opening for $25 at 1/2 isn’t standard. Cbetting $75 into $50 on the flop with Ace high isn’t standard, especially against this V who’s calling super wide. Ripping it in on the turn against a maniac range that has plenty of flushes is just icing on the cake. Player A was on a mission to play for stacks and got what he wanted. Maniacs play however was completely standard (for a maniac). I agree with your comment that it’s silly to try to bluff this guy

Lol I hadn't even noticed how out of line A was preflop and with his flop bet. He has basically turned himself into a maniac in his desperation to stack the maniac.

I'm nearly positive that player A thought he was value betting.

He probably thought something along the lines of "I might not have the best hand, but I don't want to look dumb by calling the maniac's raise with a draw, so I'm just gonna jam".

^ yeah I guess. Lots of more experienced players get really aggro with maniacs rather than going passive and just letting them spew. I think you're right - they just think passive = terribad.

I don't think it was either. Player A grossly overplayed his hand pre, OTF and OTT (albeit with the nut re-draw) and Player B does what you think he would...call down. Seems mega standard.

Oh and your aquaintance is a total nit.

I don't think he's a total nit.

His argument was that he has been playing tight and was repping the nuts because he had the Ace of diamonds. I would totally fold an all in for my entire stack with a small flush. Does that make me a total nit?

my argument was that this is good poker against 80% of the poker world..but not this guy. Only calling stations would call this huge stack with a small flush. Or am I wrong?

If you’re calling pre heads up OOP for $25 with 84 suited YOU AREN’T FOLDING A FLUSH!!!!!!!

Yes a lot will fold to it but as you say, villain was exactly the wrong guy to do it against. However, I think player A very well thought he was value-betting his top pair here a lot of the time (and maybe he was - we don't know what else the maniac is happy to stack off with here).

Does anyone else call huge bets like this with small flushes?

It depends. If you're facing an opponent who is cognisant of the nut-flush bluff (many are) BUT not cognisant (or cognisant but incapable of or not bothering with) balance then you're going to have some profitable spots to call huge bets with small flushes.

Reason is that in situations where such a villain can have a lot of AXo they can quite quickly end up with more potential nut-flush semibluffs than nut-flushes. If they don't have some method to prevent them overbluffing they may end up being exploitable.

Of course if V is capable of executing the nut flush bluff on the river then he is even more vulnerable to overbluffing because at this stage hes got no equity because there are no cards to come - it's just a bare bluff and he cannot have as many as he can get away with when it's a semibluff.

Why the **** would you fold a flush on the turn in holdem? Second question who is shoving 250 into 200 with a bigger flush?

A was obviously value betting and your aquaintence is a ridiculous nit. I’m not folding any flush in that spot in a million years.

Wtf? Im snap calling any flush there ott.

AK played the hand terribly.

I think that's a bit harsh. The play would have been identical if player A was holding A-J of diamonds or something like that for a huge pot.

You could say that about literally any hand where a player is considering calling without the nuts. It can safely be said that you should never fold a two card flush to a single ~PSB in a heads up pot in theory, and almost never in practice either. Folding is laughably absurd.

I really dont ever see AJdd opening to 12.5x pre. 1.5x potting flop on a 9 high board, and overbet shoving when Hero has the immortal nuts on Kd turn.

Im literally snap calling any flush ott so fast it’s faster than lightning

A is value shoving here against a maniac. It's not a normal spot. It's not a good move unless V is GII pretty wide. That could well be the case but we don't know.

OP read is player B loves FDs and always chases but B has also reloaded 6 times in 2 hours and is likely chasing all sorts of stuff and can probably stack off incredibly light.

OP's focus on FDs may well have occurred after the fact as table chat revolved around this specific hand after the showdown.

If we were somehow transported into this maniac Player B's brain and given the opportunity to make his turn decision for him we would never fold the flush, not just because it's not our money, because it's clearly a bad laydown.

Player A is v-betting against B's incredibly wide flop calling range and expects B's turn call-allin range is near if not as wide as his flop calling range. We, seeing B's cards, know that in fact B is near the top of his turn range and thus miles ahead of A's turn shoving range against a maniac.

Obvious call.


In an entirely different scenario (A=nit B=TAG) B might be more circumspect about this spot with say a 5- high flush. Reason is nit-A wouldn't semibluff the nut-flush draw or overbet shove any hand weaker than a flush and most of A's flushes would be higher than B's so it's not an automatic call, it's an automatic laydown.

However, in this specific spot B has a completely mandatory call given how he is perceived in-game at this moment.

I can see it in certain situations and this is one I would do the same thing.

V is a huge calling station in the BB. We have a hand we would love to play heads up IP against said V.

I mean, yes. AKo is slightly ahead of Ad Jd but I’d be trying to iso V with both.

his line and reasoning shows he's not a good player
he is unable to think beyond his own 2 cards
over betting pre and flop is not mark of a good player
its a scared player not wanting confrontation

and yes folding a small flush to an all-in makes you a nit
why call pre if when you get there your going to fold?

As usual, it is situational. Player B is described as a "maniac" in your OP. Vs that type of player, would you EVER expect him to fold a flush no matter how Player A plays his hand? Of course not...guy is a maniac.

As far as you being a nit, I don't have enough info to determine. That being said, ask yourself this....does Player A's line and bet sizing look like the nuts? He raised pre huge and over bet the flop and shoved the turn when the flush card hit. To me, I would SNAP call that line a ton with a small flush as the sizing is NOT valuey at all. He really reps nothing IMO with that line other than AA or KK with one flush card.

I don't think this line works against any player who has a decent amount of hand reading skill.