1/2 10 handed

H($300): 21 white guy. My play revolves around this villain whenever he sits down. No idea what my image is. I guess I'm playing pretty loose/passive.
V ($63): drunk maniac reg. Getting it in almost every hand with almost anything pre or post. Raising and straddling huge.

Villain straddles UTG for $25, folds to hero on BU who raises to $75 with K8o.

K8 is a pretty solid holding against the drunk here, but two guys are left to act in the blinds with $300 stacks. They are pretty typical 1/2 loose passive guys. Is this play too thin?

Later V straddles again for $25, gets a caller (not a nit), hero sees Q9s on BU. Most stacks behind are in the $200-$300 range. Hero covers V. V has about $400. Raise, call or fold?

First off you say 21 white guy does it matter if you're white, black, Asian, etc.?

And I'd say fold both.

Raise something above A-9ss and call with QJss or KQ, KJ suited.

Your play, with two stacks behind you that effectively cover, is not thin. It's very thickly negative EV.

You're talking about hands that are barely better than coin flipping against the maniacs range and yet crushed against the other player's ranges. Yeah, they're not getting involved very often but when they do it's going to be with premiums.

Since the maniac only has $63 you should wait for a spot to snap him off.

Hmm, did you notice if he even looked at his cards for hand 1 ? Might not change much if your description of him is accurate.

Folded to you with only two to go and the gambler who will ship basically any two has pretty much committed himself. These spots are somewhat high variance but sometimes it's worth taking a chance to get his money before someone else does.

I would say in hand 1 you are most likely ahead of his range, no need to raise to $75 though, just min-raise to $50 and get the rest in on any flop if he doesnt AIPF you. This way if someone in the blinds wakes up with a hand its an easy fold and you save a bit.

Well played.

Hand 2 much different situation, no need to call such a large bet pre-flop with no guarantee to see a flop. You are also no where near deep enough to be playing this speculative of a hand multiway.

Also, even if you are slightly behind or he draws out on you in hand 1, you give him more ammo which you can most likely get back later ....maybe even a bonus happens where he doubles up again through another player and all of a sudden instead of the prospect of winning $63, it could be $300-400

Why on earth would we want to actively put ourselves in thin spots against a spewing drunk?

K8o is way better than flipping against an atc range. I have 56% equity! Every time both blinds fold I make .56*(3+63*2-5)-63 = $6.44.

If I take the advice to min-raise, which I like, I'm only risking $48 (Straddle counts as a raise, not another blind, so I can raise $23). If I lose the $48 every time, which I won't, the blinds need to collectively play back 6.44/48 = 13% of the time, or about 7% each.

That's pretty infrequent. I guess it depends totally what the blinds tendencies are like in this spot. IME they'll play waaaay too tight, but I'm not sure if they'll play that tight?

In the second hand, I'm tempted to play Q9s due to IO more than anything. If I flop any pair I'm crushing his continuing range. I'm just more worried about playing for pair value here with others in the hand, and the V could make a stupid raise to $100 or something. I know it's pretty loose, but that's why I'm making this thread.

I am curious what others think a breakeven calling/raising range looks like in this spot.

There are stereotypes associated with race and age which can affect others' play.

I assume you're talking about the second hand because that's obviously too tight for the first hand. It seems too tight for the second hand too, IMO.

Please no "wait for a better spot" BS.

Why on earth would you pass up on $1 of EV just because next hand might be better?

Because there is no "might" in this circumstance. If we know he's playing close to every hand like this there is no reason to give ourselves this much exposure to loss when our gain potential go up tremendously when we have a good hand. We may be slightly ahead here but it's just poor strategy against the player type.

Edit: I would submit there is nothing wrong with passing up a +EV spot if we know we are guaranteed a much better one.