The villian is a deep stacked rec player who has been 3 betting to ridiculous amounts everytime the pot is opened and so far hes taken a lot of money from me pre flop.

I'm stuck over 2k atm after losing 2 BIs on ridiculous coolers and villian knows it and i feel like he is trying hard to outplay me and has his ego involved. He is, at the very least, trying to take advantage of my current tilted state.

i called one of his 3 bets with 89dd because he only raised to 120 and was getting decent price pre and he was going to cbet 100% and i was going to cr if i was amywhere close

flop 7dTdx

hero check raises v folds

but i have mostly been raise folding or limp/folding or just folding pre and its a wash so far

a word about villian: he is far from a good player. one of the reasons he raises so much is to limit his decisions post flop. seen him pay of big on river with lol obvious folds...hates folding post

Hero opens UTG1 to 15 on a fresh 1k BI (5 outed for my stack lol) with KsQs, one call, v raises to 250 and it folds back around

hero?

bonus hand

same v opens to 65 UTG, folds around to hero on sb...AsKs

BB is a loose player on 4k, loves to see flops and is anxious to get into a pot with villian..smart player very experienced...has a lot of gamble but overvalues hands post and does not vbet thin OTR

v has 3k hero 2100

Hand 1: I'm letting him have this one. Fold. It's only a matter of time before you show up with a much better hand in a big pot.

Bonus hand: Raise to $200

Just generally reads like V is in your head and there's a lot of ego involved here.

First hand is just a snap fold. Let him win the $30.

Second hand is a raise and probably gii if V is willing to gii with non-nutted hands.

Generally, if V is raising a ton you need to fold more, limp more, and raise fewer hands that you're not willing to commit with pre-flop. With V's huge sizing you can basically wait for a very good hand (say JJ+/AK and maybe AQ) and go with it.

Ok i guess everyone is going to say fold pre. kinda disagree. I think v is raising close to 50% even with the 250 raise. I feel he is negative linear with his sizing. i have raise folded so much that he would not want to lose me with a premium so lets take JJ+ completely out of his range for sake of discussion

hero?

So just for the sake of argument: villain has a premium pair 0% of the time.

He is calling with almost any ace if I ship...folding some low pocket pairs

He has 3bet at least 50% of the times I have opened. I've raise folded hands like QUo and AJ and open folded hands like 33 since I'd never get set mine odds

So I've been playing like 5% vs him for the last 3 hours and I had the nuts the last time I 've shown down.

I did not fold here fwiw. But looking at the hand in a vacuum folding is good.

Gun to your head saying you can't fold, do you choose call or raise?

im going to let the discussion go for a minute but i think villian actually knows he is getting under my skin

This is the best starting hand I've seen since v has gotten to the table and he has worked his stack up 2-3 BIs since he's?been here but he will never leave the table with money. he will stack SOMEONE. we just have to get in the way when he does.

so v calls with most aces if i shove, calls with some flips, folds the rest

math of pre is pretty easy. its a profit to ship. prob better than calling

hero calls

flop 646r

hero?

Fold first hand, raise the second as much as you think they will both call, or at least V will call (or, better yet, V will re-raise).

If you do play the first hand, just raise him now and gii. Use whatever fold equity you have. Calling is awful.

Just saw you called. Ugh. Give it up. Seriously. Sounds as if this guy will call you on this flop -- or raise you -- w/ A high.

Hand 1: Well you played with the guy. If you think KQs is ahead jam on him and hope the third player in the pot wasn't sandbagging an monster. I would expect you are a slight dog to a middle pocket pair with villain. It is not hard to find better spots than this one though.

Hand 2: This is that better spot. If BB wasn't a smart experienced player I could see flatting here. We need to raise to keep him out of the pot though. I'd raise the smallest amount that you know he'd fold too. I would expect $130 to be enough but I wasn't there.

You have king high bud. Say it out loud.

King. High.

Second hand is a raise and not fold.

That's a dangerous assumption. Part of what maniacs like about bluffing with their big bets, is they get players so tilted that they can get easy payoffs when they have a hand. He might sometimes play a premium differently, but I would not take it out of range.

In the meantime, think of it like a math problem. He raised more than 16 times your bet. He needs you to fold 87% of the time of so to show a profit. That means you can merrily fold all but your best hands here and still kill him. And if you know he will always 3 bet, you can open fewer hands and kill him more.

That is why most will say fold. You actually want to reinforce his behaviour with this hand. Then you want to cut down the hands you open with, turning some into folds and others limps, and punish him when you get a big hand.

I mean, yeah, KQ may be ahead of his range. But you can't really call for 1/4 of your stack when you will whiff most flops. So your alternative is to shove, and lay a guy who doesn't like folding interesting odds when he knows you are on tilt and has a deep stack?

KQ is still behind all pairs and all aces. It will be behind most of the probably depressingly wide range he talks himself into a call with. And not far ahead of others. And you've only put in $15. Tighten up and wait for him.

Ok there is something relevant about hand 1

The reason it's a wash right now with villain is because he got chips back on the following hand

Hero opens to 15 with JTs in LP..v raises from button to 60 folds to me I call

Flop 892 one club I check he checks. turn 3c I bet 2/3 pot he calls..river Kd, i bet 2/3 pot he calls with AQo and is good

So if I shove I got him calling with all but worst aces

That being said I think I should have shoved but the flip gets interesting

Both check...turn 4 hero?

That is a classic mental trap with a maniac at the table. Yeah, you want to be the one he dumps to, and so does anyone else.

But if you start chasing him from meh spots to get it done, you just donate to the eventual recipient.

Hand 1: I disagree with your assertion that villain wouldn't raise his premiums huge. if he knows he's under your skin, then he's going to absolutely bomb it with big hands to make you snap and felt you (again).

Having to fold KQs to a 50bb 3b over a 3bb open is not something to be frustrated about. The correct adjustment to make is to open open tighter and get it in a bit lighter than you would against a typical player. KQs is a legit part of even a tight UTG opening range. so the question is what should be in your GII range? It's too tight to only open hands in EP that you'll raise/call or raise/shove with, so you MUST have a raise/fold range here and I think KQs makes sense there.

If you feel very confident in your read that he's way out of line with his frequency, then the only play is to shove. you can't call his massive 3b OOP and then play with just over 1 PSB behind and hope to come out ahead. However, this does not seem optimal at all and I think you are just tilting to think you can legitimately profitably get it in with KQ for 200BB here.

Hand 2: agree with 3b to $200 and I would probably play it very passively post flop and wouldn't fear calling down with AK hi some % of the time.

As to the KQs hand... Look at it this way..

Pretend you're heads up.. If you raise to $15 then villain's $250 would need to get through you like 94% of the time to be instantly profitable for villain. So you only need to continue with like 6% of your range, and maybe a little bit more to make up for the times you just call and he pulls ahead with his bluffs.

So let's say you continue much more than you need to - 10% of the time. Also, let's say that you're opening UTG1 kinda light with 16% of your hands... Then you continue after villain's 3bet with only 1.6% of your complete range: QQ-AA/AKs... If villain is bluffing too much, and you 4bet shove these hands and he folds. Then his bluffs have an EV of 0.9*15 - 0.1*250 = -$11.5.

What I'm saying is if you give him $15 ninety percent of the time, but take $250 ten percent of the time, you'll be crushing him. You don't need KQs for that. KQs is only a top 5% hand when you really can just stick to a top 1.6% hand.

And keep in mind that villain has to get through other players too, so he's going to be losing that $250 often enough when somebody else wakes up with KK+.

If you really really think he's bluffing way too much, then maybe add in AKo, AQs, JJ... Now you're at 3.3% of your hands. And really, facing such a huge raise after your UTG+1 open, that's way more than enough to make sure you're not being exploited, and that villain is losing money from playing badly.

My first instinct is to punish those huge 3bet sizings by 4betting your gii range and some hands that are too bad to flat (such as your hand 2). I'm assuming he 3bets huge too often for it to only be premiums. He might be a maniac and will gii with terrible hands, but chances are his 4bet continuing range is substantially smaller than his 3betting range. Other than that, construct a pretty wide 3bet continuing range and call when you get an ok price. All suited broadways, AKo/AQo, and 77+ is probably ok. Just make sure to also fold a lot as he'll probably tighten up more the stickier you get and trap you.

Ok this is really the crux of my quesriom...whether the math says shoving is actually better than calling

What is really cool about it is that I'm on the tippy. top of my calling range and the bottom of his calling range.

In other words...he is always calling with AJ and always folding KJ so he only calls when he is ahead.

But he only needs to fold 50% of the time pre .for me to break even...and my read is he folds close to 70% so shove is a profit but I don't know if it's the most profit.


Thoughts on turn?

Hand 2: Villian on big is not folding very often even to a 3 bet. He is calling with all suited connectors and pocket pairs and most aces and suited kings if I flat.

If I 3bet it will definitely sculpt his calling range but he likes to gamble and see flops. He probably folds all aces I dominate to a 3b but call with sneaky SDV hands. Assume he will be Wide to 3bets

you posted 7 times in 4 hours. He got to you and you were clearly off your game. HHs don't even matter at this point, rack up and come back when you're closer to your A game. ****er got to you and it sucks but it can happen to any of us. Gotta let it go.

Maybe so but I grinded out a $100 profit by the end of this session and it felt like a win

Think the hand is interesting because at no point does the flop change the hand. I checked twice because he calls with better and folds worse. So I'm stuck in check call or check shove mode all the way.

Shoving is better than calling pre I guess but technically correct play might be calling.. I wanted to stack him and shoving just folds out all the garbage I want him to play

V checks.

When villian checks the turn I know I have the best hand but discussion is going nowhere because it's an unusual hand that no one would play the way I did. I bring a lot of money and if my hand is ahead of his range I'm happy for it to be for a lot of chips.

On to hand 2. Anyone like flatting?

If V is really 3betting 50% of hands to 1/4 of effective stacks in hand 1, shoving KQs is +EV. It is literally impossible for him to have a calling range that makes it -EV.

That said, I'm a bit skeptical that he's really doing this with trash frequently enough to get to 50%. If so... well, buckle up and god speed.

Edit: Re: calling, what exactly is the plan if we do? We're going to whiff the flop 2/3 of the time with a 1.5 SPR. On random low flops, we're going to have ~40-45% equity against that 50% range, and we'll be about 50% equity on A high flops (due to card removal). If he's cbetting 100% of the time, we're going to have to continue regardless. Are we "stop & go" open jamming low flops to get Ax to fold? Because otherwise we're just giving up whatever FE we'd have with a preflop shove.

Any win is a win so that's good. Should feel like a win!

Possible no one is posting about your 2nd hand cuz your OP is tbh kinda cluttered. You have one hand that is history, not the hand, and then the 3rd one is tacked on at the end. And the formatting is messy. In general, one hand per thread, and use the suit symbols and make it easy for us to decipher. The easier it is for people to read, the better the answers will be. (It's also monday, most of us went hard on the grind Fri-Sun, and so give it a day before bumping your own post.)

"Shoving is better than calling pre I guess but technically correct play might be calling" this makes no sense no matter how many times I read it

"discussion is going nowhere because it's an unusual hand that no one would play the way I did. " this might make more sense than you intended

welcome to the forums. Knowing is half the battle.

My bad. Will post the other hand in new thread and yes, hand 1 has me wired up. I was actually stuck 4k at some point in this session so I'm cleaning up my mess and going over some of the hands I think I could have played better.

Agree that shoving>calling but feel like calling>folding because the way this guy is playing he is going to lose his entire stack soon and if I'm ahead of his range I'm ahead and the bet size to blind ratio doesn't phase me.

Feel free to edit out hand 2. It's very interesting the way it played out. Will post new thread for it.

So just to clean things up:

Hero raised to 15 from UTG1 with KQ

next to act calls, next to act is v raises to 250

Hero calls

Flop 646

Hero checks v checks

Turn 4

Hero checks v checks

River 3

Hero?

You obviously think you are ahead, but you think if you are not ahead, he will call, so check/call to get the most value out of your K high.

(And calling pre is not better than folding, especially when you give him every opportunity to catch up when you think you are ahead and you don't force him to put in more money when you think you are ahead.)

It kinda feels like villain was not the only one going insane.

It is not your personal mission to get handed his stack. Poker isn't personal. Taking small edges based on assumptions against players who will give you huge edges makes little sense.

As played pre, you have 2 lines if you miss. Bluff all in on the flop, or check call the whole way.

The bluff all in has to work something like 58% of the time, so do his range, figure out if he'll call with only overs, and how often he'll have a piece of it.

Check calling assumes he will bluff his whole range at some point.

Any line that includes a post flop fold puts the lie to your already dubious pre-flop strategy. It doesn't matter whether you are ahead of his range if you are going to play fit or fold.