I'm stuck in a debate with someone over this hand as he assumes the line I took was "too gambly" (high variance).

So i've been sitting at this 1/3 game for about 2 1/2 hours. Play is pretty much face up as far as reads go. Since i sat down i have identified only 1 other fully competent player who is sitting to my direct right. The villan involved in the hand in question is the biggest asian monkey on the table. He looks to be 24ish, very loose and plays a super wide range regardless of position. Hes shown down 8x on a K8K89 vs the most obviously tight 90 year old lady at the table getting 3 streets of value from the monkey. He makes wild plays regardless of his position or his opponent and it also seems that he does not stop to put a range against any opponent throughout any hand at all.

Hand in question:
Blinds 1/3NL
Hero (10 seat): $200
Villian(1 seat): $300

Villian strattles $6 from the cutoff. 7 players limp the $6 straddle to me and i look down at 88 and raise to $50. Villan w/o hesitation 3b to $125. Folds around to me. Vs this player, i'm just never folding so i elect to shove. He calls and the board runs out:

J3578 (rainbow)


Thoughts?

I believe I fold in this situation for a number of reasons, and yes it is high variance.

1) you have little fold equity. He'll call almost every time.
2) you're at best flipping, even though he dies appear to be a maniac. Though his range is wide would he push with two lower cards? Likely he would push with any pair (half are higher than yours) and all face cards.
3) I don't believe that you're getting pot odds to call against the range I put him on, point 2. You would be pushing in your remaining 150, and assuming he calls plus the dead money, you would be getting a little better than 1.2:1. Are you getting the right pots? Maybe someone else could help me figure out the odds to win against the range since I don't a my odds calculator handy.
4. There will be better spots to get it in against villain. Take your time and you'll get his stack in a better spot, hopefully before someone else does and he runs out of money and leaves the table.

Thoughts anyone?

I think your line is good as long as your read is good. 3 betting preflop with the only aggression coming from the BB (you) is pretty standard for a LAG, especially considering the pot size and the odds of taking it down immediately. The straddler could have anything from a Axs, 22+, all the way down to 67s. Hes banking on your fold.

Oh, in point 1 when I said push in meant I believe he's 3 betting and wouldn't fold to your push cause he's a maniac and you don't have much fold equity as he would only need to call off 75 more and would be getting good pot odds. (If he knows what that means)

Not thrilled with raising 88 after 7 limpers. There's more money to be had flopping a set than essentially 3 betting a pot with a meh hand a pot. Stealing limps is fine every now and then so its not terrible, but it shouldnt be the standard play here. At a fishy table I just see a flop. As played you have to range the maniac. Tough to do but 88 is usually in really bad shape to even the worst players ai preflop range.

Any reason we aren't topped up to begin the hand? (I'm assuming we can top up to a 100bb BI)

I would probably just overlimp here. There's a real danger that a big hand has limped expecting the spew monkey to do his thing (i.e. raise his straddle). If the spew monkey does raise his straddle, we can then get a better idea of where our 88 shapes up depending on how others react to the raise.

Once there is this much dead money in the pot and we've put in 1/4 of our stack against a spew monkey, I'm never folding against just him. Easy shove as played at this point.

With spew monkeys to our left, I typically play preflop extremely passively, basically overlimping monsterish hands and then waiting for the spew monkey to raise and the rest of the table to tell me whether my hand is strong enough to shove to isolate with sick dead money in the middle.

GcluelessNLnoobG

The table dynamics dictated my decision to raise it up to 50 pre. My plan was to go heads up w/ the straddler and to fold if any of the limpers came over the top. I suppose putting in 1/4 of my stack and then folding to a shove is bad so maybe my bet sizing is off but there was 42$ in the pot when it came to me so i thought the sizing was ok.

7 x $6 = $42 of potential dead money.

A raise to $50 is going to take this down a fair amount of the time however, your plan if called has to be to shove 100% of all flops.

As played vs the spew monkey, line is fine.

one of the biggest areas of lost opportunity at this level is not squeezing enough, and this is actually a very good spot and hand to squeeze with.

Here is some modeling a did a while ago concerning squeezing in spots exactly like this one.

it comes from this thread I started a while back http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...heory-1194262/

Not really a big danger. The question should be what hands are we "afraid of" in this spot.

AA, KK, QQ, JJ are the only real hands we are afraid of. AK and AQ are all 50/50 flips.

So, AA, KK, QQ, JJ make up only 1.8% of all hands. This means there is a 1.8% chance that each villain wakes up with this hand. If we apply this 1.8% to the remaining 8 players in the hand that works out to around an 86% chance that our villains DO NOT have one of those hands. So basically, 86% of the time our squeeze is going to be under favorable conditions.

The other nice thing is that our squeeze will actually fold out hands like 99, TT, and JJ X% of the time as well as fold out hands like QT, JT, KQ, AT, AJ, KJ, etc that have decent equity against us. When we combine our squeeze with a shove flop 100% of the time we also realize more fold equity against hands that have decent equity against us.

Overall, this is a perfect spot to squeeze with a hand like 88.

Another way I like to think about spots like this is to imagine we have AA. How often in spots like this do we have a hand like AA or KK, pop it to $50, and then everyone folds

Having this sort of squeeze in our arsenal is a great boon to our longterm winrate. More often than not, a squeeze takes this down, and if not, then the flop shove takes it down, and if not, then we can get lucky and hit a set to win... Notice that a squeeze (followed by a flop shove) gives us all sorts of ways to win.

As played, shoving pre is fine but since we are first to act come flop, I prefer to flat the preflop 4-bet with the plan to open shove 100% of all flops as that will generate some fold equity. Once V 4-bets us, we have 0 FE if we shove preflop. Not to say vs this villain a preflop shove is bad, its not. However, FE is just another way in which we can win and I'll take an extra 5% - 8% any day.

I bring 2.5 buy ins with me for each session. I was already stuck 550 and had my last $200 on the table.

If you're one of the better players and feel you play alright when stuck, simply bring more BI's than 2.5, imo.

Gbrings5BIstothepokerroomG

With 7 limpers to us, I just think there is too good a chance someone is waiting in the weeds (using Phil Gordon's rule I get about a 21% guesstimate someone has limped a bigger pair, if we are assuming all bigger pairs are limping to trap).

I also think bigger pairs will typically 3bet the maniacs open, allowing us to safely fold for an extremely cheap cost. And if we only get callers of the maniac's open, we can then think about shoving at this point, as it looks like it is unlikely anyone has an overpair, plus we can put huge pressure on overcards with a lot more dead money.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Thanks for all the feedback guys. dgiharris, i pretty much see eye to eye with your perspective. I posted this hand to get perspectives from other competent players in order to prove to my dad (also current backer) that my play was +EV over the long run. He agrees that it was probably the right play but the reason why he doesnt want me to make that type of play is because he feels i should be putting in the least amount of money into the pot in order to build our bankroll up slowly. He's extremely results oriented and has played a certain style of poker for a number of years w/o talking any strategy or discussing hand histories with any one at all.

His exact words a minute ago were: " my bankroll dictates whether or not i make certain plays at the table. If i had a fat bankroll, i would agree that raising it to 50 there in order to iso the monkey and to minimize the field before the flop. BUT since the bankroll is not large, i would just over call the $6 and hope to hit a set. If i dont hit the set, i fold and have only lost $6."

He then asks me if his reasoning makes sense. I agree that the logic behind his reasons do make some type of sense but i was lost for words when i was trying to explain how we need to be playing each hand as optimally as possible, regardless of the size of the bankroll because playing each hand correctly will maximize our long term profits. He still insists that i should be playing my hands "slower" or wait till i have the nuts before putting my entire stack in.

This is his opinion of playing the hands slower: "With my style of play, i would rather put the least amount of money in on each street when someone could be drawing because if they get there on the river, i didnt invest much so i can easily make the correct fold. I would rather wait for spots to trap w/ the nuts. With my style of play, i can easily go to the casino 4 times a week, win 3/4 sessions most of the time, and be satisfied when i reach my win limit each time which is $500 profit. I bring my two buy ins and if i lose them, i quit and wait till the next session. By quitting after i hit my $500 mark, im able to garuntee booked profit and i can consistantly accomplish this with my style of play."

Now, there is obv a lot wrong with his approach. The reason why i'm posting this is because i want someone to explain to him in a clear and legible way why his approach has flaws and why they are considered flaws or wrong.

This was only our 2nd session since he has staked me. The 1st day of stake, he sat to my direct left and we stayed at that table for a good 5 hours. I ran like complete **** and cashed out stuck $350, BUT he had zero issue with the way i played ANY of the hands that i lost. The next day we go back, we sit and different tables, and i still run like **** getting 2 and 3 outed (standard ****) but still just running over all bad. Then this 88 hand comes up and heres where im at.

Since the stake started, i've played a total of 9 hours. I am allowed $750 stop loss per session. Day 1 i cashed out stuck $350. Day two i lost the full $750. I'm on a 3 buy in downswing as of right now (also standard).

Help me reason with him and do let me know if i'm being unreasonable as well. tx in advance for your responses.

oh and id also like to point out the the monkey straddle BEHIND the button so the button and blinds acted first (mississipi straddle).

21% isn't a good chance.

Or put another way, using your numbers, 79% of the time our squeeze is under favorable conditions.

How many players are going to take advantage of this +EV spot?

And how many players are going to pass on it because they are worried about running into a monster 21% of the time?

Sorry, don't mean to come across as harsh, but I don't know how else to say it. If we had AK would we be more comfortable squeezing?

Or put another way, under what conditions do you ever squeeze? What range of hands do you squeeze with?

could you please outline a scenario in which you are comfortable squeezing?

Personally, I know i play optimally when im 3-4 buy ins deep if the game is THAT good. After my 4th buyin/top up, i tend to become impatient and my style becomes more high variance and this is something that im working on and will get better at over time. I'm using 2.5 buy ins because that is was my dad's budget can handle.

The 79% is just the chance we don't run into a bigger pair, but there's still the times we run into a big A that will limp/reraise (and I realize that we'll be folding the slightly best hand with dead money here).

It seems to me you are treating this squeeze spot the same as every other squeeze spot, when it clearly isn't due to the maniac in the hand. I think the chances of someone limping in a monster in this situation is >>>> the typical situation where there's not a known maniac at the table waiting to open light. I mean, 7 limpers to us with the maniac still to act, isn't the chances of someone having TT+ like 90% here, lol? Why not just let the maniac do his thing, then have everyone else turn their hand face up (I realize we might sometimes fold to AK), and THEN squeeze once we know what we're up against?

Having said that, I will admit that I rarely open raise in a typical loose game with bad players (stack dependent of course), and would much rather overlimp/reraise, or simply see a cheap flop with bad players and ~nutmine.

GcluelessNLnoobG

[QUOTE=dgiharris;42974000]

As played vs the spew monkey, line is fine.

one of the biggest areas of lost opportunity at this level is not squeezing enough, and this is actually a very good spot and hand to squeeze with.
QUOTE]

Agreed........ Casual casino players think that a 3 bet = AA every time. They will call with poor odds to set mine but play fit or fold on the flop. 1/2 pot bet will take it down on the flop a huge percentage of the time.

Maybe i didn't make myself clear enough but i made this decision based on the table dynamics during that particular session. The monkey hardly folded a hand, and rarely folded his straddle even if there is a raise ahead of him. It just seemed like a miss oppertunity if i dont put in a raise in order to:

a) possibly pick up the dead money
b) iso the monkey and play a h/u flop (although i cant really think of any flops that im not bet/calling off

The rest of the table were limpy, tight, just waiting for big hands before putting any real money in the pot in which they would be the aggressor anyway (obv TAGs lol)

and no, the limpers are not 90% to have 1010+. What are you basing that off of? The simple fact that its possible? You're basically saying that just because the monkey straddle, it increases the chance that someone has PICKED UP 1010+ and THEN decided to limp with it.

The laws of physics don't change simply because a maniac is in the hand. 79% of the time, no one has a monster hand. That is irrefutable.

I think I see what you are getting at though, you are saying because the maniac is in the hand "if" someone has a monster they are more likely to limp. Okay, sure, I buy that. But that still DOES NOT change the mathematical fact that 79% of the time, no one has a monster.

As far as big aces (AK, AQ, etc) calling our squeeze, fine. IN fact, that makes our squeeze even more profitable because those big aces miss the flop 72%-ish of the time.

Anyways, don't mean to kick a dead horse, but I'm adamant about spots like this that serve as the dividing line between winning players vs players that crush.

To be clear, set mining our 88 here and just limping isn't bad.

But squeezing in spots like this is not only +EV, but it is money you put in your pocket that 95% of your villains won't. It's an additional 1BB/hr added to your longterm winrate if not more.

We squeeze like this, win the pot outright or in this case, we hit our 8 on the river.

What happens in the next few orbits when we get dealt AA or KK and we raise or 3-bet. How does our squeeze impact our ability for future profits?

Just sayin, its these sorts of plays that are necessary to reach that "next level".

Lastly, you still haven't given me an outline of the conditions you need in order to squeeze. You might want to think about it. If you don't squeeze, why is that? How much money are you leaving on the table?

dgi if we limp behind, and the whale raises almost ATC, then limp/3betting would likely be more profitable than opening/4betting

This is because we lose less when someone has slowplayed a monster. Also because from my experience, whales are more likely to flat a $50 raise with a weak hand than 3bet it (which is not as preferable as letting them open with a weak hand and us going over the top after everyone else has turned their hands face up by flatting the whale... This could also create even more dead money for our 3bet)

DGI i would love to hear your feedback on the above post plz

Also, when he refers to the "bankroll", there is no actual real number. I get $750 per session. I buy in for 300 and top up when i fall below 100bbs.

How do i explain to him that playing hands correctly does not = more risk? He assumes i made the wrong play with those 8s simply because i was willing to risk my whole stack pre flop (and i wasnt nutted) regardless of my explaination behind it. So in his eyes right now, i should be in a certain "state of mind" to where i should be risking the least amount of money each hand when im not nutted, even if it means to miss serious value because the villians COULD catch up on the river.


Oh yeah and the results from the hand:

+1

DGI, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree regarding the chances of someone showing up with a big hand here increasing when a maniac is in the hand. While I realize obviously that the odds of 1 out of 7 players waking up with a big hand doesn't change from hand to hand, with a known maniac in LP still to act, this means that big hands will likely not raise (whereas without a maniac in the hand they will), plus it also means the weaker hands are less likely to limp than in a normal case (at least amongst the tighter players, knowing that they will most likely be facing a big raise and just have to fold).

As for squeezing in general, while it may be something that has to be taken into consideration when moving up levels, squeezing at my typical LLSNL table is a really bad idea, imo, if you are unlikely to have a lot of FE on a typical 2bet. I mean, check out the chat thread for my post from earlier today on how lol loose my LLSNL table is. Expecting to get a reasonable amount of folds after 7 limps to make mediocre hands easy to play postflop is going to be extremely difficult. Course, it might also depend on your postflop skill too, but myself, preflop for me is all about making postflop extremely easy to play, which in my opinion, also makes it the most profitable way to play (although I'm sure others will disagree with this reasoning, and yes, I am aware that setting up the most easy postflop condition would be to fold every hand preflop which obviously wouldn't be very profitable).

GcluelessNLnoobG