-Long time guest lurker, have to paint a picture for this one, there was a lot to consider-

Late in a long session. Hero is on last buy in of the night, nothing to complain about, just on the bad side of variance. Third table move is great. Couple regs playing ABC poker, and a couple fish. Hero is waking up, and making great plays LAG style. Enter villain 2. Young girl, engaging, snarky, clearly knows how to play, and does not seem concerned with the money. Loose range, often straddling, often raising pre, even oop with marginal holdings. Will rarely fold to a 3bet pre, and is capable of making a play for a pot at any time. Hero is in the 8 seat, to the left of villain 3, who is a reg, with a friendly/competitive relationship with hero, who are both just all around good guys. V2 in the 5 seat, and I continue to build my stack to a little over my 3 buy ins for the session. Enter Villain 1 in the 1 seat. Maniac does not begin to describe it. Straddle in every position, unless raking in chips which was often, forcing a button straddle from the rest of us most of the time (wish I had the balls to do it, really keeps everyone focused on the game). Showing air after buying huge pots he 3bet pre with 94o. In 2 hours has amassed a well over 10BI stack. Probably ~3.5k. It was clear from the beginning that V1 and V2 were a couple. V2 and V3 had rebought a couple times but the variance was high and for this hand eff stacks were +/- 1k. Standard raise has become ~25$, and almost all were guaranteed to be called if not raised by V1, and called by V2, in any position. Hero is he only player getting respect otf from V1, after calling 3 barrels with Q6 on a wet board with a pr 6, and making him showdown 8 high, and some other similar situations.

Hero wakes up to JJ otb with a straddle. V1 raises in the SB to 34, fold to V2 who calls, V3 calls, back to hero. ?? here

Hero very much wants to raise, here is the problem. There is no $ that will push V1 off a pfr. This is a given at this table. There are few times V2 will not follow V1 into a raised multiway pot. If I can reasonable expect both V1 and V2 come along for 95-125, V3 gets priced in to a wider range and I will often see a huge pot go to flop 4-way. Hero flats.

K 10 3 Rainbow. ~140 pot

Checks around to hero. This is suspicious. V1 and V2 both attack pots like this, V3 has all of broadway in his range, and is likely to check a strong hand knowing there will be a large bet on absolutely any turn by V1 or V2. Hero checks. I still like the check here, although I regret it. I was getting enough respect from V1 and V2 otf that I may be able to pick up the pot right there if V3 doesn't have a K. Still, at this table, I am getting called by any two broadway cards, and don't gain any info if it does go to turn 4 way. If V3 is not in this hand, I raise pre, and take em to valuetown.

Turn A.

V1 bets 125. V2 folds, V3 calls. Hero ?

Folds, obviously. This is where I regret not cbetting the flop. V3 clearly has an A, and would have 3bet into the maniacs with AK in position.

River ?

V1 bets ~300 V3 quickly calls. I would like to hear some thoughts on this hand before giving the river and hole cards.


Sorry for writing a book, thanks to anyone who actually reads it.

Raise it to $300 pre, shove all flops.

Ez Game.

Good Luck.

Agreed.

Raise big pre-flop. Would V1 call a shove with a weak hand?

IP we can probably make it $200 pre, then jam or re-raise jam a favorable flop situation if we want.


If you're not willing to play a big pot immediately, then the flat pre-flop is OK. But you're going to be in a lot of tough spots when V1 starts firing away.

AP I think you should call the turn bet. You're getting 3:1 to chase a gutter (not enough), but there's another $840 behind three ways and you're IP. With the way V1 has been playing, I expect another $300+ bet from him on any river, and probably a call from V3. Then you're probably getting called about half the time you come over the top. So ($140 + 125 + 125 + 300 + 300 + 250) gets you something like 10:1 with some IO when you hit. Running those numbers it's actually a pretty damn thin call ... but it may help your image, and it may enable you to play super deep ($3k+) with a huge fish in subsequent hands.

If you have bankroll concerns and aren't comfortable playing against these type of fish make sure to just change tables.

If your bankroll is good, play with these idiots as long as you can.

stack sizes? i'm shoving $300 or so pre if i'm reading this right. you straddled on the button? and there's already $100 in dead money in the pot?

What's the effective stacks? If they are this insane I would just make it 200 preflop.

It's kind of buried in OP.

Right play is IMO to 3bet to 200 and (most probably) get it heads up villian1. If he's really calling that loose your jacks will be good on most of the flops.

However I've been in similar situations several times when it was a crazy table but I was on my last buyin. You know the right play is to raise, but it's high variance and if you lose you go home and possibly miss better spots vs maniacs.

As played I like giving up on the flop, we haven't invested much and we can hardly call big bets from V1 and V2 plus V3 might have a strong hand.

Sounds like an awesome table. Maybe I missed it in your post but I don't see stack sizes? If you have less than 150bb I would just shove PF since they are not folding to any raises and there are a lot of bad flops for JJ that will put you in a crappy spot and PF you only have to worry about QQ-AA anyway.

If they are just going to call 95 with weak hands I'm going to 3-bet, and probably c/c on this flop with my entire continuing range.

There is no reasonable raise that doesn't bring 3 callers. Knowing the hands, V1 folds to a shove pre, unless he is trying to hedge so V2 can call and they get double chance to stack me. Happened to more than one hapless fool who wandered into our snake pit. 1k seems a bit deep for them to do it, but its not impossible.

V3 is stuck, and is trying to trap V1 and V2, so i do not discount premium hands as much. He would have no problem getting stacks in on 2 let alone 3 streets, and maybe pick up some info on the way.

I like the post about the gut shot. That was my biggest question. The Q hit the river. V1 had Q5 and V3 had A8s. Given the showdowns lately, these were relative monsters pre flop.

To be clear, Yes V1 would call 2-300 pre with Q5. Seen him do it with much worse, especially when V2 is in the hand. V3 is not folding a suited ace against V1 and V2 when he can close the pot and see a flop with those odds.

If that's the case then not raising is criminal.

You want to take JJ to a 4 way flop against super aggros? 3 way I am there, it is V3 that gives me pause. Anyways, that hand did not have a big effect on the session, I appreciate the thoughts on it.

V1 shipped it all, and I got my piece of it. One poor kid bought in 120, and I think he limp folded all of it. He limped on a straddle with 20 behind and folded to a raise, then did the same on the next hand.

The sun came up and the 2-5 game broke and filled in the 1-2. Would have been a good game for experience, but I was too tired.

All aboard the pf equity variance train! Just raise big with big hands and hope one of them decides to roll the dice. Get SPR really low so you can feel comfortable shoving nearly any board. If you don't have the bankroll, just play a different game.

well, if they try to double tag you with K8 and T9, then good luck to try to run you down...
absolutely raise pre. someone made a good point that its better to play careful and wait for good spots to avoid broke and not be able to play any longer, but this is about the best spot you will get for a long time. getting it in pre as a a around 60% favourite to triple up against random garbage is pretty solid

FFS! You are miles ahead of their ranges and you think them putting in a ton of money with bad hands would be a *bad* thing? Raise huge pre for value, and be super happy to go 4-ways with an SPR of 1 and a made hand.

If you think $300 is getting called by 3 people then just jam. You keep trying to justify it but not raising pre against these villains is criminal.