$20 NLHE Full Ring: AJs against a maniac

pokerstars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.08/$0.16 - 7 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php
UTG: $40.38 (252 bb)
MP: $15.86 (99 bb)
MP+1 (Hero): $19.05 (119 bb)
CO: $16.00 (100 bb)
BU: $18.76 (117 bb)
SB: $16.00 (100 bb)
BB: $15.84 (99 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($0.24) Hero is MP+1 with J♣ A♣
UTG raises to $0.48, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.48, 4 players fold
Flop: ($1.20) 3♦ 3♥ T♠ (2 players)
UTG bets $0.80, Hero calls $0.80
Turn: ($2.80) J♥ (2 players)
UTG bets $1.34, Hero calls $1.34
River: ($5.48) Q♠ (2 players)
UTG bets $5.23, Hero?

Villain stats: VPIP 54 / PFR 28 / Flop C-bet 90 / AF 3 over 112 hands

Two questions here:

1) Do we take a more aggressive stance against a maniac with a hand like this?
2) Do we give up on the river or call down?

I can't really speak to the optimal line, but can just say I would have played it as you did. I think on the river if I really thought this was the type of maniac that would bet all three streets with nothing, or maybe paired a T or a bad J and kept firing, then I would call and feel a bit sick about it. Going to suck when he shows up with a hand better than us, but surely we beat this kind of villain more often than not in this situation?

If this guy really is as loose as you said then I think 3 betting is fine.
Against usual villans opt to call as UTG range we would expect to be tighter. Has he shown to blast off 3 streets previously with air ?
He's going to have strong hands in his range from time to time like AA KK QQ which would go for 3 AK would cbet this board and barrell on the turn with a gutshot and 2 overs.
This player type can be annoying as the times when you usually do call down they happen to be holding something stronger than yours.
I would of probably folded the flop if I'm honest maybe a bit tight but that would be my play

Ianmacca99 said:

Has he shown to blast off 3 streets previously with air?

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I did not have that read. Relatively small sample and since I am 4-tabling, I can not pay full attention when not involved in hands.

I like the way you played this vs this specific opponent.

Vs every other player i would fold but vs a VPiP 60 Af 3. He literally has the deck a range lol. Also, from his high c-bet we can assume that he likes to click them buttons, so just let him click
Oh, and never raise, we dont want to scare our best customer

Passive Line versus Known Aggro Donkey: okay

fundiver199 said:

PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.08/$0.16 - 7 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php
UTG: $40.38 (252 bb)
MP: $15.86 (99 bb)
MP+1 (Hero): $19.05 (119 bb)
CO: $16.00 (100 bb)
BU: $18.76 (117 bb)
SB: $16.00 (100 bb)
BB: $15.84 (99 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($0.24) Hero is MP+1 with J♣ A♣
UTG raises to $0.48, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.48, 4 players fold
Flop: ($1.20) 3♦ 3♥ T♠ (2 players)
UTG bets $0.80, Hero calls $0.80
Turn: ($2.80) J♥ (2 players)
UTG bets $1.34, Hero calls $1.34
River: ($5.48) Q♠ (2 players)
UTG bets $5.23, Hero?

Villain stats: VPIP 54 / PFR 28 / Flop C-bet 90 / AF 3 over 112 hands

Two questions here:

1) Do we take a more aggressive stance against a maniac with a hand like this?
2) Do we give up on the river or call down?

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Hi there fundiver199, thank you for sharing your hand with us.

The Preflop

I don't mind calling AJs IP vs Maniac EP, although I don't like it: there are still some playes to act after us and if someone decides to call is not good and if someone Squeeze we are almost always mucking our AJs.
If this Villain is some maniac as you stated, with PFR of 28 for a Full Ring table, you should be 3-betting here more than calling. 80% 3-bet, 10% call, 10% fold I guess it works fine.
As we can see, having information that spewy has VPIP 54 and PFR 28 doesn't help us very much postflop: how this player is likely to behave postflop? How much % does it c-bet flop/turn and fold c-bet flop/turn are more relevant stats than simply VPIP and PFR.
You should have take a more aggressive line against this player preflop, where Villain certainly has more bluffs than values. Postflop you are just guessing and risking by playing passive with this guy.


The Flop

Again, I don't see why to play passive on a flop where Villain will c-bet 90% of times. Are we calling to float turn/river or are we calling to see if Villain just c-bet flop and check turn?
We got nothing on this flop. If we at least had one club on the flop, we would have runner-runner straight+BDF, and then we could be raising c-bet flop in a high frequency. I don't know why would I be calling/floating here, unless I have a plan to be jamming a lot of turns or rivers.

The Turn

Now we do have a piece of showdown value and I see no reason to be raising this Jack on the turn now. Observe that Villain makes a smaller c-bet on the turn than on the flop, maybe a sign of more bluffs. If this was a regular I could say it would have TT, JJ, AK, AQ, QQ, KK and AA on its range, but with PFR 28 it is hard to respect. Call already think that you will have to jam a couple of good rivers, whether you like it or not.

The River

We are blocking some Straights on Villain's range, some AQ, but this is all we have. Villain comes for a fair 100% pot on the River and now I cannot say for sure if it is bluffing or if it has hit Qx, two pair, straight whatever.
One thing I know for sure: I am never calling down my 2PTK here because it lost almost all of its showdown value, and almost always I am going to see a hand that dominates my range.
Here I am either folding or jamming, since we are blocking some AQ that Villain could be overplaying on a river like this, some straights and whatever.
We calling flop/turn we must have some floats on a river like this. It is not the best scenario in the world but our options are short.
You can call if you recently saw Villain spewying chips on the table with whiffed hands.
For this line Villain is overplaying something, although I am not sure if it is capable of folding the spaz part of its own range. Villain should be checking this River in a high frequency when it completes the Straight because Hero will have more straights, sets and two pair than UTG.
We could be calling here if the pot is not so bloated and if Villain makes, whatever, 1/2 pot, for example.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

I'll stick with your reasoning, that guy is a maniac. If this is so he will have to show me 3-3 because I don't fold against this player. I could have anything. Basically if we think we are behind with their top pair combos maybe we should give up. It all depends on the perception of rank that you have of it.
Greetings.

fundiver199 said:

I did not have that read. Relatively small sample and since I am 4-tabling, I can not pay full attention when not involved in hands.

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Another semi grunch. This info should have been in OP as I think it's misleading to put maniac in the title then not know if he's really a maniac post flop per this comment.

I think I prefer a 3 bet pre in this spot. Position wise 3 betting seems bad but given our image I bet we can get through against all but super nutted hands and perhaps end up 3 bet folding vs a late position cold 4 bet or with other substantial action behind. This hand would have been much tougher if our call induced some late position calls to come along. It's the bottom of our range but I think I like 3 bet or fold here with 4 players left to act behind. With no clubs and only backdoor straight and two overs on a paired board we are pretty thin but still probably ahead enough to call flop especially with a 90% cbet. Since we think he may be a maniac I'm fine with leaning call. Once we hit the J on the turn I prefer to raise turn but calling is also fine if we think he's a maniac. If we are flatting this turn we have already made the decision to call down in my opinion otherwise we should be raising turn for value and we can eval if V comes over the top. Folding river after calling 3 large bets pre, flop, and turn against someone we think may be a maniac seems like burning money. There will be times he hit the Q or somehow has a 3 or had KK+ the whole time but against a true maniac Jacks and 3s with an Ace is a monster on this board. So it comes down to our read again, which seems to have changed from the title to later posts, and also seems to have changed from pre flop to the river.

1 - Yes, since we don't know post flop tendencies I like 3 bet pre, c bet, turn bet, eval river. As played raise turn.

2 - Yes, he may have let AK or Qx get there but I don't see how we can fold river if we think V has some bluffs here. And given his aggression factor, he has some.

against a maniac its a call all 3 streeets, generally speaking fold the flop.

c0rnBr34d said:

Another semi grunch. This info should have been in OP as I think it's misleading to put maniac in the title then not know if he's really a maniac post flop per this comment.

I think I prefer a 3 bet pre in this spot. Position wise 3 betting seems bad but given our image I bet we can get through against all but super nutted hands and perhaps end up 3 bet folding vs a late position cold 4 bet or with other substantial action behind. This hand would have been much tougher if our call induced some late position calls to come along. It's the bottom of our range but I think I like 3 bet or fold here with 4 players left to act behind. With no clubs and only backdoor straight and two overs on a paired board we are pretty thin but still probably ahead enough to call flop especially with a 90% cbet. Since we think he may be a maniac I'm fine with leaning call. Once we hit the J on the turn I prefer to raise turn but calling is also fine if we think he's a maniac. If we are flatting this turn we have already made the decision to call down in my opinion otherwise we should be raising turn for value and we can eval if V comes over the top. Folding river after calling 3 large bets pre, flop, and turn against someone we think may be a maniac seems like burning money. There will be times he hit the Q or somehow has a 3 or had KK+ the whole time but against a true maniac Jacks and 3s with an Ace is a monster on this board. So it comes down to our read again, which seems to have changed from the title to later posts, and also seems to have changed from pre flop to the river.

1 - Yes, since we don't know post flop tendencies I like 3 bet pre, c bet, turn bet, eval river. As played raise turn.

2 - Yes, he may have let AK or Qx get there but I don't see how we can fold river if we think V has some bluffs here. And given his aggression factor, he has some.

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I think a 3-bet IP may not have the desired effect on a maniac. You really expose yourself to this villain making you 4-bet and in that case we would not be in good shape because basically we cannot irterfere in the wide range that this super aggressive villain manages. However I agree with your reasoning for a live game, when we are deep. Since we are more likely to fold preflop, because a guy like that would put all his chips on the table without hesitation.

I like the play on all streets. 3betting pre is okay too but given our table position I like to let him pay us off.

His bet sizing is what interests me; I've never been an expert on figuring out how overly aggressive players vary their bet sizes. Is the turn bet smaller because he's afraid of losing you, and the river bet because now he thinks you can't fold? Or is the turn because he's afraid and the river to try to generate fear in you? I suspect the latter, but unfortunately I'm no expert in how someone with stats like these thinks with respect to bet sizing.

gustav197poker said:

I think a 3-bet IP may not have the desired effect on a maniac. You really expose yourself to this villain making you 4-bet and in that case we would not be in good shape because basically we cannot irterfere in the wide range that this super aggressive villain manages. However I agree with your reasoning for a live game, when we are deep. Since we are more likely to fold preflop, because a guy like that would put all his chips on the table without hesitation.

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I don't expect V to fold to the 3 bet. I just want to isolate in position since we are crushing his range. If we get squeezed or even called from behind our AJs plays much poorer than if we get it heads up in position. I'm ok with getting it in pre against a wide range but it's tougher as we see in this hand to play three streets when we don't hit the Ace.

c0rnBr34d said:

I don't expect V to fold to the 3 bet. I just want to isolate in position since we are crushing his range. If we get squeezed or even called from behind our AJs plays much poorer than if we get it heads up in position. I'm ok with getting it in pre against a wide range but it's tougher as we see in this hand to play three streets when we don't hit the Ace.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that in NL16 it is less likely to find open IP calls. Conversely someone could increase our call / post-opening. The thing is that here they are playing 2 positions of closed / semi-closed range (in this case we eliminate 1 position that is the villain, since we assume that the table perceives his profile). So after calling a wide range from a middle position, we are probably aware that we are incentivizing thefts IP, if the villain were not maniac. Because in this particular case, (given the Mr. Fundiver199 image) our call could represent the top of our range. That is, we could induce 3-bet IP lines and then go 4-bet (perception of the other positions, regarding our game). Even the most manic would be afraid in this situation. In this case I think that the position favors us to call, protecting the maximum value of our range. We also avoid getting too involved in a ship that has enormous variance, given the villain's characteristic.
But certainly the dynamics of the table also have a lot of influence. If we have data that makes us think that the table is very prone to robbery from late positions, we may have to take the initiative now. If we do not have this type of information we can protect our range of calls, with this exception since we face a maniac.

gustav197poker said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that in NL16 it is less likely to find open IP calls. Conversely someone could increase our call / post-opening. The thing is that here they are playing 2 positions of closed / semi-closed range (in this case we eliminate 1 position that is the villain, since we assume that the table perceives his profile). So after calling a wide range from a middle position, we are probably aware that we are incentivizing thefts IP, if the villain were not maniac. Because in this particular case, (given the Mr. Fundiver199 image) our call could represent the top of our range. That is, we could induce 3-bet IP lines and then go 4-bet (perception of the other positions, regarding our game). Even the most manic would be afraid in this situation. In this case I think that the position favors us to call, protecting the maximum value of our range. We also avoid getting too involved in a ship that has enormous variance, given the villain's characteristic.
But certainly the dynamics of the table also have a lot of influence. If we have data that makes us think that the table is very prone to robbery from late positions, we may have to take the initiative now. If we do not have this type of information we can protect our range of calls, with this exception since we face a maniac.

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You may very well be right. I haven't yet played above 10NL so I'm in no position to correct anyone lol. I don't like either option much to be honest. Flatting a hand that can't really call a 3 bet with 4 players left to act behind against a guy that everyone knows is raising light seems like it can put us in a lot of bad spots. To me it just seems to announce "Hey, my range is capped but good enough to call against this crazy guy, please dont squeeze me". AJs seems too strong to fold though so I think I still favor 3b/folding pre. If he folds that's fine there will be better spots where we can call down. If he calls that's fine too. Turn is close but this guy has heart draws overcards and Tx all in his range. So there are about 17 river cards that put us in this spot with a V that has the green light to put us in the hurt locker with both value and bluffs. I don't mind the turn flat but I think I still prefer a raise since we are so often good there and it sounds like we don't have as strong of a read as some here are claiming. Against a maniac who will often barrel off 3 streets I tend to agree with this line. But it just sounded to me like we only had pre flop reads and made a lot of assumptions that changed during the hand.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your opinions and time to reveal the results. I called, and Villain had AK, so he got me this time with a rivered straight. But overall I am ok with the way, I played the hand. Preflop could certainly have been a 3-bet, but as played I definitely like calling flop and turn.

Inspired by c0rnBr34d I dived into my HUD to look at his barreling tendencies, and this was the result:

Flop C-bet 9 out of 10
Turn C-bet 6 out of 7
River C-bet 1 our of 1

So apparently he had won a lot of pots without showdown, and there is no indication in the numbers, he ever stop betting. So I definitely like not raising the turn but letting him hang himself on the river, even though this time it unfortunately did not work out.

As for his bet sizing I do feel, that the almost pot sized bet on the river after a half pot bet on the turn might be an indication, he just got there. But then again it could also be an indication, that he missed, and now he need me to fold. So against this specific player type we probably do need to call, even though it sucks, when we get shown a hand like AK.

Nice hand. I like your line a lot better if we knew he was barreling like that but it sounded like a guess on post flop in some of the previous posts. That uncertainty is what made me want to raise turn to charge flush draws, over cards, under pairs and combos. If we know he’s barreling off either way we don’t need to raise for him. Still gross to see any K, Q, T, or heart on the river which is a lot to dodge.

I think, there is a point to be made for raising the turn for value to charge all those draws, and then maybe check back some rivers including this one. If he donks into me, I can probably find a fold. In real time I dont have time to always dive into my HUD and look at numbers like turn C-bet, so I think, its fair to present the hand with the information, I was actually using while playing it. Also AF (aggression factor) is a number, which say something about general postflop tendencies. 1 is passive, 2 is average, and anything above 2 is aggressive.