The Leveling Wars, Episode I: The Fish Menace
PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 9 players
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UTG: $53.21 (213 bb)
UTG+1: $9.90 (40 bb)
MP: $19.71 (79 bb)
MP+1: $54.10 (216 bb)
LP: $31.28 (125 bb)
CO: $26.33 (105 bb)
BU: $24.65 (99 bb)
SB: $12.28 (49 bb)
BB (Hero): $29.27 (117 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with Tc Th
3 players fold, MP+1 calls $0.25, LP raises to $1, 2 players fold, SB calls $0.90, Hero 3-bets to $3.25, 2 players fold, SB calls $2.25
Flop: ($7.75) Qs Jc 8c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks
Turn: ($7.75) 2d (2 players)
SB bets $9.03 (all-in), Hero?
LP stats: VPIP 29 / PFR 19 / 3-bet 6 over 112 hands
SB stats: VPIP 93 / PFR 30 / 3-bet 14 over 27 hands
Continuing on with another Hold´em or Fold´em spot. For clarification the term "maniac fish" is based solely on preflop stats. Playing way to many hands and also in a rather aggressive way with a high PFR and a high 3-bet. Sample is to small for any sort of postflop reads.
Hello fundiver199, thank you for sharing your hand.
The Preflop
TT+ and sometimes 99+ is too strong to be flatting here because it will not play well MWP out of position, and thus way too strong for folding, so I am totally on board of Squeezing preflop, and when we have position over a "maniac fish preflop" it is always good.
Our Squeezing range for bluff here can vary a lot depending on who is raising limper from LP, but as general we include some T9s, JTs, QJs, etc because those hands are gonna have very good playability postflop, we protect our value range, when we do get called we are gonna get a ton of good/playable flops, and when only the SB calls even better, and when they fold, not problem, we had a semi-potential-bluff and we got the pot preflop without any rake.
the postflop
The Flop
The pot is already interesting. We have a hand that even with Qx and Jx on the flop has some kind of value. We have position. "Maniac fish" can have anything in its preflop range, so I guess it is okay not to be
bluffing 88-TT here when we are still drawing good in some 9x turns, 7x, that are cards that improve our value/bluffing here, so after all of that I don't see why to bet for value here when fish can easily pay with any Qx, Jx and sometimes fold the 8x on its range, so we are not getting too much value here. (guessing, we don't know fishes postflop tendencies).
The Turn
2d doesn't change the situation very much, and we don't want to believe a maniac fish is shoving over the top of our range (TT+ AQ+ BB's Squeezing range versus MP/LP/SB)
Without any postflop reads I am simply folding this spot 100% of times, even versus a maniac fish. But...let us think a little bit more before fold on a spot versus a broken stack player, please:
This move doesn't make sense, besides, if we are winning here when we do call SB's all-in, we are never destroying, after all. Maniac fish can easily show some unimproved 9x trying to bluff here, because you checked behind the flop. Or even very worst hands that didn't improve or have any connection with this board/turn texture.
We are not concerned about 'maniac fish' to have flopped a made straight. We have some T9 on our range as well, because sometimes we squeeze light versus LP with such a great hand as T9s which will play a good postflop game quite a few chunk of times. Yes, we are blocking 1/2 of made-straights SB could have, so nothing to be worried here.
Besides, as I mentioned, we have TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA. Are we folding any of these hands when a maniac fish ships all-in like this?
On the other side of things, calling here is a bad ideia, considering how weak this player can be, We also believe it would never be bluffing its 8x or 2x, like this, but its 9x, such as 99 for example that could've cold called oop, but maniac fish can have random Queens and Jacks as well, and we would be praying for a Tx or a 9x OTR.
We are not losing here, but we are not destroying in a spot where the variance is from medium to high.
I don't know man, I don't want to believe how weak players at these mid limits such as 25 NLHE, it is simply hard to enter into my brains that exist people burning money, clicking buttons and making us happy.
After I see a couple of your hands, I must say that I respect very much your reading, and you choose your opponents very carefully (whales and fishes) and it is 90% entering into ultra +EV spots, this is why a congratulate you, because this produces a massive winrate and shows that you have information of how to play the player, not only the range.
Final Thoughts
Considering that SB is a very weak player and it was/is broken stack, it is never a huge mistake to be Hero Calling this turn, because the variance is not so high as if SB's was 100 blinds deep when the hand started, so after all this thinking and considering all the factors you stated for us in the hand description, if we are going here always with QJs, T9s, JJ, QQ, KK, and AA, and sometimes even AQ and AK, we should not be folding our TT because it wouldn't make sense to let our range so out of protection versus an opponent which can simply have, for example A6o, or whatever nonsense hand that decided to jam turn simply for information, because Hero/You checked the flop.Yeah, many aggro fishes are playing for information, and must capitalize them.
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa