Hey all,

So I had this INCREDIBLY SUPER AGG villain at my table today. His stats were just notorious: VPIP ~80%, PFR ~70%, 3BET ~33%, FOLDTO3BET 0%, CBET 100%, DONKBET ~67%, TURNBET ~50%, RIVERBET ~75%.

And this was all in the space of about 30 hands when he was at my table. (By the way, his post-flop bets are overwhelmingly in the pot-size variety, so he's super-agg preflop and super-agg postflop.)

His showdown hands were very loose (obviously). Pushing back with top pair or nuts is easy, but how to you fight back with your draws, 2nd pair, etc, when you're constantly facing a barrage of pot-sized bets and river all-in?

Advice?

Depends on what your stack size is. The lower you are the more you should be willing to jam over villain and see if they call. I wouldnt be jamming with air but I would be comfortable jamming with any made hand against an opponent like this if my stack is short. As far as deep stack play is concerned, I would throw out draws. Yes the implied odds are there but we are paying way too much to see it if villain is always betting pot. As far as 2nd pair goes, I think the higher the second pair is the better I would feel and be sticky with it. Example would be if the flop is KQ5 rainbow and you are in the hand with QJ I would be probably be sticky here. If the flop is 864 two to a suit and I had A6 for some reason, I would not be sticky. The difference is we are putting villain on any two cards so I would want my pair to be higher in the deck vs lower. I would not even worry too much about whether it is top pair, mid pair, bottom pair etc. I would be concerned with how much of the deck does this pair cover?

Originally Posted by emzadii

Pushing back with top pair or nuts is easy, but how to you fight back with your draws, 2nd pair, etc, when you're constantly facing a barrage of pot-sized bets and river all-in?

First of all you dont "fight back", because then you are turning it into an emotional game of honour and pride. Which is very tempting, because them maniacs are for sure annoying. But this is not, how you beat them. Instead you let them win most of the small pots, but you win most of the big ones, when you have a hand, that is strong enough to play a big pot. And as stated in the previous reply, you can widen your value range against maniacs. For instance a hand like AJs might be good enough to get it all in preflop for 50-70BB.

Originally Posted by emzadii

Hey all,

So I had this INCREDIBLY SUPER AGG villain at my table today. His stats were just notorious: VPIP ~80%, PFR ~70%, 3BET ~33%, FOLDTO3BET 0%, CBET 100%, DONKBET ~67%, TURNBET ~50%, RIVERBET ~75%.

And this was all in the space of about 30 hands when he was at my table. (By the way, his post-flop bets are overwhelmingly in the pot-size variety, so he's super-agg preflop and super-agg postflop.)

His showdown hands were very loose (obviously). Pushing back with top pair or nuts is easy, but how to you fight back with your draws, 2nd pair, etc, when you're constantly facing a barrage of pot-sized bets and river all-in?

Advice?

What was the sample size for these statistics? They might be a complete maniac, or perhaps the sample size is just really small and not too accurate (the post sounds like it is the first though).

Originally Posted by fundiver199

First of all you dont "fight back", because then you are turning it into an emotional game of honour and pride. Which is very tempting, because them maniacs are for sure annoying. But this is not, how you beat them. Instead you let them win most of the small pots, but you win most of the big ones, when you have a hand, that is strong enough to play a big pot. And as stated in the previous reply, you can widen your value range against maniacs. For instance a hand like AJs might be good enough to get it all in preflop for 50-70BB.

If they are playing more like a maniac player, then this post is the advice to follow.