[SixForty]

Hey All!

Haven't been in this forum for almost a year, but have wandered back to check out some things, and came across this very interesting thread. Lots of good discussion. Figured I might throw my 1.5 cents worth in here.

This hand seems to take two different concepts that most people here know and place them into one hand:

1) Sometimes it is better to forego pushing small edges early in a hand if it makes it easier to push large edges later in the hand.

and

2) When you have an extreme maniac at the table, it is often very profitable to do anything you can to get it heads up and take him to showdown with any decent hand.

Let's look at the 2nd concept here. Drunk maniac is in auto-bet/auto-raise mode here. So how do I play against him? I'm trying to isolate him preflop with any good hand. If I can get heads up with him with any pair, any Ace, any good King, maybe even QJ maybe, I'll 3-bet him with it then call him down. If I hit my hand strong enough (top pair or better) I'll go to town with reraising myself.

It's a high variance strategy against someone like this, but highly profitable. If he is in auto-bet/auto-raise mode with any two cards, then any decent holding you have is profitable against him. (Last year, in the $200 Limit event of the WCOOP on PokerStars, I was able to pick up on this from a player 2 seats to my right after only 3 hands into the tournament. By the time this guy busted in like the first 15 minutes, my stack was up by more than 50%, and it was a very big reason I was able to finish in the money)

Now, the only down side of this is that the original poster says "Players at the table have starting going out of their way to isolate him with very aggressive play" So I know that everyone else is doing the same type of thing. So it will be harder to isolate and I have to be more selective. With other people in the hand, I can't go to showdown with King high and expect to win. But on the flip side of that, with other people wanting to call him down lighter, when I get a really good hand, I get much more value for my raising. I know that villain is betting and raising every chance he gets, so I can raise or 3-bet or cap for value when I know that I am way ahead. Depending on the seating arrangement, I can also check-raise and trap the field for value with strong hands or draws, or I can check-raise just the villain to face the field with 2 cold to protect. It's actually a fantastic arrangement having a guy like this is the game for a number of reasons.

So how does that affect this hand here? TT is an absolute monster hand preflop in this situation. I'm happy to get in a large pot preflop in this situation. And after the flop, since no one else is doing anything but calling, an overpair is huge in this spot. Betting and Raising for value is often a good solution the whole way.

Now, let's consider the 1st concept up there. This has already been brought up before by a number of posters here. The concept of "Maybe I should wait until the turn to raise" Here you have a hand that is good, and most likely to be best, but there can possibly be a ton of draws out against you. Collectively, Villains may have half the deck as outs against you. Or they may have very few. Your edge may be huge or it may not even be there. But until some betting happens, you don't really know where you stand. Someone already listed the example from SSHE. This is one concept where I remember that the example given in Gary Carson's "Complete Book of Hold'Em Poker" was actually better for me in explaining all the details. For those who have the book, page 156. In that example, the hero has JJ on a 9-7-3 board with two hearts and it is 4 handed (look familiar to the originals poster's hand!). In his example, there is a flush draw, a straight draw, and a TPTK hand among the opponents. There is a quote that the author says in regards to the JJ hand "Aggressive play by this player in this kind of situation can be very expensive. It's a huge mistake that is frequently made by players who consider themselves to be good players."

So, taking all this into account, let's look at the original poster's hand.

Preflop, TT is huge - it definitely deserves the 3-bet, and calling the cap is easy.

On the flop, Hero has an overpair. Against Drunky's range, you have him crushed. Since no one else reraised preflop, you most likely are ahead here. And people will probably peel for one bet pretty light in this huge pot. So when Drunky bets and first caller folds, it's a no brainer to raise. Your equity is likely high, and you'd like one pair hands like A2 or 87 to make an incorrect fold here (they have the odds to actually cold call your raise, but knowing Drunky will 3-bet it, they may just lay it down, which is a good result for you) When both blinds call, I'm thinking "they cold-called a preflop 3-bet, and are now cold-calling on this flop. They both have 'something', but I'm not sure what that something is." So let's start thinking about what they have. Possible candidates for their hand ranges are:

- pocket pairs below TT that they want to show down against Drunky
- pocket pairs above TT that they are slowplaying until they can checkraise on the big streets
- pocket pairs below TT that flopped a set that they are slowplaying until they can checkraise on the big streets
- one pair hands that they want to peel with or may be good enough to show down
- flush draws, with or without overcards
- straight draws, openended or gutshots, possibly with a J overcard
- overcards that they still want to peel to hit, because they possibly have a backdoor draw to go with it.

There is still a very wide range of hands that they can have. Some are crushed by us, some have us crushed, and some give villains collectively tons of outs against us. This leads us to having a possibly very wide equity range. If there are any reads on the blinds, this can affect the ranges I put them on here. If they are calling stations donkeys, then I'm putting them on weaker hands from what I listed. If they are known to be tricky and play half decently, then I'm actually a little bit more afraid now. And don't forget, Drunky almost always has outs against us here as well. If he doesn't have at least one overcard, then he probably has at least a pair on this board, or at worst a gutshot. There's not even too many possible random hands here that don't have outs against us (I leave listing the possible random hands that don't have outs to take the lead on the turn as an exercise to the reader - I've always wanted to say that!)

So back to the hand, when Drunky 3-bets it, my thought process is this: The blinds cold-called preflop and cold-called on the flop. I won't get them to fold here if I cap it. So against possible hands that they can have, do I have the equity to cap it? I honestly don't know. And my hand is very vulnerable to a whole lot of turn cards with 3 opponents still in. So at this point, I decide to just call, and I'll raise a whole lot of turn cards. I do this for a number of reasons:

- I don't know for sure what my equity is, but I know that it's probably not that large that I'm giving up too much by not pushing it now.
- I know that my equity can change quite drastically on the turn, so I can still push it there if it's gone up
- I know Drunky will bet again on the turn, so I'm positive I can still face the blinds with 2 cold on the turn if I want to.
- I get the chance to see if one of the blinds decides to cap the flop, which helps me narrow their hand ranges a bit more.
- I have found a lot of times that people actually notice the "raise the flop, call a 3-bet, then raise the turn line" and consider it stronger than capping the flop, and therefore will still make an incorrect fold on the turn (but how that is affected by having Drunky in the hand, I'm not exactly sure)

Anyway, I guess what I am saying is that I personally think that raising the flop the first time around is absolutely right. When it comes back to me with 2 cold-callers and a 3-bet, I would personally just call. I'm not sure if it's the right play or not, but I think that it's probably pretty close between calling and capping that I'm comfortable with any equity that I may be giving up by being wrong. And again, I'm only calling the 3-bet because I still plan to raise most turn cards if the turn goes check-check-bet.

As always, take any SixForty post with a grain of salt - I may be completely wrong!