Flop decision

[cartman]

I raise and hope CO folds and maniac 3-bets. If BB caps it I conclude Im behind and play purely for my set prospects. Any other result and I am betting into the maniac again on the turn. Huge pot + maniac acting after me = promiscuity on my part.

[Surf]

I would raise, mainly because my hand is too strong to fold and I don't see any benefits to calling.

If by calling I could trust that button would only raise better hands then I could pop a safe turn when the flop yields overcalls and fold otherwise, but I don't think that's anywhere near a safe assumption.
Calling is just going to lead to us being tied to a growing pot with no idea where we stand and no ability to protect our hand.

Surf

[mmcd]

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folding seems absurd here.

i raise, and tho it sucks to get 3bet, you got odds to call.

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I think those 2 clowns behind would have no problem calling 2 cold with J9 or the like. Waiting for the turn (assuming the flop just gets called around) would be better IMO. Plus if it gets raised behind us and bb 3-bets, we can get out cheap and early.

[mmcd]

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Calling is just going to lead to us being tied to a growing pot with no idea where we stand and no ability to protect our hand.


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If the button raises and bb just calls and checks the turn, I think it will give us an very good idea where we stand wrt the bb, who is the only one with a significant chance of having us beat. If that happens, I don't really see a problem with donking the turn with the intention of calling down a button raise and folding if a raise comes from anywhere else.

[Surf]

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Calling is just going to lead to us being tied to a growing pot with no idea where we stand and no ability to protect our hand.


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If the button raises and bb just calls and checks the turn, I think it will give us an very good idea where we stand wrt the bb, who is the only one with a significant chance of having us beat. If that happens, I don't really see a problem with donking the turn with the intention of calling down a button raise and folding if a raise comes from anywhere else.

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Say we call, button raises. He's nutso, BB knows he could be raising with anything. So, he 3bets AJ-AK. or 44/33 which he capped pf to try and isolate the maniac? These are extreme cases but we have to fold if the action goes bet-call-raise-3bet and we are still going to be folding the best hand some %age of the time.

Also, we have no assurance that BB will raise the turn if we donk into him, so we'll often just end up facing the field with 1 bet at a time the whole way, which does nothing to improve our chances of winning the pot.

Surf

[mmcd]

I don't think raising the flop does much to improve our chances of winning the pot either. I don't see either of the players behind us folding for 2 on the flop here, and we won't necessarily know where we stand against bb either, since he might very well be inclined to checkraise the turn rather than 3-bet the flop with hands that beat us because of his relative position here. With a flop raise, the best thing we can reasonably hope for is that the LP coldcalls with whatever overcards, and button 3-bets with a worse hand and knocks bb off overcards (which probably wouldn't happen since he'd be getting 12-1 to call 2 cold).

Certainly by calling, we are really hoping that we just get calls behind and bb follows through on the turn, but I don't think we're necessarily in a f'd up spot if button raises.

[The Bryce]

The problem is, if the maniac has any kind of bluffing frequency your reverse implied is going to go through the roof.

[mmcd]

I think his bluffing frequency is probably so high that reverse implied odds aren't really a big concern. If he raises the flop and it just gets called around, the times that he raises our turn donk, I think he's just (or at least almost) as likely to have a have a hand we beat than a hand we don't.

[The Bryce]

Considering that he has around 25% equity with two random cards his bluffing frequency would have to be 75% or so before you hit the breakeven point. It's much more likely to be something closer to optimal, like 20%.

[Surf]

mmcd,

While I agree that trying to get maniac and LP to fold is going against their nature, most players aren't going to take the time to calculate out that they're getting 12:1 to call 2 cold, they'll just see bets and raises after preflop 3bets and 4bets, and start to think that maybe J9 doesn't look so hot.

Calling means we can't cause anyone to make a mistake. Hoping for aggro/bluffhappy maniac to go passive on the flop then aggressive on the turn is a parlay that i don't suspect will happen often.

Raising at least gives us a chance to let players make bad folds...maybe SB 3bets our raise and folds out BB behind us!

Surf