Tough Spot inbetween a TAG and a maniac

[ThxBearl]

Folds. It's really difficult for you to have the best hand here and nearly impossible to get a better hand to fold. This hand would be a lot easier to play out if the BB didn't pick up a hand and you were just HU with the maniac.

[Leader]

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BB's cap here is probably AK, (AQs) and maybe JJ+ or TT+ . The lower end dependent on if we believe BB to be able read the Hero for an isolation raise.

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If this is true than either BB is an idiot or he thinks Burnsabre is an idiot.

SB should be 3-betting a huge range against the maniac who is playing nearly random cards and giving fantastic implied odds with his mindlessly aggressive postflop play.

BB in turn is facing a nearly random hand and a wide-range 3-bet. He can probably cap for value with hands like QJs and 66. Limiting himself to only capping a handful of premium hands would both lose a lot of value and give away far too much information.

Only if BB thought SB couldn't adjust and was only 3-betting strong hands would it make any sense to limit his capping range.

The other issue is it sounds like paying 4 bets is unavoidable. If you strongly suspect that coldcalling will result in being autocapped by the maniac then it doesn't matter whether you call or cap. BB is free to do whatever is the most misleading.

It's really hard to know what to do about this flop. Good hands are hard to get in hyperaggressive shorthanded battles and Hero needs to appreciate that he has flopped quite well. I don't see how you can fold here.

There is also the matter of BB's flop play. If his hand is so great then why bet? Isn't this an obvious checkraise for a good hand? Doesn't his bet into the maniac seem like he wants you to fold? Unless he is playing at quite a high level this really seems more like Snowmen than Big Slick.

Deciding to keep playing still leaves the question of how to do it. Despite the 3-handed pot this is very much a WA/WB hand. I much prefer calling to 3-betting because I want to keep BB in the pot with a smaller pocket pair or worse jack. That seems much more important than the pipe dream of knocking out KK/QQ which is an unlikely fold even if BB actually were to have it.

A plus is that BB may reflect that you can't be drawing on this board and wonder why you would be calling two cold on the flop. If he suspects you of slowplaying a monster he might slow down with Ax and save you some money.

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Spot on as usual. I wish you'd post strat more often.

[Mitke]

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BB's cap here is probably AK, (AQs) and maybe JJ+ or TT+ . The lower end dependent on if we believe BB to be able read the Hero for an isolation raise.

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If this is true than either BB is an idiot or he thinks Burnsabre is an idiot.

SB should be 3-betting a huge range against the maniac who is playing nearly random cards and giving fantastic implied odds with his mindlessly aggressive postflop play.

BB in turn is facing a nearly random hand and a wide-range 3-bet. He can probably cap for value with hands like QJs and 66. Limiting himself to only capping a handful of premium hands would both lose a lot of value and give away far too much information.

Only if BB thought SB couldn't adjust and was only 3-betting strong hands would it make any sense to limit his capping range.

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Ok, I agree I didn't open BB's cap range enough - provided A) BB has noticed CO to be the maniac he seems to be after 3 hands while multitabling and B) BB assumes Hero has noticed the same and C) BB thinks Hero is both capable of and actually is adjusting to the maniac by isolating with a wide range.

(One more thing that I have to adjust from FR.)

And the rest of the analysis you made is just on a completely different level than my own too. Thanks!

I'm coming back to this forum just because of the time and effort a lot of people seem to put here while providing insightful analysis.

[Hobbs.]

the pot has become so big I don't think we can fold quite yet without a little more info from BB. I like calling and seeing how BB reacts, planning on c/fing the turn (I think) if BB 3-bets, and maybe donking the turn if he calls and going from there. It's a tough spot but have the best hand here way too often to fold.