Stars $150. TPWK vs. a maniac

[Bullet_Dodger]

General Info:
~650 runners. dont remember exactly.
~early on, only in the 3rd level blinds 25/50.
I have 1600 chips.

Reads:
<u>UTG-</u>(2125 chips) A complete maniac for first 15-20 hands. I have not played with him before, his name was Kid something. He has raised preflop atleast 3/4 of the hands, and every hand but one or two he has made a c-bet attempt at the flop. Hes increased his stack pretty good so far. The last hand he had 58o o the button folded to him, he raised 3x the bb, called only by the SB. the SB led into a 34T flop, maniac raised, SB folded, and he showed down his bluff.
Cliffnotes: Maniac. Crazy.
<u>BB-</u> (1400) Has only entered 2 pots so far, one was in the BB where he checked. He could be card dead, but I would assume hes a pretty conservative player.

Hand:

UTG raises to 125, folded to me in the SB, I call 100 with Q [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. BB calls 75.

Flop: Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

UTG bets 150, Hero?

Note: Preflop can be argued for a raise or a fold. Although its not the meat of the discussion, you can argue it.

[1st and 15]

Pretty ugly spot here IMO, b/c you'd like to be able to exploit the wacko. Most likely I am just going to pitch this hand b/c its so early and we've only invested 100 to call PF. I think it clearly plays much easier if there was no BB involved b/c then we could comfortably meet maniac's force with force. However, w/ BB involved and a monotone flop raising becomes very risky, and calling sets us up for nothing but more questions on the turn. I pitch.

[qbler]

I'm not sure if I necessarily agree with tossing it but I do agree that the hand plays easier with no BB. From that point of view is a flop lead preferable to a check? If hero leads and BB calls (or raises) and UTG makes a move I feel like hero could fold fairly easily. If hero leads, BB folds, and UTG makes a play then we're at least only dealing with 1 opp.

[Bullet_Dodger]

[ QUOTE ]
Pretty ugly spot here IMO, b/c you'd like to be able to exploit the wacko. Most likely I am just going to pitch this hand b/c its so early and we've only invested 100 to call PF. I think it clearly plays much easier if there was no BB involved b/c then we could comfortably meet maniac's force with force. However, w/ BB involved and a monotone flop raising becomes very risky, and calling sets us up for nothing but more questions on the turn. I pitch.

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First off, thats a pretty good post for only being here 3 days. 2nd account? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Anyways, I agree this is a tough spot. I just dont think we can let UTG off this easy. We are definitley ahead of his range here. I dont think the times BB wakes up with a hand is enough to warrant folding. Given thats hes pretty tight, atleast so far, if I call hes going to fold everything except 2p, tpgk, set, made flush, high flush draw. If we raise it makes it even tighter.

Edit: It went check check between me and the BB incase anyone did get that. UTG is betting last to act.

[FortunaMaximus]

I'd RR this PF sometimes, although very rarely. I can play post-flop though. Q9s is slightly ahead of most of the hand combinations in Villain's range.

Most times, you're leading here, sure, And this is where the interesting part is, for me.

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Cliffnotes: Maniac. Crazy.

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But that doesn't mean stupid. Most are though, and if you figure TP's good here, recognize that even if it is, that you have no FE against the times he's got Th9x, Tx9h. Jacks with a heart, etc. That you'll be racing slightly ahead or slightly behind frequently. And those are the worrisome hands in his range. You should be well ahead of his overall range.

If you wanna cripple him and double up, take the gamble. I'd fold here, but that's because I'm fond of playing an early style that's similar to Villain's, increasingly so now that I care less and less about the relative buy-in/BR, and there are more exploitable spots considering that he's aggro but not stupid... (be careful with donkish assumptions) And you should never be discounting BB here, he may have been paying attention too and is counting on action before he raises, and that makes it an easier fold, given a better read on BB.

He could be conservative, or he could also be waiting for the right spot to commit UTG for stacks. Maybe a non-entity in the hand, but should be thought about before discarding him as a problem.

Back to UTG... Any edge is going to be thin, but there are enough pairs that he'll get stubborn with. You want to isolate UTG here, and to do that, and have significant FE, which you do want with TPWK, you'll probably have to c/r pretty heavy. CRAI, perhaps not, but it should be around half your stack, +/- 100ish.

It's not a difficult spot, it's a complex spot.

Perhaps the logic's not that easy to follow, but, hey, at least it's complete from my POV, and mistakes are merely one of assessment.

[Bullet_Dodger]

[ QUOTE ]
But that doesn't mean stupid. Most are though, and if you figure TP's good here, recognize that even if it is, that you have no FE against the times he's got Th9x, Tx9h. Jacks with a heart, etc. That you'll be racing slightly ahead or slightly behind frequently. And those are the worrisome hands in his range. You should be well ahead of his overall range.

[/ QUOTE ]

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 44.4444 % 43.84% 00.61% { Qs9s }
Hand 2: 55.5556 % 54.95% 00.61% { Td9h }

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 44.8485 % 43.94% 00.91% { Qs9s }
Hand 2: 55.1515 % 54.24% 00.91% { Th9d }

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 49.5960 % 49.60% 00.00% { Qs9s }
Hand 2: 50.4040 % 50.40% 00.00% { JdTh }

These are all worrisome, yes, but if this is going to be the worst situation Ill find myself in early I dont mind taking the gamble, especially with some dead chips in the pot.

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And you should never be discounting BB here, he may have been paying attention too and is counting on action before he raises, and that makes it an easier fold, given a better read on BB.

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True, but as I said before, he's mucking his way out unless hes grabbed a real piece of that board. He's not going to make a play here. He's mucking atleast 90% of the time IMO.

Bottom Line: Crazy Maniac betting last to act when its checked to him, we have top pair, I dont see any way to lay this down, even with a tight BB behind us. We could wait for a better spot for UTG to donk his chips off to us, but that doesnt mean that this itself is not a +EV/+cEV/whatever.

[FortunaMaximus]

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He's mucking atleast 90% of the time IMO.

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Shade under 90%, I think, but the fact it's a monotone flop carries it back over 90%, yeah.

Oh, after his bet at flop, yes, you're priced in to get it AI and race for the stacks. You don't double your equity immediately, but the implied equity that you generate from having a bigger stack and showing a willingness to make looser calls improves opponents' ranges(by widening them) for your future action... Can justify this call easily for some players.

Eh. This might be too esoteric.

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We could wait for a better spot for UTG to donk his chips off to us

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Generally, yes, but not when he's two to your left instead of to your right, you're essentially going to have to FPS him PF and postflop, and that's preferring to have looser players to your right 101.

And as long as it's recognized you're absolutely crushed a small % of the time and that is factored for and shrugged off when it happens, it's not a problem.

[Bullet_Dodger]

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You don't double your equity immediately, but the implied equity that you generate from having a bigger stack and showing a willingness to make looser calls improves opponents' ranges(by widening them) for your future action

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Yeah, I think this is something that is not thought of and can come into play. I play a LAG game, and if i show a willingness to get the chips in now with this hand and this board, it might make other opponents back off a bit, not wanting to risk their stack against me. Although raising/calling a push or straight pushing might be slightly -EV at the time, I think its definitley +EV considering future actions.

[ QUOTE ]
Generally, yes, but not when he's two to your left instead of to your right, you're essentially going to have to FPS him PF and postflop, and that's preferring to have looser players to your right 101

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Right. I drew a pretty atrocious seat. So I'm going to have to gamble it up with him OOP eventually, its either now or later.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
Right. I drew a pretty atrocious seat. So I'm going to have to gamble it up with him OOP eventually, its either now or later.

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Yup. And that's essentially why I find tournament poker a far superior challenge to any other spread. No hand is ever static.

These are the spots where the fallacious perception of LAG's come into play. If you have a polished postflop game, you do recognize those postflop situations, and the slimmest of edges that float between negative and positive expectation allow you to start accumulating monster stacks.

Win hand, defensive table, their holdings are a little more transparent, you have the ability to widen your PF ranges and keep finding those smaller edges. Obviously, the larger ones still do come, and you have the additional benefit of slightly increased action overall.

Players who play rebuys frequently recognize this, but don't bring the mentality into FO's. That costs them equity.

And in a field &lt; 1000, you don't really need that many spots to explode out of the blocks, and as long as you don't stick to the "changing gears" mentality for a pigeonholed TAG/LAG game and simply play the best poker for the table conditions... Even in a field of 5000 players, you can spread out the high risk/high reward inflection points and really only need a few more overall.

Cool. It's nice to articulate those concepts in a thread that isn't bogged down by inanities and egos.

[Colombo]

Easiest fold ever preflop.

Why are you guys considering a re-raise? The way to beat maniacs is not by re-raising out of the blinds with a mediocre holding.