1/2 NL, Live hand

Reads; Maniac has a certain affection for suited connectors, plays well postflop and is very creative, bets draws aggressively and made hands the same way.

Relevant Chip Stacks;

Maniac; 650ish
Hero; 600ish
MP+2; 125

Hero hasn't gotten mixed up with Maniac too often..Hero and maniac have pretty much been picking off the other donks and leaving each other be.

Maniac limps UTG(Maniac hadn't limped all night, let alone UTG), Folds to MP+2 who makes it 12, folds to Hero on button, with AK , Hero makes it 35 straight, Maniac re-raises to 100 straight, MP+2 folds, Hero cold calls 100. The Hero's thinking is that the Maniac is simply trying to collect the 50 or so dollars in the pot right then and there.

Flop; A 6 7

Maniac bets 250, Hero pushes, Maniac calls.

What did Maniac have?

Should Hero have pushed?

I wouldn't expect a 3rd reraise with 6's or 7's. He could have the other 2 aces, but that also seems unlikely. Based on your read he could have 89 or any 2 clubs (Ax?).

Pretty warm.

Do you push with AK?

Curious about the folded part. We had a long discussion about raising with AK in position with people left to act. Here you did reraise and I wanted to know why. The AK thread is really making me try to re evaluate my play with AK preflop. (only reason I'm asking.)

for the hand. Str8foward player, i'm thinking that limp raise is AA-KK and you'd have been toast. From a tricky player, it can mean a lot more. He may think that you're just trying to pick up the pot preflop and bumps it to represent AA-KK. Along with your read, I'd say it was a smaller pair. I don't think he's doing with with 89clubs. may A6-7suited. But only if you feel that would be in his repitoire. My guess is he has 66 or 77 but i would have paid it off here.

If you truly believe he is on the draw, he will be pot committed once you push. He has about 250 left in front of him that he has to put in to win (600+350+blinds and MP $$) so almost $1000.

I think your ahead at this point, but I also think if he has a flush draw or OESD that he is calling your all in. I would be tempted to let him see the turn and push if a blank hits. The problem with this is any club or straight card could scare you. 11 clubs, 3 10's, 3 5's, 3 8's, 3 9's. I count 23 cards that could scare you, so you are about 50% to see a "blank". If a blank comes, do you think you push him off his draw if he is getting 3:1?

Sorry if that was difficult to read..just typing as my thoughts came to me...

This guy has some balls to re-re-raise with A6, A7, 66, or 77. A6 and A7 are pretty crappy hands against a re-raise as your only outs may be to hit 2 pair or hit an ace and hope the OP has a PP. 66 and 77 are pretty much no set no bet, and although he hit his set here if he has them, $100 is a lot of money to throw out there on a 2 outer.

Im leaning toward AQ of clubs. If the guy limped with AA, he has me fooled and I pay him off...

Let me help you out here, I'm *not* the hero. I'm the maniac.



Maniac does not have a set, or an ace.

He's a maniac, maniac, I know
And he's gambling like he's never gambled before

Edit: Flush With gutshot? 8 10 ...

[quote="RhinestoneCowboy"]If a blank comes, do you think you push him off his draw if he is getting 3:1?
[quote]

no. push is the best play imo. we are slightly ahead versus top pair w/ flush draw and slightly behind oesfd. Those are the best two hands i see the villain having in this spot. at best we are a 65/35 favorite.

we aren't folding the best hand on the flop, there's already a decent sized pot here built since preflop.

[quote]The Hero's thinking is that the Maniac is simply trying to collect the 50 or so dollars in the pot right then and there. [/quote]

Hero should be reraising steals from the maniac sometimes with AdKd here imo. Your own personal case for / against welcome. If I think I am ahead (and we are here enough) I think sometimes bumping it again with AKs is justifiable.

I think you have 6d7d. Possible 54s in clubs


Not in love with the push. Actually, I'm not fond of it at all

Maniac, me, would've folded like a little girl to a re-raise.

Kinda, sorta, not really.

I need to find a casino that spreads 1/2... I;ve only played live a couple times and would rather not take the leap into high limits again..

Got the suits wrong didnt I

The 1/2 NL 100 Max Buy in where I live is fantastic--if you can build a stack. IF you're getting drawn out on, not hitting flops, whatever, it can be brutal.

Kinda, sorta.

At least if you get drawn out on you only lose a $100 investment. I sat at a 5/10 table because that was all they had with my entire $500 for the night. Built up to about $1600, then gave most of it back with KK vs AA. Ended up leaving up $75 bucks, but told myself I would never sit with that much in a game unless I had the BR to rebuy a few times.. scared money doesn't win....

You've got my attention though, I'm curious to see what you had...

I'm gonna go play in a little $30 MTT at the B&M, I'll post results, reasoning, and all that good stuff when I get back.

Here's what you know, I didn't have a set, and I didn't have an ace.


But I was a 57% favorite on the flop.

My God you're not maniac enough to have 84 clubs here are you?

Cause if you are I love you in a non sexual way

maniac has 7h 8h
and is getting the right odds to call here

Real quick, there is an 8 in my hand. There are no hearts and there is no 7.

Yikes if you're the maniac.

"But I was a 57% favorite on the flop."

You're tricky

You do have 8c4c!

8 9

Err..I misread the clock, I have another hour.

And no, but you're real close..I'm a little more maniacal than that--atleast I was last night.




So close..so close.

wow, 8c5c

you reraised to 100 with 8c 5c preflop?
muy interesante.

what happens if the flop comes Qs 9d 4h?
curious to hear what you would do based on opponents hand range--still firing 250?

Chief

Not that it matters but did you hit?

85, he had the oesfd...

durrr im slow

ok guys next hand. Please check out my post about what villain has. Really need some help there )

Overplaying AK after all that discussion yesterday? Why re-raise here? He can beat an ace, that's for sure.

{edited}
I did not want to read the whole thing before I posted my thoughts. You are a maniac.

i think the reraise on the button is fine, i like the hand and my position alot against DD and whatever his pee wee fun house hand range is.
i would have taken the reraise up a notch to the border of "this is the maximum DD is gonna call and he will strongly consider folding this even though we are deep stacked, and also im taking a stronger lead with this hand preflop." make it 50 ish or a larger percentage of our stack sizes from 12. thats a flexible area and not a big point of contention though.

edit: hero has AK, maniac = DD, i think you were confused on this point

2 guesses. First Guess AA. Second guess AK .

Haven't read replies.

This is a great situation for you. When you re-raise preflop, and it makes Maniac re-re-raise, I think we can narrow his range down to 99-KK (somewhat optimistically).

This is a great flop for one pair, and this is the kind of situation where you want to get it all in with AK. I don't put anybody on a monster draw (8c9c) here, and I don't put anybody on a set.

I think it's possible Maniac has AK as well... and I think you should move in on the flop.

really interested to see logic behind your play here. Not saying it's bad. Just something i would never pull. I wonder if you would play the hand the same if you could see his cards.

psssssst read the replies

Without reading replies, I put the Maniac on:

8c9c
4c5c

and marginally:

6x7x where x is the same suite

After reading the replies, I realize that DraingDeadInDM is the type of player I hate =) 8c5c, good god man!

I'm trying to develop into a better LAG as I believe that's the type of player that makes the most $$ at this game.


I think you have to be capable of making these plays or you will become too predictable.

I agree, I but a limp raise after a raise and reraise to 25x's the BB. Wow. That's why i threw the question out there. How would he have played it if the hands were face up and he knew button had AK. Was it a play for the pot preflop? post flop?

Okay, you yahoos..here it is from my perspective..

Our "Hero" on the button had started getting on my nerves. He was playing very weak/tight at me, but would often min-raise my blind(which really shouldn't mean anything to me, but I digress.) He was also shit talking a couple younger kids who were hemorhaging their bank accounts onto the table, telling them how poorly they were playing and why they shouldn't do this and that--in essence, he was becoming a nuisance, and could've cost me money.

I limped from UTG with...drum roll..8 5 . I don't know why, I didn't really have any kind of big plan. I just did it, wanting to see a flop and outplay some people post-flop. I didn't realize I was UTG as I had called, the BB didn't have his BB out and had tossed his cards, not realizing he was the BB, but, anyway.

When MP+2 raised(he was one of the younger kids), it was nothing unusual. He raised with two paint cards pretty regularly, but showed enough smarts to lay them down facing a raise. When our "Hero" on the button, re-raised, it stunk. I really thought he was just trying to isolate the kid and make him lay down a better hand than his.

At this point, there's about $50 bucks in the pot, I know that a big raise will get the kid to lay it down. He had raisedto 8 with Aces, and 12 with KJ. He was fairly transparent with his betting. I wasn't really sure of the hand range to put the "Hero" on, but, I figured I'd find out real quick. He looked exceptionally uncomfortable, putting the 65 more out there, which really didn't make me think he had QQ.

When he smooth called the re-raise, I knew he didn't have a made hand, or he would've pushed Aces, likely re-raised with Kings, and same with Queens. He would've likely layed down JJ and down.

His smooth call blew my mind. I really only put him on two hands, AK and QQ. When the flop came so beautiful for me, I fired out 250(about the size of the pot), which I had been doing all night, with my draws, with sets, whatever.

His re-raise all in scared me. I was really concerned I had stubbed my toe on AK There was something extremely uncomfortable though, about his demeanor. He didn't want a call. He kept staring at my hand when I was counting out chips. So I made the call, he flips over the red AK, I flip over the 85 . He flips out. Heh.

Turn; 5:heart:
River; 9

I got my straight flush on the river picked up a 1200 dollar pot, and a free T-shirt for the straight flush.

He was pretty incensed--I don't blame him so much. But, I thought it was pretty tough to push over the top with AK, no draw.

He got really pale and started mumbling a bit. And I said, "No worries man, by the turn I only had 20 outs. "

I got a lot of comments in the way of, "Wow, how could you possibly raise to 100 with 85," but, really, if you're going to play 85, is there any other way?

The truth is, I figured I had two live cards and wasn't up against a pair enough times to worry about it.

I figured that if the Ace came, he'd lay down queens. If it came 10 high, I could take it down if he had AK.

I knew that more times than not, I pick this pot up against this player. If he had re-raised preflop I would've gone away.

So, is that what you guys expected?

I would say, Yes, more than likely. Though, I'd probably check the flop and let him hang himself. I think a lot of times people lay down AK here.

Against some one who's been fairly LAG, I don't think I would. Not exactly the situation I'm looking for but not bad either.

I think that's part of my reason for why I played the way I did last night. For the most part, I've played a great deal with the people who frequent my B&M. They know me as a reasonably tight, ultra aggressive post-flop player.

A lot of them are in the same mold. A lot of them are true "Grinders" who put in 12-15 hours a day hoping to turn a 200 dollar profit.

I wanted to mix up my game for a couple reasons. I noticed I wasn't getting as much action on my big hands. I wasn't comfortable playing mediocre hands(AJ, A10, KQ) out of position.

I figured playing extremely loose and fast preflop, while applying the same postflop decisions, would be a good exercise in playing poor hands OOP, playing poor hands in position and getting in the minds of the LAGs that we do have at the B&M.

The Hero was pretty straight forward, he wasn't really LAG at all. If I know I've got too live cards, I'll play that hand against his AK all day.

Oh yeah. I just meant if i was him against two unknown cards against a LAG, I'm happy with this flop.

Drawing Dead hit a key point when he said he hasn't been getting paid with his big hands. Start making moves like this and see how fast your big pocket pairs start getting action.

I would much rather play a pot w 85s, 67s, 54s, even 75s than KQ, AJ, A10 etc.

I play mostly $2 $4 NL 6 max and with these suited connectors I'm always bringing it in for a raise.

Now a limp reraise from utg w 85s is not in my repetoire (sp?) yet but I still like it.


Anyway, nh.

The key to NL imo is constant aggression (changing gears when you have to) and keeping your opponents guessing. Too many players play as if their cards were face up.

Making moves like this means they will literally never be able to put you on a hand and the importance of that is huge.

-No, I wasn't. But, I wasn't really paying anyone else off either. It'd gotten pretty stale. I've played so many hands with so many of those guys, we can really just call out each others hands. "Okay..I call, show me your Queens." We were literally, like, the Atlantic City scene from Rounders. Just passing chips back and forth, waiting for a drunk or a live one.

-I really would, too. I know that if I hit my hand well, it's missed your's completely.

-It shouldn't be, really. It shouldn't be in mine either. I was really just hoping that I could take it down without showdown. I figured if I didn't pick it up preflop that I could snag it on the flop. If I whiff completely, I almost have to check/fold and say.."I knew you'd catch your ace, my kings are no good." OR, push, and hope like hell he doesn't call.

-I agree whole-heartedly. His mind the entire time was, "God, what the hell does he have that he can take it to 100 with? Aces? Kings? This could be bad.."


I don't pretend that this was some sort of brilliant play. I hit a huge flop for my hand and got paid off. I think though, that, there's something to be said for the set up of the hand. I knew he'd have to give me credit for a hand, in fact, I figured he'd give me credit for Aces, and lay it down preflop, but, it's a chance I took.