Ugly hand with maniac - did I miss a bluff?

Sorry I screwed up board and didnt edit in time. I turned a GS.

Runout is T♠ 8♥ 5♠ 9♠ T♣

Pre: I'm not loving the 4 bet, and while he was putting 50 bucks blind, that doesn't automatically mean his 3-bet is FoS. I think I call IP.

I think I cbet 150 and represent the over pair. If he raises, we can fold.

As for now, I think we just check behind. We'e likely beaten, but we rep nothing at this point, and we might bet and get called by as little as Ace high

Betting river there feels slightly shady (from his potential perspective, it does look like you might be bluffing) and stack to pot ratio looks to be real low

But above all, hes wanting to put 50$ blind pre, not sure what sort of fold equity you dreaming about,’fir all you know you could have shove pre and get calls some of the time which. I do not suggest in a short run with kqs, I would begin at AQo to shove in his ATC, and would feel most comfy at 10s+

Just check, if you win you win its cool, if you lose I doubt he was folding

V is 4bet calling off with K4o. I would 4bet more linearly. I don't like it with KQs here. You 4bet KQs vs guys that will 3bet AQo and (often correctly) fold to a 4bet. This villain wouldn't dream of folding AQo pre ever. I would rather 4bet TT+, AK, AQs, maybe AJs, AQo.

I think I would mainly call preflop to play with the special villain. But vs his very large 3bet, especially if the button is fairly tight and likely to call in position, and it is probably close between call and fold.

As played. Flop I would definitely cbet close to 100% of my range. My go to is quarter pot. Probably checking turn without a spade. Maybe jamming river if checked to depending in how much of a station villain is. SPR would be super low though. May consider even sizing down the flop a bit to like 15% pot. Villains often raise off their strong stuff to small sizing, and if turn goes check, check, then on the river we have a little bit more behind + facing a weaker range that called a small flop bet where maybe a jam gets through.

Or on the turn if you picked up more equity, say on a heart or open ender, you might consider jamming turn, although realizing equity can be fine too.

As played, probably jam river to get ace high to fold.

4-betting KQs is not linear?

Shove pre against this 100% range.

It's close. I don't hate it because he will call with worse. When he calls if you hit top pair you will probably be good. And KQs flops well. But he will also call with A high that is better. But he isn't folding better, and that is a huge part of 4betting light. If he jams on you it also kind of sucks because you're behind that range, and it's not clear maybe calling there would be +EV, maybe not, but it will be low EV. The chance for him to make mistakes postflop at a higher SPR out of position will likely be better for us than going to the flop at a low SPR.

Especially at this low SPR because of his 3bet size. You're going to struggle to find 2 streets with fold equity. If the SPR was closer to 2 you can small bet flop for cheap immediate fold equity but you also have a chance for fold equity on later streets, and better implied odds if you do hit something.

AK and maybe AQ should value bet river and you probably don't have anything weaker to bluff

PRE - Why not just open limp UTG, let this clown raise to $50, then squeeze his and all the other dead money that came in behind our limp?

His attempt at a blind bet from the SB is awesome for us. We get to see what everyone else does before having to decide what we'll do. It's like being in the straddle without actually having to post a third blind.

If I was on the BTN with AA, I'd limp, praying for fools to flat call his $50 blind bet, or (please, Jesus, one time) put in a 3B before action gets back to me.

Raising UTG is like telling the donkey, "relax, I'll do the work for you."

Definitely not 4B'ing him. Definitely not for a min-click. With KQ? What the serious f**k is that? Like, seriously, how do we get to the flop with 1SPR, with KQs, in a 4B pot, against a guy holding a money cannon?

This dude wants to punt. Just get ready to make the catch. Why is our offense still on the field?

FLOP - I guess we should c-bet small when he checks, because theory says so, but this guy doesn't seem like he's paying attention to theory, so... I dunno, I think I sort of like the check, to see what he does on the turn.

No sense in betting king high just to fold if he check raises huge, which these types seem to love doing.

TURN - just check back. We shouldn't be here. Let's not $h1t in the pool we snuck into. Maybe we'll spike a K or Q, or he'll check to us with J9.

RIVER - I'd never get here this way, but as played, I think we need to jam. He might snap us off with 99 or 77, but he shouldn't be calling with AX.

Or maybe not. Maybe the embarrassment of losing to ace-high will sear into our minds what not to do when the poker gods drop a whale on the table.

Result: River goes check check and he has A3cc

This is why I don't love the 4bet pre. He is not folding better, IE any A high. But I do think the flop is a mandatory bluff, and likely we should bluff river when checked to as well.

Honest question - what do we think this V's folding frequency is going to be when we c-bet the flop, regardless of the board texture or his actual hand?

I ask because this sort of V often seems to over-call c-bets, hoping the turn gets checked through, so he can bet huge on the river. Alternatively they also seem to love check raising c-bets when they catch any piece of the board. If we check back, flop, we get to see the turn, and what V does.

It just seems to me that in a 4B pot with 1 SPR, and without a value hand, we're not deep enough to bet more than once if we want to generate meaningful fold equity. So it feels like we should delay our bet until more of the equity is revealed, and we get more info from our opponent.

I know the theory says we should c-bet small 100% when we 4B pre. But don't we want to deviate sometimes, against special V's, and / or if we were fairly out of line when we 4B? Doesn't this seem like a spot to consider playing exploitatively?

I’m the only one who wants to ship pre? We are ahead of his squeeze range and force him to either relinquish his equity or get it in with ten high or whatever garbage.

Sure sometimes he has A3 and we are slightly behind but flipping is fun.

I think if we are going to 4 bet, then I defo prefer a ship, but I think I just prefer flatting the 3-bet.

BTW - I think mainiac might not be the right description here. What mainiac checks a flop, turn, river 3 times heads up facing no agression.

V only needs to fold a very small amount of the time for a small bet like 15%-25% pot to be profitable. A 25% pot only needs to get through 1/5 times to be profitable. If we pick up a heart on the turn we could ship it or realize our equity. After cbetting small on flop if turn checks through and we get check to on river, we can probably ship it for a little over half pot for some fold equity. Again, v doesn't have to fold very often for it to be profitable. Should get hands like A4, A2, AQ, AJ, maybe A3, A5 to fold.

So again, I don't love 4betting KQs, but now that we got here, we need to be taking advantage of bluffing spots that don't need to work that often to be profitable.

V only needs to fold a very small amount of the time for a small bet like 15%-25% pot to be profitable. A 25% pot only needs to get through 1/5 times to be profitable. Random A highs can fold. If we pick up a heart on the turn we could ship it or realize our equity. After cbetting small on flop if turn checks through and we get check to on river, we can probably ship it for a little over half pot for some fold equity. Again, v doesn't have to fold very often for it to be profitable. Should get hands like A4, A2, AQ, AJ, maybe A3, A5 to fold river.

@OmahaDonk beat me to it. How is there any other line but 4! shoving preflop? High variance for sure, but also the highest EV IMHO.

Yeah, either 4b shove and ride the crazy train or just flat call and flop good. The middle path is madness

Hoping to not come off as pedantic or argumentative...

I understand the theory and the BE math associated with the bluff size. But my question is really about dealing with a special V in a situation we shouldn't be in, and if we shouldn't consider deviating from theory, given the stack depth, and what we think we know about V.

Say we bet 25% pot, $100, on the flop, and get called. The pot swells to $600, and our stack shrinks to $350. There's a point at which our V is likely to say "eff it" and call a jam, because the pot to be won dwarfs the size of the wager to call. If we jam $350 into $600, V will be getting almost 3:1 on a call. Yikes!

If we want to jam, at any point, with king-high, I'd think we'd want max fold equity. Betting any amount, on any street post-flop, that isn't all-in, just diminishes our fold equity, unless V is likely to perceive multiple small bets as being more nutted than one huge bet all-in.

I don't know if V knows we saw that he wanted to bet $50 dark before we opened UTG, but even if he doesn't, we opened UTG, got 3B, and then we 4B. And he still called us. If we're supposed to have a huge hand pre-flop, it looks like V doesn't believe us. If he didn't believe us enough to fold pre, why would we think he'll believe us on this flop?

The presence of the FDFD makes me more concerned that V will level himself into calling a flop bet, even a jam, because maybe we have AXss, and any PP he has is good.

I suppose my point is that once we get to the flop the way we did (which I also hate), this becomes a psychology problem, not a math or poker theory problem. The basic question is what line is going to generate the most fold equity, which seems like it requires us to try to get inside V's head.

If he doesn't fold to our flop c-bet, we spent some of our ammo, and made it harder to get him to fold on a later street. So, my thinking is we should probably just check back flop, and hope to actually make a real hand by spiking a K or Q on turn or river. If not, then we reserve the option to over-bet jam river as a bluff.

If we were deeper, sure, I could see c-betting flop, sizing up and barreling turn, and perhaps jamming river. But with 1 SPR on the flop, in a 4B pot, it seems like we only have one bullet left, and that we want to save it for the river.

Waiting allows us to see the run-out, and play a range that could include flush draws that came in on the turn, TX that made trips on the river, or just a big PP that was always ahead, but decided to play it trappy, hoping V would bet, but eventually has to bet river for thin value, when V checks to us on all three streets.

The guy 4bet K4o and you re concerned that KQs doesn't do well vs his 3bet range?

Against this V you aren't 4betting KQs as a bluff, but for value, because his 3bet range might be like 30-40% of hands. Let him call with all his A-x trash. Our KQs plays better against them.

yeah idk man, i think folding preflop would be just such an egregious error vs described villain it's really not worth entertaining.

my big q the first time around is if opening is better than open limping. my guess would be if you open limp he makes it 50 close to 100% of the time whereas if you raise he probably does it some amount of the time less. facing the 3b i would size your 4b larger., can see jam being ok but i think smaller is probably the higher ev but higher variance option (which seems odd when we're comparing to jamming 130bb but this feels right to me). dont particularly like flatting when stuck in the middle but i would imagine that's worth a good amount of ev too. fairly confused at people saying to 4b more linearly yet flat this hand, i think you are printing vs a range of {ATC}. flop is whatever but id always cbet especially w this many backdoors / king high and jam a good amount of turns (any we pick up equity on essentially, potentially non spade undercards as well).

I agree.