Dump 99 or keep investing more in wishful thinking?
1/3 NLHE 9 handed
Table was playing tight until maniac sat down.
Maniac - He's been raising and opening a lot, limping some, playing very sticky post, betting a lot of weird hands, range is trash. 600$ BB.
HH: Maniac opens 25 over 2 limps from HJ, H just calls BTN with red TT. Heads up to Q-8-2r, V bets 25, H calls. Turn 4 ♦ ♦, V bets 45 into 100, H calls. River 2♥ V checks, H checks, V has A8o.
Girl - Tight straightforward TAG player. So ABC its ridiculous. Profitable for a few BB/hr I would guess. The kind of person who only 3-bets AK and JJ+ and mayybe some AQo/s AJs 99-JJ vs me (she sees me as wide) and check folds A-high with AK OTF (or calls one street) while betting out with overpairs, etc etc. Her hand strength is directly correlated with her bet sizes and her investment in the pot. Covers CO.
Nit - Nit is an old asian man that plays like GG. Sits there limping his butt off until he drills oil and then starts check/raising and limp/raising. A raise from this guy is the minimum something like ATss on a board like Ks-Jd-3s. 230$. MP.
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UTG folds, H opens 9♠ 9♣ UTG+1 to 10 off a stack of about 600$, Nit calls the 10, a loose passive fish that called off half his stack earlier (60$ off 120$) with pocket 33 calls the 10$ open off a stack of about 150$ (eff stack), Girl raises to 55, Maniac cold calls the 55 from BB, H calls the 55 UTG+1, Nit call/shoves 230 total, LP fish folds, Girl folds, Maniac reshoves.
Almost all-in to call - Pot is 950, a hair under 550 for you to call.
Depends how much money you have in your pocket. This is an annoying spot but I’d let it go. The nit should have something like AK/AQ here and I’d give the maniac JJ-TT as he still needs something to call a 3bet from the BB with EP PFR still to act behind. The best case scenario imo is the nit AK/AQ and the maniac does this with 88-55 but that seems ambitious to me.
You certainly get yourself in more than your share of wild spots 😉
PS: I think you missed a small thin river value bet in your TT HH
Obviously I just limp in cuz that's what I do.
The first call getting just ~12:1 is very meh, especially with the nit behind us (FWIW, I'm flatting AA as first caller to lol small open at a table with the maniac still to act like almost always, so we have to be extremely wary of this).
My initial reaction is that it is a trivial fold to the nit's shove (ldo), but then realized we prolly have a big side pot with the maniac and we're probably (?) ahead of them. I'm terrible at side pot stuff and not exactly sure how much of a fave we have to be against the maniac in order to be a fave overall in spite of likely being a 4:1 dog against the nit.
GcluelessNLnoobG
I'd fold to the girl (who's so ABC it's ridiculous), now it's an even clearer fold to the nit who just 4bet jammed. One of them (or maybe both) has an over pair higher than ours or their reads were off.
Fold unless you feel lucky.
I've re-read the hand history a few times and can't figure out stack sizes. There's a good chance though that nit/girl/fish are holding each others outs and maniac has two undercards.
Fold to the 3b from TAG girl.
As played, Mainiac knows he's likely going to be in closed sidepot, so he's not showing up with trash here unless he's hella bad. I'd range him minimum TT+, KQ+, AJ+, i.e., at worst he shows up with 2 overs, and you're flipping. You may have some equity from the sidepot, but not a lot since it's likely you'll have to hit your set, as well as fading cards. The question is does that equity in the sidepot compensate for the times the villain shows up with a bigger PP. Feels close without doing the calcs, but I might just be a call.
looks pretty close initially given stack sizes. i think you get it in w 80% in the side pot much more often than 20% so i guess id call, we need like 23% in the main and probably dont have that but would guess u got 60-65% in side and id gamble with the maniac bc y not
would literally never fold any pair to the 55 given maniac cold call and stacks. think people are being absurdly nitty or results oriented, or perhaps both
tt hand seems like a mistake pre and potentially river given turn sizing
Result:
Spoiler
I fold, Nit has AcKc, runout is low with rivered 9. AK-high is good and maniac mucks.
I'm not really surprised here by the results. Often the situation when a hand goes berserk preflop with a maniac being involved in the pot is that you have several players who are looking to stack/double up through the maniac and they go 3bet/4bet/shove crazy while holding each other's outs. 99/TT go way up in value in these situations, TT more so because maniac will more often be shoving with a broadway T than a hand with a 9. We can easily be favorite in this spot though and isolated against one player and the maniac who is playing much deeper I like a call off with 99 here.
Result:
Spoiler
I fold, Nit has AcKc, runout is low with rivered 9. AK-high is good and maniac mucks.
Spoiler
he's not a nit. Nits don't call a raise with AK then jam over the top of a 3bet all in. A nit is a very tight player who would never play AK like that (a hand they hate becasue they consider it a drawing hand and don't know it's value). However I would've folded when a girl player who never got out of line in her life just 3bet our med PP
Girl - Tight straightforward TAG player. So ABC its ridiculous. Profitable for a few BB/hr I would guess. The kind of person who only 3-bets AK and JJ+ and mayybe some AQo/s AJs 99-JJ vs me...
Nit - Nit is an old asian man that plays like GG...
...
UTG folds,
H opens 9♠ 9♣ UTG+1 to 10 off a stack of about 600$,
Nit calls the 10,
a loose passive fish that called off half his stack earlier (60$ off 120$) with pocket 33 calls the 10$ open off a stack of about 150$ (eff stack),
Girl raises to 55,
Maniac cold
STOP. What are you doing, and why??
Just gives reads of "girl seems tight, but can def. 3bet wider than KK+ and maybe really wide due to maniac." or say you aren't sure.
Unless you really think she has JJ-QQ here and raise/folded.
99 probably still borderline, but at least we don't have to assume you are insane when you give your reads and then call here.
Like even with the result it's not obvious to me if shove or fold is better at this spot.
Maybe you gave us the reads you had at the time, which is fair ... but then: WHY CALL 55?
Unless I really didn't care about the money and had good reads that 99 can be good a lot, I just fold to the 55 and don't care.
Nit call/shoves 230 total
LP fish folds, Girl folds, Maniac reshoves.
Almost all-in to call - Pot is 950, a hair under 550 for you to call.
I mean after this point I might just throw it in if we mostly had the same stacks and expect to lose a bunch to overcards and sometimes be crushed ... but I'd much rather be shoving at the previous spot than calling 55, and calling it off to the call/backraise. With the maniac reshoving with a lot more than everyone else, I think it's a snap call as we get the 400ish in soooo good vs. him.
Very unsurprised to see Nit has AKs here, this is the hand I'd most expect to see at low stakes (unless nit has great reads and thought someone else would raise wide) and I've seen people take this exact kind of line with it (call when it's "small" but shove when it's big and they aren't folding) ... but I've also seen nits just fold AK, and have 88-QQ here and refuse to fold that (and thus. just shove when it gets over 10).
would literally never fold any pair to the 55 given maniac cold call and stacks. think people are being absurdly nitty
What are we doing post vs. girl? She is IP vs. both us and maniac (I think) ... and it's going to be 2x SPR at best on the flop vs. both.
She can even find small bets with KK on Q72 because the small bets are going to be big in absolute terms
Calling just feels like playing almost any2 from the SB "because of pot odds" and I think it'll be hard to play correctly post, so would rather fold incorrectly now than later.
So what's your plan after you don't "nit fold"?
What are we doing post vs. girl? She is IP vs. both us and maniac (I think) ... and it's going to be 2x SPR at best on the flop vs. both.
She can even find small bets with KK on Q72 because the small bets are going to be big in absolute terms
Calling just feels like playing almost any2 from the SB "because of pot odds" and I think it'll be hard to play correctly post, so would rather fold incorrectly now than later.
So what's your plan after you don't "nit fold"?
given stack sizes you can just set mine 99 which is the easiest way possible to play a hand postflop
In the example hand tens is a fist pump 3b pre. We still get 2 streets of value but now they’re much bigger.
Back to this hand, 99 seems like the cusp hand. Eights I’m folding tens I’m calling. I feel like they are often sharing cards. I don’t think nit necessarily has us beat though he’s probably 88+ AK, maybe tighter. Maniac just has whatever small to mid pair or suited broadways and we should be slightly ahead or very ahead for the side.
The more I type the more I want to call.
Yeah, I hate calling. Postflop usually turns into a nightmare in these situations unless you hit a set. Sometimes being a nit is good and saves you money.
What are we doing post vs. girl? She is IP vs. both us and maniac (I think) ... and it's going to be 2x SPR at best on the flop vs. both.
She can even find small bets with KK on Q72 because the small bets are going to be big in absolute terms
Calling just feels like playing almost any2 from the SB "because of pot odds" and I think it'll be hard to play correctly post, so would rather fold incorrectly now than later.
So what's your plan after you don't "nit fold"?
The reason I called the girls 55 is she is quite face up post. If I hit like A93r and she has AK or AQ I get her whole stack (she covers but you know what I mean). If she has KK on AXY shes check folding. She always has exactly what it looks like. I'd range her PF 3! at TT+ AQ+ AJs so 99 is about a 30-35% dog I'd say.
The reason I called the girls 55 is she is quite face up post. If I hit like A93r and she has AK or AQ I get her whole stack (she covers but you know what I mean). If she has KK on AXY shes check folding. She always has exactly what it looks like. I'd range her PF 3! at TT+ AQ+ AJs so 99 is about a 30-35% dog I'd say.
You're only getting about ~14:1 IO against her (although also possible to make some up against the maniac I suppose). But she's in position (she can't check/fold the flop), a checkback on a dry Axx can still be AA, and meanwhile we can't just steal the pot on every other Axx flop she checks back due to maniac can have Ax. Add in the nit doing what he just did makes the call very meh.
GimoG
calling under 10% of your stack with 99 is standard
10% is roughly the limit where it can be okay.
People keep replying like OP didn't fold to a back raise.
People keep saying things like this as though it's some universal truth that is proven true by advanced math and enough sims to make OpenAI jealous. Even when it's common knowledge that basically all sims hate calling preflop in almost all spots.
Also stack sizes will be very uneven on the flop even if this is the last decision point, making any plays kind of weird (Eg OP bluffs out the PFR on an A high flop only for some other rando to shrug call Ax whatever because he only has 666th of the pot left).
And, finally, just because people might call $18 five ways off a $200 stack and play face up doesn't mean they'll do the same thing with $275 in the middle and $550 behind. Maybe they'll play the same way, maybe they'll play weirdly tighter and check a bunch, maybe they'll go insane trying to bluff or overvalue their hand to win the already giant pot.
Also I wonder if OP had seen the 7 high flop with 275 in the middle if he gets to the river to win.
Because I've been in kind of similar spots where I tank fold the flop due to maniac/pfr action where maniac has A7s for top pair and pfr has AK + nfd.
