99 vs. a maniac. Faced an overbet on AA44 board.

Im calling. He has more air than Ax.

Yeah I'm calling. Club draw and straight draw didn't come in, and we have a bluffy player.

Even a bluffy player shows up with the goods sometimes, so not reading much into results. If we're good 50% of the time here, we're making money.

Call

tough one tbh. i think we want to bet 10% pot otr, honestly not sure what to do now. would be ecstatic to call some sizes, this is not one of them. i dont think you want to pure call range bluffcatching vs 2+x pot even if his line doesnt look too much like an ace. u really gotta be careful when people start going huge bc alot of the population just never bluffs for this size, and its a size that isn't overbluffed even online. im whatever about calling here would probably randomize. i understand the OP is more or less set up to encourage us to tell him to call, but you do need to be much more cautious here than in most spots.

am convinced people just read villain description and then tune out the rest of the hand, river is what? 2.5x pot lol

one of the few hands on here that i would discount hand reading a bit and look at mda / what he's doing on the river

So hand 2 he bets pot when you checked back, but then gave up? (although lots of people give up on the 8).

Hands 1 and 2 he tripple barreled? Seems weird, esp. in hand 1 when he calls. Sizings would be useful there.
The fact he checks turn in this hand isn't great ... probably means he thinks he has the best hand. Seems very unlikely that he doesn't continue with 65/cc hands ... maybe checks back 7x, but turning that into a bluff on the river would be very special.

Pots flop with anything due to the check and then on the river he might just sees all the checks and decide to rip it with any2. Maybe.

Bets pot with like A3o because he hit top pair, then checks back turn for pot control and rips river when he's only losing to 44/A7 and you probably have close to 0% of each.

Both seem reasonable, you have a lot of better hands and not many worse hands that play this way. Hopefully you are playing a decent amount of Ax this way, if not most to all of them?
As crazy as it sounds I think I'd rather call this than 77, would also prefer no diamonds and def. no clubs.

I've seen maniacs screw the pot up and not realize how big shoving is, also assume you'll snap fold QQ.

If I've seen him overbet bluff on any street I probably call, and lean sigh fold otherwise.

This is really up to your tolerance for losing. What's your overall strategy for playing a person like this. If you don't have it, go find a pen and paper and write it out. Figure it out.

Personally here, I'd call. If he's got it, good hand. Stick around and get your money back.

The bigger thing here is what's your overall strategy.

Bluff-catching check list:

Do we beat any value?

Only if V thinks 7x, 88, or maybe some other low-middling PP's are worth betting thin. Not really sure if this V does that, but the other hand histories wouldn't seem to rule it out.

Is V capable?

Sure seems so, though it would be good to have a prior example of him over-bet jamming as a bluff.

Is the bet big for the game?

Yes.

Did we give V rope?

Tons, and this V probably only needs a little.

Does V have non showdown value that needs to bluff?

Sure. He's got missed clubs and straight draws, some K-high type BS, and probably a ton of air that started spewing on the "scary" ace-high flop.

I dunno. It's close. I'd lean towards call.

The second ace on board makes it less likely he has one, and I'd think he'd barrel turn if he did, unless he has a weak ace and gets worried on turn, then finds his balls again with the second ace on the river.

Kinda like the idea of block betting super small here, and folding to a raise. As played, given the spaz-tastic hand histories with this guy, I don't know if I could find a fold, but I don't blame anyone for deciding to look for a better spot.

These hands all have potentially logical explanations (AT hand, depends how much he had left otr, maybe he was already committed and thought his two pair ace kicker had a chance; Q4s hand he took a stab at it when hero checked then gave up otr; I'd like to also know his bet sizes in the 96 hand).

In this hand he's jamming over 2x, and slowed down when the board paired (did he maybe slow play 4x ott? Maybe he was about to give up his small Ax hand until the river filled him up).

I fold.

Is anyone else favor just checking preflop? I’m happy to raise 99 oop against a loose passive sometimes. But 99 is the very bottom of my range. Against a maniac, I would rather set mine and trap. With a 25 bet and 500 stack, you have barely the implied odds for set mining. The variance playing 99 oop against an aggressive player for a big pot is just too high for me. By checking, you maybe leave some value on the table. But if you have a small bankroll, you can wait to raise in a better spot. Furthermore, by checking, while the top of your range is capped, the bottom is uncapped.

AP, if you call the flop, you’re playing bluff catcher and can call the river too. Me, I’m folding the flop and river.

In the previous hands, V was a maniac. My experience is that maniacs sometimes go back to being regular players. Maniacs torch their stacks and have short sessions.

That really comes down to your tolerance for risk (and bankroll in a lot of cases), how long the villain will stay and what your strategy is. Weaponizing a call against a maniac works well to win a bunch of mostly smaller pots. Checking is perfectly fine in the strategy I use. What's important is for people to have a strategy against a player like this.

I'm going to make money playing small/medium/large posts, I'm going to bet/call/fold in situation X, Y, Z, etc.

Btw, if we think we’re gonna get stabbed at close to 100% after checking, we usually lean toward range checking? But in this spot, the board is A high. Yeah, this guy is a total maniac, but if you look at his bluffs, they usually have some overcards or at least a little bit of eq.

With that being said, do you think range betting here might be the better play?

If someone is threatening to stab me at a near 100% frequency if i check, id just go ahead and bet to avoid the hospital bill.

The problem I see is your hand looks like exactly what it is so if he's at all thinking he has a lock on you. Unless you do this with some boats sometimes. I think you have a lot of K-high/Q-high here and some PPs and then some AX for value. The question is do you have enough AX boats here printing money to over-compensate for the times you fold weaker hands incorrectly. Really 99 is no different than QQ here if he only has air/boats. I'd probably let this go - KK or QQ would be a more interesting decision. He has 4X that checked back turn.

I mean, if he's betting 100% of the time when checked to on this river then I think you just play a linear check/call check/fold range using an adjusted MDF. Here its a massive overbet but if it was 100$ I think its a clear call. MDF here is 30% so I would adjust it to 40% or something given his bluffiness and say you call with all boats and KK-JJ or something.

no both theoretically and exploitatively (ace high boards protection isn't really a thing so you're not going to see much range betting at least at this spr as you have a ton of hands that have no desire to put money into the pot, exploitatively if you've spotted a large leak on his end - to stab nearly 100% in a spot he is maybe supposed to bet 20 possibly less given pre ranges at play idk why you would intentionally eliminate that node from the game)

99 is super clear value raise pre, you aren't set mining lol

i still think its unlikely he has an ace from flop / river sizing but i dont want to call off our entire range in this spot because the cost of being wrong is astronomical. i get we don't know that he has this sizing in him before the hand is played, but this hand is pretty good evidence that you want to have some ax in your range for this line. particularly when he takes this flop sizing and then turn x, i dont think the cost of checking the river with some Ax is that high (what is he actually supposed to call with that pots the flop if we bet?). i dont mind tiny otr w range either if you want to go that route.

have seen charts that suggest ep 6m range for a large (7x+ bb) size. is up to you if you want to include the fringe / lower ev elements of that but checking this is too weak even if you want to do something different range or size wise. id raise 77 and 88 here fwiw. my guess is he has something like 30-35% of hands but like the 15-50th percentile