1/3 NL maniac straddles $100 every hand

You should look at a push/fold chart for poker with a small amount of blinds. It depends how deep you are but your ranges are waaaaay to tight.

More like from EP, say you are 300 effective, any pocket pair, any suited aces, A7o+, KTo+, QJo+, T9s+ can shove. Never just call. Even if you want to play a little tighter, fine, really not much tighter. The funny thing is everyone will overfold these spots so you EV is actually more than it should be.

Hopefully you have decent savings or a decent bankroll. This game will be insanely profitable, but you can definitely run bad. Still fairly unlikely you will go on a 10 buy in downswing I think.

This is a spectacularly good table.

LOL, poker is gambling. It's that this table has a combination of a free huge overlay and a vastly simplified decision tree.

sorry i should have clarified, at 300 then sure blast off

but i'm sitting on a stack of 1500 and there's people behind who cover me, including the maniac who has like 5k

Some of us don't need the money badly enough to play whatever stupid, gambling game this is.

This is the key bit and it needs unpicking.

Is he "usually calling" against scared money's very tight shoving ranges? Or is he "usually calling" as in a 60% range? If you've seen him calling off hands you should have an idea of what he's showing down.

If the whole table is scared money apart from this guy then your big stack will scare people off as well, so you can bully people around very easily. Your suggested ranges are far too tight.

Isn't this similar to a tournament situation with 15bb and we're mainly in Push/Fold Land? Differences include, we do have more people to get through, and this V calls everything and shoves if we don't, right?

Vs a 100% range, we are at 60% or better with the following range: 55+, A5s, A8o, K9s, KTo, QJs. 224 combinations, or not quite 17% of all combos.

What's everyone else's calling range of our shove? Is it going to be wider than the usual?

And what are we overcalling a shove with?

Sure, anyone can choose any table, I just think it's strange and bordering on elitist for competent poker players to leave an unusually profitable table simply because they find the game aesthetically displeasing.

he calls about 2/3 of the shoves (any face, suited, any gappers etc he calls whereas hands like 28o go into the muck) but there were few shoves, most of the table was auto folding or just calling the straddle to see a flop

he didn't often reraise, usually checked his option but he did sometimes raise - often to hilarious results where a guy with 400 calls the 100 straddle then folds for 300 more

Best game in the country and people are advocating leaving. I would gii pretty wide and move to his right immediately.

Was playing around with some toy game math and holdem lab, and got some numbers I'm not sure I believe.

If,

• we play a range that is at least a 60/40 favorite against his 2/3 will call a shove range (I used 77+, A9s, ATo, KQs),
  
• We never overcall a previous shove (just bear with me), and
  
• The other V's only overcall our shoves with QQ+, AK,
  

Then, we make on net ~$98 per shove, comprised of the following outcomes:

• 1/2 the time (only main V calls), we make $300.
  
• 1/4 the time, no one calls, we make $100,
  
• 1/12 the time, only another V wakes up, and we lose ~$500,
  
• the remaining 1/6th, both sets of V's call, and we win around 29%, but lose on net around $215.
  

I'm pretty sure I need to re-check those numbers. Also didn't account for multiple Vs waking up with a 2.5% hand.

We're only getting a shovable hand ~10% of the time. We could (and probably should) go wider. Main V's going to go broke soon, and we want a shot at the $ before he does.

Curious where the inflection point is. Might redo this with a >50% equity range vs a 2/3 defending range and see what changes.

EDIT, also we're probably overcalling a shove with...? As well as probably either limping the straddle or raising over limpers to induce.

i thought about that, there actually was an open seat to his right

but was worried it'd tap the glass too much and he'd stop playing that way or leave

Not all of us are degens.

That is not my experience with these types of players. You make some comment about not getting any playable hands in this seat and maybe that one will be luckier, and they totally get it. Being to the direct right of a maniac like this is the most +++EV situation in all of poker. You don't have to worry about traps behind you, and maniac's position on you is not that important, given how predictable he is and how simplified your decision tree is.

It doesn't matter how good we are vs. the table, if we normally play 1-2/1-3 it will be difficult mentally (and maybe other ways) to lose 1000bb in a couple of hours.
So I've sat in somewhat similar games probably 5 times in the last 5 years, and I've seen the whale destroy people way more than you'd think. In a couple of instances I left broke before the whale stopped running like god.

To be fair I think it happens a lot more often where the whale will do the $18 straddle and it goes badly for him so the game never gets to the amazing point.

This is a significant concern, but not directly related to moving ... IME if the whale gets 300bb (for normal blinds) in pre. and has 30% and loses there's a good chance he stops making it $100 straddle every hand. Esp. so if it becomes obvious you're shoving "15bb" with 20% range or whatever.
There has been at least one instance where I was on maniacs (straddle/super wide raises but for way less than 33bb) direct right by chance and started limp/raising my entire range pre. ... and it went great, but maniac did learn fairly quickly (20m-60m) and stopped. TBF I've also played with drunk guy who was doing the same thing and absolutely did not learn (but did eventually get booted from the room, by the floor, for being too drunk and not stopping acting out of turn).

If he has unlimited monies he is basically martingaling the table. Once he goes on a heater and he as almost 2,000bb you are going to lose eventually unless you walk away with your winnings. Since OP didn't mention I assume this is capped buyin and not match the stack or similar. And if it were match the stack most people playing 1-3 are not rolled or willing to play for those sizes.

I'm not saying leave right away, but if your strat is to never leave you will lose it all eventually. The casino's strat against martingaling is to cut somebody off while they are stuck. You should adopt a similar strat. Take his money and leave. Sounds like you have being up to 500bb.

If you are going to stay, yes be on his right.

If this is Casino, and it has a no-flop no-drop policy, do they get pissed off at some point in time, given how few will go to flop.

My experience is no, because no flop hands pass quickly and the house gets max rake everytime a flop is dealt. Also the dealers are way more likely to get a big tip when a flop is dealt, so they are also fine or even happy with it.

In that case you should probably be playing min raise. Maybe 2.5x or shove from the blinds vs his straddle. Consult preflop charts. High cards are highly valued preflop short stacked. Suited connectors not so much. UTG definitely opening ATo and button definitely opening A5o for a ballpark.

the dealers love this guy for that exact reason

I like the idea of min-raising to isolate, Mlark. But are we always min-raising/calling? What happens if this maniac decides to selectively, rather than auto, 3bet?

The stack sizes are crucial here. Are you shoving 500bb from the blinds with the type of 55+/A9+/T9s+ range previously mentioned? Likewise if we min-click from MP with 77 and villain 3bets, do we auto-call/shove?

The difference between 100bb and 500bb effective is crucial, even though maniac is straddling for 30x. I mean min-raising reduces the SPR significantly, so it’s still largely a preflop game, but push/fold charts aren’t as relevant to deeper-stack scenarios.

This is nonsense. We can easily take his 5k in a few hands and we should try to do that unless we are under rolled or prone to tilting. If it’s match the stack we should have matched right away.

Leaving a game cause you can get bad beat is pretty funny.