1/2: Whale constantly raising $50–$100 — AQo spot, best line?

id jam and pray the limpers fold

Yes just shove 650.

Doesn't matter if he calls or not. We are ahead of his range. Getting it in good preflop is not punting. 3betting to 275 then folding flops is punting.

Sure sometimes others will show up with JJ+ and call your jam but most of the time (98%) they will off, and the whale either call or fold. Both are +EV for you.

Yea I just felt it was too big of a shove in that spot.. but maybe stupidly exploitative

It doesn't matter how big it is an absolute terms. You are just worried about running into AK/QQ+, which are to only hands that dominate you. Only is really bad trouble against AA. You didn't mention your position or how many players left to act, which is somewhat relevant. If someone before you had AQ+/TT+, the play would probably be to limp and 3!. However, you have to go with it. If someone has 99-JJ and you gii and the maniac folds or calls with something marginal, it is still somewhat EV+ for you compared to folding to the maniac's raise.

The alternative is to flat call and maybe see a flop against the maniac or multiway, and sometimes get shoved on. Shoving is better though. Would be difficult the 2/3 of the time you miss.

you can have small raises if you want with better hands, but your hand isnt strong enough to do that, just go all in

Feels an easy-peasy jam unless we have strong evidence that the limpers are trapping with monsters.

we had a drunk whale going AI for $1000 / hand. The pro on his immediate left, the best poker player I've ever played against on a long term basis, jammed to freeze out everyone else. The pro had AQo and took it down.

the whale went thru $10K that way and we never saw him again.

That's my concern. The limpers have eyes and brains too. Why're they limping vs a V literally popping every pot to 50-100?

Cib? If the limpers fold, then go-go whatever flops?

There's no real "play" apart from fold or not preflop, and calling very likely means you'll be the one making mistakes. What flops do you think V gets "coolered" on? Maybe AQx when he has an A? Or QQx when he has a Q? On the other side you completely miss the flop over 50% of the time, and if you are folding he can bet any2. It's almost guaranteed that V will have more experience postflop than you do.
I've seen this kind of action at 1-2 happen twice in the last 6 months (maybe rich people are reading Elon's boast about being a poker superstar and trying it), multiple times saw people fold flop with the best hand and/or call off the rest with AK vs. K2 on 752. FWIW I've been on V's left and right in this spot, and being on the left is worse IMO because you are OOP vs. everyone. Saying that a lot of people play it bad, don't limp range and then call instead of shove (or weirdly fold too much).

As sub said, you can maybe get cute with AA/KK to "cooler" him when he hits a pair on a T high flop, but honestly just shove anyway unless he starts finding a fold button preflop.

The biggest danger is if the buyin is only $300 or $400, and you lose your 65%+ shot in a 1.4k pot ... then it's difficult to win it back. Also your results are going to be misleading for 100s of hours.

Go all in. It does suck that there's a decent chance the limpers are trapping their monsters given the maniac but it is what it is.

When you are against someone like this it's ideal to be on his right so you can see how everyone else reacts first when you have hands that are vulnerable but crushing his range.

I would go all in because as crazy as he is, the whale may slow down if an ace comes. Most people, regardless of how deranged they are, won't go totally wild if an ace comes and they don't have one.

So if you miss value when an ace comes and fold when an ace doesn't come, that's a disaster for you.

Depends on how tight the tight limpers are.

Are they thinking players limping with 99+, ajs+, aqo+ with the intention of shoving back over the whale and folding the bottom part of that range if someone else shoves over? Or are they super nits only limping with qq+? Unless they are super nits just shove.

I think you're right. Are the limpers just constantly limp folding to this guy? Is this guy calling huge shoves with stuff like t-6 off? How many people are behind you? What does the whale do postflop?

There's nothing wrong with a small raise, or even a call, depending on how the table is playing. Like if you've seen people shove on the whale and he's always folded up till now, and you have reason to believe people are limping to trap, I would not be sticking in over 300bb with AQ.

the real question is whats the weakest hand we're shoving here and 2. whats the deepest stack we're shoving

Thanks guys. I just flatted because I had a bad feeling, the first limper shoved, whale rejammed and I folded. Limper had KK, I would’ve won with A on flop.

Not sure if it is a fold to the shove as played. You are getting pretty good odds with your 100 already in the pot and the maniac calling with whatever. You are in worse shape if shove is AA, but knowing maniac is raising big, he could have JJ/AQ, etc.

Flat may be good with read on limpers, but not happy putting in 100 and folding.

With aggro-whales like this you're in the worst position immediate left. You're essentially UTG. Would you push AQo UTG? You said the limpers were tight. Any good player on the whale's right is going to trap limp-jam with essentially last action.

The biggest win I've ever had was sitting on the right of an aggo-whale where I limp-jammed all night. Maybe I'm biased from this experience.

In a tournament with no ante, it is a clear push with AQo UTG and 6.5xBB. The problem is the limpers may make it more likely you are up against strong hands than if you had no information being literally UTG.

Shove is the correct answer, just be looking out for nice spots for it.

Nice spots being, as many less cold callers than possible

With 20 years + of poker experience, Id say 1010+ is the actual answer, and AQ is hella tempting, because these spots are just eeeh, its like youll have AJ or AQ, and it will 100% totally be always +ev because you just have the best hand so often relative to his high frequency of bets, but it brings out so much variance, and that guy proly will snap call with anything so you have essentially 0 fold equity, so its just really raw... dont really like those raw all-ins with 5% edge, and its jsut like, theres also the fish variance, maybe he raises to 100$, calls with 2-5 against AQ, flops three fives, and leaves the table.... and now youre like well, I just am out of a buy in, the fish is gone and richer... so whats nice about 1010+ is you got the ground pair... he can sitll win but he gotta make better than a pair of 10s, while AQ any hit to a community card makes AQ in serious trouble, and also I see another level to that which is, well, I wouldn> and the <> which is the side I tend to adhere to becasue of the actual nightly results, but I guess the true answer is somewhere in the middle so its hard to say open to comments

So yeah my main problems with the AQ shoves here is that it opens you up for abuse, and that you can lose an all-in hand being only ahead by 10%. From a non-thinking player perspective, the cold call is insanely nutty. After all, what he sees is a guy that raises to 100$ and then another guy that raises all-in to 650$, so when you hear the word call from him you

I think this is a lot more based on your risk tolerance of losing the hand than what is technically +EV.

In a similar spots where V was blind raising to 25-30 (at 1-2) I 3bet huge with A9s and ATs, and all the money (200-300bb) went in both times.

Also limped 88, but instead of blind betting 25-30 V looked at his cards and made it 40 ... I had been planning to 3bet huge but tank folded instead, because although there was a good chance I had ~55% -$2 seemed better than other options.

As for the deepest stack, my guess is that it's likely better to pickup when you get so deep you don't want to put it all in anymore. Because not caring about the money is their biggest advantage.
When you are both deep the balance between them folding because you shoved $1k into their blind $50 bet, or raising smaller and defining your range a lot when they can have any2 is difficult IMO.

Part of the problem with flat calling is the limpers could have some hand worse than AQ (which might be a little ahead allin against AQ), and they plan to shove if everyone folds, but fold if someone shoves. 77 or KTo is way ahead of some random hand the maniac has, and the maniac may fold to a push.

Didn’t seem like that kind of a player pool. One of the nit limpers actually claimed he folded AKo after I called the $100 and before the limper next to him shoved KK.