$100 NLHE 6-max: Tough River vs Maniac

[Alucard]

BB: 237.25 BB (VPIP: 23.33, PFR: 17.78, 3Bet Preflop: 6.78, hands: 183)
UTG: 118.5 BB (VPIP: 70.73, PFR: 58.54, 3Bet Preflop: 29.17, Hands: 92)
CO: 111.25 BB (VPIP: 20.83, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 8.89, Hands: 122)
Hero (BTN): 100.75 BB
SB: 107.5 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 19.05, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 22)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Ts Tc
UTG raises to 3 BB, fold, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, fold, UTG calls 6 BB

Flop : (19.5 BB, 2 players) 6s 5d Qc
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn : (19.5 BB, 2 players) 8d
UTG bets 9.75 BB, Hero calls 9.75 BB

River : (39 BB, 2 players) Ad
UTG bets 99.75 BB and is all-in,

120NL
This guy could jam anything on this river. He's literaly unrangable. Still that's a very brutal river to call a 100BB jam.
I'm even not cbetting the flop cause I'd like to bluff catch rather than getting check raised & playing an unusually big pot with a mediocre hand

 

[John A]

Bet the flop. As soon as you check that flop, you tell the maniac, hey, fire two big barrels into me and you also don't get value from all of the crap they will have in their range.

If that was your plan, then it worked. You should have bet flop, bet turn, and then he's likely check river a large % of the time. This is the best line to take versus guys like this that will shove on tough boards. Your range is totally transparent, and he knows you won't have a flush often enough, and he can easily rep it.

 

[fundiver199]

I hate folding to maniacs, but I think, we need to make a disciplined laydown here. In a recent video Doug Polk talk about GTO vs. exploitable poker, and he say a lot of things, that to me really makes sense. His main point is, that just because we think, our opponent is out of line, we dont have to be it as well to win. And if we are going to adjust, its usually better to make small adjustments than very large one, where we possibly end up over adjusting and getting owned.

Here we are facing a two times the pot bet, so we are supposed to fold 2/3 of our range. Against this maniac I can not imagine, we are folding hands like AK or AJ to a half pot turn bet in position. So we have top pair here quite a bit. If we think, he is bluffing to much, we should also have checked back some very strong hands on the flop. Maybe even our entire range. In that case we can also have a set, we can have AQ, we can even have a flush. So even if we like to call say 50%, we can still easily let this one go. We dont even have a flush blocker here, which would at least make the call a little bit better.

 

[vuk011]

Easy fold. We're only winning the bluff here! There is no reason to gamble against a maniac in this situation.

 

[kkonicke]

I usually will check that flop back with a hand like 10 10...but I tend to like John A's way of thinking. If checking will almost definitely lead to 2 big barrels with virtually any two from the maniac...better to fire 2 of your own barrels and set the price. Maybe he raises you of course, but I think that line might be better in this specific case. He also could fold some really bad hands that he would otherwise fire 2 big barrels with as soon as you check. Again, I personally would have played it exactly as you did...though I may consider betting these spots some of the time against this type of player going forward

 

[Alucard]

He had Ks8s if anyone's wondering. He loves to show his bluffs when they work

 

[fundiver199]

That is obviously pretty crazy. But again we dont need to adjust to him by calling with 90% of our hands. If we call 50% rather than 33%, we are still going to crush him in the long run, if he continue to play like this. If he is bluffing with K8, then why not also JJ, and this is why, its better to call with top pair rather than third pair.

 

[John A]

He had Ks8s if anyone's wondering. He loves to show his bluffs when they work

Sounds about right.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

my standard line preflop is to call here vs UTG but I don't mind your 3b. esp if he is so wide we can isolate an incredibly weak range IP and not price in the blinds. if he were a more standard 15-20% RFI player then I would just flat.

on this flop I like a smallish Cbet (50%). for 2 reasons....there is plenty to protect against (J,K,A all bad) and we can also get value from 1 pair hands and some draws. yes, he will CR some draws but there is not enough value for him to CR on this flop so he will be overbluffing a lot when he CRs based on how you describe him)

as played, of course we must call the turn.

on the river, he bets 2x pot so it is OK to fold this hand. when their line becomes incredibly polarized to nuts or nothing then we can use distribution to help us decide which hands we are calling with. TT will just be too low in our distribution to call off here.

because the bet is so large, he is giving himself a terrible price to bluff. it's OK to fold the bottom of our range because when we actually have something we get maximum paid and if he is likely to continue these lines we will have something soon enough to look up his giant bets with. I'm not suggesting we wait for the nuts either....but 3rd pair in a 3bet pot vs UTG isn't good enough when facing a 2x pot river shove. it sucks to let him own us like this....but he's not really "owning us" because he's the one opening himself up to being exploited.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

also its interesting to think about how in cases of huge river overbets hands with a lower absolute value, but better blocker value make for better calls. 79 is the nuts and that is what he is representing. so a hand like 77, 99 or A9 or A7 would actually be better to call with.

(I know it's hard for us to actually have any of those hands given the action except maybe 99 but I'm just illustrating a point for maybe future boards when your absolute bluff catchers will have better blocker value)

this is a very interesting hand, thanks for sharing!