Lucky Draw at pot-limit

Here's another small blind pot limit hand from the other night. I'm playing against a maniac who loves to come over the top and seems to have no respect for any money. Anotherwords, you are going to either have a great night or a real shitty one. He has a very large stack.


I get dealt AKs UTG and just call, maniac calls (which is weird as he's raised the last couple hands) and the blind checks.


Flop is great for me: 234 two spades. I bet here to start building a pot. This guy will deffinately pay off if I hit so I accept the fact that I am going to pay for this draw and I might as well win something if I hit it (2 overcards, 9 spades, maybe 3 more 5s for the wheel). Sure enough, the guy raises me. Should I reraise here to get more money in with 2 cards to come?


I call and the turn is another 2 pairing the board. I check, he bets pot again, and I call hoping to spike a spade.


River is a beautiful 5 spades and I decide to bet pot into him hoping he reraises. It works and I reraise all-in. This reraise is probably a misplay by me (although it wasn't for too much more money as most was already in the pot) because he wouldn't call unless he had a full-house.


What do you think of my play? Thanks,


Jeff Gomberg

Your play seems very aggressive. You don't have pot odds to call the turn unless he'd bet this way with no pair. This makes your action on the flop very aggressive. On the river the possible flush should slow the maniac down unless he can beat it; your raise seems optimistic.


I hope you won a nice pot and GLOATED, but even against a maniac I'm guessing you were the gloatee.


Fat-Charlie

Dear Jeff, I'm not really fond of the way you played your hand. The question is: what do you think your opponent holds? If he's the maniac you say he is (and therefore his raises don't mean anything) why not pop him back on the flop- he might be semibluffing himself or have a weak made hand that can't stand the heat anyway. Now you call out of position with exactly the hand your opponent figures you for (two big spades, including the ace). I don't understand your call on the turn. Once again, the question is: what do you think your opponent holds? If you think he has nothing, then are you going to pay him off on the river with ace high if you don't improve? If you think he is weak, why not check-raise or bet into him and put him to the test? And if he's the maniac you describe (and therefore may play any two cards) you might be drawing dead already-why get yourself in all this trouble when there may be no more winning cards for you in the deck?


One important element in your post is missing: stack sizes. If you bet and he raises on the flop, there's a pot bet on the turn and on the river there's a raise, a reraise and ANOTHER reraise then the money must be very deep. How deep the money is affects your strategy a lot. On the flop, there is hardly any money to fight for (since it was an unraised pot). It seems both you and the maniac have a big stack compared to the size of the blinds. While you have a good flop, all you have at the moment is an ace high flush draw with MAYBE some extra outs as well; if by any chance your opponent holds 65 for the nut straight or another powerful hand, then you may not be in such a good shape as you think you are. Are you really willing to go broke with this hand in an unraised pot ? Just my thoughts, Jeff, good luck to you in the games, Rolf.

Thanks for the comments thus far. The money was very deep and the reason I called on the turn is that if I hit the spade, I new I would make a LOT of money from this guy. The turn bet was still not that large in relation to the stacks, and if he had a straight like he probably did (or A2), he was going to pay me off and raise me when bet into on the river.


I deffinitely was a little bit too optimistic during the hand and really most likely had 7 or 8 outs to the spade draw.


This guy went all in before the flop with 72suited and K9 suited and cracked AA twice (two pair, then a set). He had also shown many large bluffs with absolutely nothing betting all the way through and RAISING on the river.


I deffinately had implied odds to call the turn bet. Against other (sane) players, probably not. If I made a play at the pot on the turn against this guy, he would have reraised with anything. If I did not hit my draw, I think I would have folded to the river bet but it would have been a close decision.

I don't think you can count on large implied odds on the turn here, since there is a decent chance that you were drawing dead.

HAHA you are talking about the psychopath on CCCpoker....he went all in for 500 bucks or so with 72 of hearts preflop in a game with a single 1 dollar blind.

I remember that hand - but forgot the nickname of the maniac. I remember he was angry that someone (you?) said something about his 7-2.