A9s in the BB against a maniac

[wildzer0]

The subject pretty much says it all. MP2 is a very loose aggressive player who has shown down hands as weak as K4s and Q8o after raising them preflop. Given his huge raising range, there's a good chance I'm ahead here. So, do I push preflop, fold, stop and go?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (7 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Button (t1400)
SB (t600)
Hero (t790)
UTG (t1300)
MP1 (t455)
MP2 (t2980)
CO (t475)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">MP2 raises to t300</font>, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, Hero?

[AliasMrJones]

I like stop n go, though if he's loose he's probably gonna call no matter what anyway.

[Weatherhead03]

Push pre-flop if anything. With a stop n go you will only have 490 left, and that is if CO doesnt push himself. If CO folds and you push any flop he will have 2.23-1 odds to call which he will if hes a maniac.

[AliasMrJones]

[ QUOTE ]
Push pre-flop if anything. With a stop n go you will only have 490 left, and that is if CO doesnt push himself. If CO folds and you push any flop he will have 2.23-1 odds to call which he will if hes a maniac.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm, you're in the big blind. Cutoff has folded. How is he going to push?

Also, he will have the same pot odds to call on the flop, but if he whiffs the flop, he won't have proper pot odds to call. Preflop he does. Seeing the flop changes things dramatically. Now, since he's a maniac, it might not make any difference...

[Weatherhead03]

[ QUOTE ]
Ummm, you're in the big blind. Cutoff has folded. How is he going to push?

[/ QUOTE ]

My bad didnt see that.


As for pushing. OP believes that he is ahead with his A9s so why would he not push right then and there when he is likely ahead. If the board flops rags there is a larger chance it hits the maniac than it does the OP so a stop n go would only work if he misses the flop and how are we to know if he did or didnt based on the fact he will play anything.

[ldavidjm]

I vote push preflop. My logic would be this, he's not folding if he gets any piece of the board, has a decent ace, any pocket pair, etc. He may fold weak queens, jacks or kings that miss a flop, in which case he's only folding second best hands. Essentially sometimes he gets out when he's behind, but always stays in when ahead (and a lot of times when he's behind too). Since you're going broke on this hand, you might as well not give him an opportunity to get out.

I'd rather get in PF with all my chips and try to win the extra 490.

[wildzer0]

Well, interesting you say that. I did do a stop and go here. The board flopped rags, which hit the maniac and I busted out. Getting pretty good pot odds, I'm not sure that mp2 would have folded anything before the flop, and all we can really put him on here is top 50% of hands or so. So is it better to do a stop and go here because I've got a greater chance of him folding a missed flop then folding to a preflop push or should I get my money in preflop when I'm reasonably sure I have the best of it?

[Myst]

[ QUOTE ]
I vote push preflop. My logic would be this, he's not folding if he gets any piece of the board, has a decent ace, any pocket pair, etc. He may fold weak queens, jacks or kings that miss a flop, in which case he's only folding second best hands. Essentially sometimes he gets out when he's behind, but always stays in when ahead (and a lot of times when he's behind too). Since you're going broke on this hand, you might as well not give him an opportunity to get out.

I'd rather get in PF with all my chips and try to win the extra 490.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you think you got the best hand, go all in preflop.

[AliasMrJones]

Weatherhead and ldavidjm:

You're both missing the point. Right now villain will be getting over 2-1 pot odds on a call. Almost any hand should call this. His fold equity is near-0.

A significant percentage of the time the flop will miss villain. Now he is still getting just over 2-1 pot odds, but it is likely he is 3.5-1 or so to make a pair. If the flop contains an overcard to his hand he might think his odds of making a hand are even worse than that.

In short, we're getting all our money in either way. If we push preflop there is almost no chance villain will fold. On the flop, if he misses, there is a reasonable chance villain will not be getting proper pot odds to call our all-in. The question isn't will we get all our chips in or will he hit the flop sometimes and be happy to call. We're getting all our chips in regardless. The difference is in one case he will almost never fold and in the other he sometimes will. (In fact, it is probably a fairly large percentage of the time unless he is a very good or very bad player.)

[AliasMrJones]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, interesting you say that. I did do a stop and go here. The board flopped rags, which hit the maniac and I busted out. Getting pretty good pot odds, I'm not sure that mp2 would have folded anything before the flop, and all we can really put him on here is top 50% of hands or so. So is it better to do a stop and go here because I've got a greater chance of him folding a missed flop then folding to a preflop push or should I get my money in preflop when I'm reasonably sure I have the best of it?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're going to get all your money in either way it is better to do it in a way that maximizes the chance villain will fold. I think that is a Stop n go as you did.

[Weatherhead03]

[ QUOTE ]
get my money in preflop when I'm reasonably sure I have the best of it

[/ QUOTE ]

[Weatherhead03]

I'm not missing the point. I am just making a differnet point than you are.

First of all you have to realize he is a maniac. They tend to do things that are very loose and very aggressive. That being said he almost always will call your push. Which is what you want him to do when he is beat.

I think the idea of a Stop n go is something that may be better, or it may be worse. If you think that maniac will call your push regards of the flop then no sense in waiting, just do it PF. If you think that he is a good thinking playing that takes pot odds and odds of making his hand into effect then I think a Stop n go would work better.

[AliasMrJones]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not missing the point. I am just making a differnet point than you are.

First of all you have to realize he is a maniac. They tend to do things that are very loose and very aggressive. That being said he almost always will call your push. Which is what you want him to do when he is beat.

I think the idea of a Stop n go is something that may be better, or it may be worse. If you think that maniac will call your push regards of the flop then no sense in waiting, just do it PF. If you think that he is a good thinking playing that takes pot odds and odds of making his hand into effect then I think a Stop n go would work better.

[/ QUOTE ]

If he is a maniac and will call the push in either case, then it makes no difference when we do it.

Because we're pushing no matter what (whether preflop or on the flop) letting him see the flop doesn't matter. If we had pushed preflop and he catches the flop or we call, he catches the flop and we push, the outcome is the same.

I think we agree there is no chance he is folding if we push preflop. Therefore the only opportunity we have to perhaps make him fold (even if the chance is a small one) is to stop n go. Since the chance he'll fold to a preflop push is 0, but the chance he'll fold to a flop push is possibly greater than 0, isn't it better to do the stop n go? At worst we get the same outcome as pushing preflop (he calls and we're all-in), but there is some chance we get a better outcome sometimes (he misses the flop and folds). I just don't see how the stop n go can ever be worse than the preflop push. The same, yes. Sometimes better, yes. But, how worse?

[Weatherhead03]

Okay I see what you are saying.

Yes I totally agree that he will not fold to a push PF. The reason why I chose to push PF is because my thinking was that he would call any flop. But at the sametime I see that there still could be a remote chance that he could fold the flop if he hasnt improved at all hence making it the better play.

Good post.