Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

Actually UTG had AA with the Ace of hearts and the maniac had either 45 or 56 with 1 heart.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

Your thinking is much too results-oriented here. Notice the confluence of events that occurred on your hand to encourage action:

1. One of your opponents had aces.
2. The board put four hearts up.
3. Three players got to the river.

In a three-handed pot, you will very rarely have circumstances nearly so good. 6.5 BB is really a huge number. To reach that kind of implied payoff, you need to have confidence that two opponents will put in a big bet on each street, or betting will have to get crazy at some point. You cannot count on this!!! 4 BB might be a reasonable expectation, but 6.5 is extremely optimistic.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

At least 3 players have been getting to the river every hand because of the maniac. The average pot size at this table was 9BBs and would have been higher if everyone weren't so afraid of the maniac. Most people were letting him bet. I bet and let him raise. Every pot I involved myself in during my session at this table I had the nuts or near nuts for and easily drove the pot size up to 20+BBs.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

Preflop, I know you want to play with the maniac. We all do, but you don't have to take small advantages versus a maniac, he will give you plaenty of opportunities to outplay him when you have a very large edge. In this case you have what you think is an uber tight player raising in first position, your hand needs to be very strong to cold call and maybe a notch weaker to 3 bet, but we aren't talking about many hands here(Big pairs and AK). Just because a bad player may come in doesn't mean you can loosen up against other players. In 3 way pots small pairs really lose quite a bit of value, you don't get odds for a set, and the reverse implide odds strip their pair value.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

BTW Dynasty will likely disagree with me here.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

[ QUOTE ]
In 3 way pots small pairs really lose quite a bit of value, you don't get odds for a set, and the reverse implide odds strip their pair value.

[/ QUOTE ]

Read my analysis of the implied odds above. Then tell me why I'm wrong.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In 3 way pots small pairs really lose quite a bit of value, you don't get odds for a set, and the reverse implide odds strip their pair value.

[/ QUOTE ]

Read my analysis of the implied odds above. Then tell me why I'm wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

see below

but you don't have to take small advantages versus a maniac, he will give you plaenty of opportunities to outplay him when you have a very large edge.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

Why not push both the small edges and the big ones? Besides the only good hands I got for the 75 hands that table was good were small pocket pairs.

I learned that the pot was getting jammed every hand so the implied odds went through to roof.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

[ QUOTE ]
To reach that kind of implied payoff, you need to have confidence that two opponents will put in a big bet on each street, or betting will have to get crazy at some point. You cannot count on this!!! 4 BB might be a reasonable expectation, but 6.5 is extremely optimistic.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can count on this since it has been true every hand for the last 30 minutes. This maniac was raising every hand preflop, but he never 3 bet. He was raising every street post flop, so I could reasonably expect the betting to get crazy at some point.

Re: Is this cold call acceptable, marginal, or terrible
 

If you are saying you had several sets in 75 hands that is more analogous to having the deck hit you in the face than to pushing small edges.

As I stated in my post several people disagree with my statements, and in a tougher game I do often play small pairs when it seems that I'm not getting proper preflop odds, but there are a few things that I'm looking for.
1) I can get in cheap
2) The players will pay me off.

What you present is that it may cost me 2, 3, or 4 bets to play preflop, and the player that I expect to pay me off sufficient to compensate for these extra bets has not acted yet and may very well fold.