Poll: 55 on the button
 

You are playing 10/20 NL and a mainiacal player in MP makes it $70 to go with $1000 behind. It is folded to you on the button and you see 55.

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

fold

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

Why fold. You could flop a 5, bet out small and have him raise you his stack. If he was tight passive this would be a fold.

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

Maniac - they raise wtih a wide range of hands so you don't necessarily know what this is. Eitherway, every street will most likely be expensive. The call is 7% of your stack, not great, no other callers, I don't really like it.

Recently, I think calling pairs heads up against maniacs has been costing me real money, calling against people that won't pay off has been costing me theoretical money.

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

It would be big -EV to fold here. Put in your $70 and see the flop. If he then makes an obvious overbet I would push
in this situation.

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

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Recently, I think calling pairs heads up against maniacs has been costing me real money, calling against people that won't pay off has been costing me theoretical money.

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Excellent reasoning AZK. Me too, this is something I have had to learn the hard way. It is such a juicy looking situation when you can get heads up with a raising maniac and you have the ability to flop a set and break him, but this just puts too many iff's in the situation. What if you don't flop a five? Its gonna be tough to have 55 be overcards. What if you flop a 5 and there are three diamonds out there and it kills all action you would get? What if you flop a five with three diamonds and he pushes all-in? What if *gasp* you don't flop a 5? Then he just won a $200 pot by exploiting weak/passive play. If this was 10/20 no limit and you both had 10k in front of you, different ballgame.

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

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It would be big -EV to fold here.

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Folding is 0 EV.

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

[ QUOTE ]
It would be big -EV to fold here. Put in your $70 and see the flop. If he then makes an obvious overbet I would push
in this situation.

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Hero never put in any money into the pot so it would be impossible for the Hero to have a -EV. Hero MIGHT not be optimizing his EV, and that's what the question of discussion is right now. I'm not putting any money in after the flop unless a 5 flops so I’m not going to be calling the pre-flop raise unless this maniac is very maniacal.

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

I was just talking in general terms. Playing a hand like
this against a "Maniac" can be very profitable. Especially
since if he flops a set it wont likely stop the Villian
from trying to push him post flop

Re: Poll: 55 on the button
 

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Folding is 0 EV

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Hero never put in any money into the pot so it would be impossible for the Hero to have a -EV.

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You're in the hand, and there's money in the pot. You have at least some equity, so it is certainly possible to have negative EV in this situation.