Preflop Quiz (Interesting Hypothetical for Theory)

[AdamL]

You are visiting Europe and decide to give the casino nearby your hotel a try. You sit down at a limit hold'em game and try to get your head in the game quickly.

But before you have to worry about much, you realize this is going to be very simple.

The players on both sides of you are playing extremely tightly. They never enter a hand without something fantastic, and they always do so for a raise.

The gentleman directly across the table of 10, however, always opens with a raise. Every hand he raises. If you fold, he always has an extremely high chance of taking the blinds.

What is your preflop strategy?

[Stork]

The player in seat 10 opens every hand? In that case, I would 3-bet with just about every hand if I'm outside of the blinds as long as none of the rocks have come in. If one of the rocks has come in, I'd play only AA and KK.

[K C]

You're going to want at least a decent hand to do this though. Joining him in playing "just about every hand" for extra money will get you in a lot of trouble [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Position is going to be very key here, because of course you don't want to be 3-betting it with only a decent hand, and having one of the rocks (and the other 8 players are all rocks in this example) cap it off at 4. You're dead meat then [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

KC
http://kingcobrapoker.com

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
The player in seat 10 opens every hand? In that case, I would 3-bet with just about every hand if I'm outside of the blinds as long as none of the rocks have come in. If one of the rocks has come in, I'd play only AA and KK.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't overlook the other 6 players!

[K C]

I take it though that the other players are rocks as well, since the maniac almost always steals the blinds when you fold.

In reality though that's very hard ot imagine. Out of the 8 rocks, they're only playing one hand between them a lap, two at the most. That's damn tight - lol. If they all were 100 years old I don't ever see that happening in real life [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Ahh, but this is theory right? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] With all this being the case, it's going to be more like heads up with the maniac with the blinds thrown in to the winner. And he's going to be easy to play since all you need to do is to be able to beat random hands to have the edge overall. The only difference is that while you're going to be loosening up you need to be careful with the rocks acting after you, so you'd want to watch your position even more.

KC
http://kingcobrapoker.com

[Stork]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The player in seat 10 opens every hand? In that case, I would 3-bet with just about every hand if I'm outside of the blinds as long as none of the rocks have come in. If one of the rocks has come in, I'd play only AA and KK.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't overlook the other 6 players!

[/ QUOTE ]

True, it depends how many others are left to act, but if the rocks have folded, any hand is profitable with the blinds money in there. With the weaker holdings I would just call the raise instead of 3-bet. But against a completely random holding, I can't imagine any of your hands being worse than a 66/33 favorite, and the blinds money alone just about compensates for that and if you can outplay the maniac postflop, it would be hard to lay down a hand.

In the original post, one of the conditions of the question was that if you fold, the maniac is extremely likely to take the blinds. I'll assume that's about an 80% chance, which would mean that on average another player would be in the hand about once every five hands, so if I'm first to act or there are still 5 or 6 players behind me I'd probably drop most offsuit hands with cards 10 or lower, and the weak suited cards.

[Kaz The Original]

Your first move is to get large cup of a coffee because this is game you don't want to leave ; )

I three bet Q7 or better (including K2) (but not 22-44). I don't cold call.

I wonder how he plays post flop?

[Marm]

How does the maniac play after the flop? Or even Pre-flop? Does he "look at his cards" when it gets raised back to him? Or does he blindly bet away? If he gets smart after the opening bet, then can we assume he is our twin and has sat down fro the same reason?

[AdamL]

You can assume that he plays his best after the flop, which is to say not bad at all. The point is that he is trying to pick up the blinds as often as he can. He is playing this as a deliberate strategy, not on account of being a maniac.

Hint: This is basically just headsup hold'em with a twist.

How often do you have to call? How often do you need to 3-bet? etc.

[EliteNinja]

Make sure you have a clear understanding of what the other 6 players would do. If they're all rocks and the fold to your raises, it's alright. If they're tight players who know what you're trying to do, you're in trouble. If they're all maniacs, another strategy is needed.

Gotta look at the whole table in this situation.