Small pair against a maniac

[Hamlet]

Say you're heads up against a maniac. He plays 80%+ of his hands for a raise. You've got a small pair, say pocket 3s.

Do you simply call down every time? Do you fold truly awful flops (say 9TJ all of a suit you don't have)

What non-set flops do you raise? Any flop with a pair or an undercard, making you a favorite over his more likely to be unpaired hand?

[peterchi]

[ QUOTE ]
Say you're heads up against a maniac. He plays 80%+ of his hands for a raise. You've got a small pair, say pocket 3s.

Do you simply call down every time? Do you fold truly awful flops (say 9TJ all of a suit you don't have)

What non-set flops do you raise? Any flop with a pair or an undercard, making you a favorite over his more likely to be unpaired hand?

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I'm assuming you've got it heads up on the flop.

And that we're against a true, true maniac. 80% PFR seems like a lot. So yeah.

I'd raise just about any flop. Especially low paired ones, but that should be relatively obvious. Yeah 9TJs sounds like a flop I might slow down on.

I've been known to call down maniacs with Ace-high. And win. So yeah, I'd probably call down just about any board with 33. Unless I was playing the board.

[Hamlet]

The problem with raising any flop is that his two random overcard hands are not a big dog to you. You have zero fold equity and he's going to make a pair about half the time.

What I am thinking about is which boards make it more or less likely for the little pair to beat overcards.

Obviously, any board with an undercard or a pair on it makes it less likely that you are beat. And boards with flush and straight possibilities are going to beat you more than boards without draw possibilities.

I guess the question I need to answer is: Given a flop of Ts 9c 7s, what are the odds of a random hand beating your pocket 3s?

This was a true maniac. I called him down with Queen high once and was good. He lost about $500 playing 3-6 (6 max)in about 2 hours.

[Harv72b]

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I guess the question I need to answer is: Given a flop of Ts 9c 7s, what are the odds of a random hand beating your pocket 3s?

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If it's truly a random hand, which it sounds like it is against this guy, then the odds of him beating you do not really change with any flop that doesn't directly help your hand. Against a somewhat normal aggressive player, you could expect a flop like that to decrease your chances of winning somewhat, but since he could be playing any 2 cards this way you can't infer anything.

To answer your question, I'm calling down every time with a pocket pair (again, unless I end up playing the board on the river...and even then I'll call if the board is a straight or flush or something). I'm not going to raise at any point with such a weak hand because I know he's not folding, but I'm not folding either.

This is true of any made hand vs. a maniac, btw. Except that I'm obviously raising a lot with a stronger made hand.

[callmedonnie]

I got into this situation last night a few times with a maniac. Sometimes it was with AK and also with small pocket pairs. Anyway, I found myself taking this line with him. In position I raised the flop UI, called his lead on both turn and river. It was HU and obviously more info would be needed for specific hand, but this worked alright. The first three hands he took my $, and in three more hands I won it back and then some. I used this line twice with AK UI and he showed K2 UI, and the other time I had a small pocket pair.
I think this line works in both spots.

[chief444]

If his hand is truly random, I'm capping most flops anyway. But whatever you do DON'T FOLD.

[Hamlet]

This isn't really true, though. Obviously, a board of 22444 is going to make your pocket threes a very likely winner compared to 6789A with 4 of a suit you don't have. On a paired board, the random hand is less likely to have made a pair. On a board with a 4-straight, a four flush, and five unpaired cards, you are very likely to be a loser against a random hand, since he'll have a flush about a third of the time, and any 5,6,7,8,9,T or A beats you.

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If it's truly a random hand, which it sounds like it is against this guy, then the odds of him beating you do not really change with any flop that doesn't directly help your hand.

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