5-10 nl shorthanded, and this guy keeps making it $110-$250 to go

[creedofhubris]

I'm sitting at a 5-handed NL game and the guy to my left is one of the wildest i have ever seen preflop. He likes to bet big. Sometimes he just makes it $40, but often he's making it $110 or $250 preflop. He's reraising preflop huge with AT+ and possibly any pair (I can't tell since he's not showing down).

He's somewhat more sane postflop, but if somehow the pot comes in unraised, he's often putting $100-$150 bets into $30 pots on the flop.

How do I proceed, especially considering he's on my immediate left?

He starts out at $1000 and builds up to $2000; I have him covered.

What I ended up doing was limping AKs, and pushing when he made it $250 preflop. He turned out to have JJ, so this wasn't the optimal solution, but it was the only one I could think of.

[tradingman123]

What about moving to his left?

I would limp re-raise with AA-QQ... but i think moving to his left is far more profitable.

I like your strategy. It's definitely what I would do... He ran into JJ, but I would imagine he would have done the same thing w/ AQ, AJ, and maybe even AT. It would be a nicer strategy for you if you had a bigger pair, but I think AKs is good enough.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to just 'move to his left'... I doubt the guy already so positioned would appreciate it much.

[jrforman]

I actually like your position. Assuming you are playing with halfway thinking players they are going to look to trap this guy, so you get to see how everyone acts after he makes a big preflop raise or big continuation bet before you have to make your decision. Unfortunately your stack size is a little awkward for this situation because your risking 200BBS on any reraise all-in preflop. That being said, I think you have to take your chances pushing AK and def QQ-AA when he makes it 200+ to go preflop. Otherwise I would look to call with smaller PPs when his raise is 150 or less, look to hit a set and stack him that way.

[kagame]

calling to set is really not very effective with how big the raises are...youre also going to be folding the best hand on the flop WAY too often if you play pps this way oop

[cero_z]

Hi creed,

This is a great situation. For this guy to run his chips up to 2000 probably means others are adjusting badly, or he's getting lucky and his best hands are the ones that happen to get action, or a combination. This improves the chances that he'll still have chips when you pick up a big hand.

Stop limping with stuff you normally would limp with. Just fold AJ and worse, and push with AQ+ and TT+. If you want, make it only 600 or so with AA/KK/QQ and get the rest in no matter what. If you get the chance to limp behind him with a "bust'em" hand like Axs, do it, and then look to make 2 pair or better.

Put this game on autopilot, and start focusing on another game, as long as you're paying enough attention to see if he's now only doing this occasionally (which would mean he's doing it with monsters). If you do it this way, you'll eventually peel 1000 off him with the best hand.

When you pushed with AK and ran into JJ, it was an unfortunate coincidence, but no harm done, of course. Don't get suckered into calling 150 with 77 and then deciding that you probably have the best hand on a 9 6 4 flop. You don't need to gamble with this guy. Of course, if you get 2000 in front of you, then you'll want to call 100-150 with 77 for set value, if he's following up with big bets. You're going to lose some blinds waiting for a big hand, but just your equity vs. his open-raise amount will generally recover all of them, not to mention if he calls your reraise.

[RikaKazak]

like how you were going, until you said going for a set. thing you want with a set is someone who has a big hand to pay you off. If you call $150 pf in 5/10, hit a set, you NEED to win a stack, if that's the only reason why you're going for it if you have 2K stacks. Thing is, he'll make it $150, you call, flopp 742, you check, he bets, you raise, he folds cause his ATo missed. (sometimes you'll stack him, lots of times you won't cause he has nothing to call, only if he 3 bet bluffs all in does set value come back into play)

[cero_z]

Hi Rika,

[ QUOTE ]

like how you were going, until you said going for a set. thing you want with a set is someone who has a big hand to pay you off. If you call $150 pf in 5/10, hit a set, you NEED to win a stack, if that's the only reason why you're going for it if you have 2K stacks. Thing is, he'll make it $150, you call, flopp 742, you check, he bets, you raise, he folds cause his ATo missed.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, you need to win 1200 on average. Also, when he bets his missed ATo, he'll bet between the pot (300) and all-in (1800), but it will probably average about 500. And why the hell would you raise?

[creedofhubris]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi creed,

This is a great situation. For this guy to run his chips up to 2000 probably means others are adjusting badly, or he's getting lucky and his best hands are the ones that happen to get action, or a combination. This improves the chances that he'll still have chips when you pick up a big hand.

Stop limping with stuff you normally would limp with. Just fold AJ and worse, and push with AQ+ and TT+. If you want, make it only 600 or so with AA/KK/QQ and get the rest in no matter what. If you get the chance to limp behind him with a "bust'em" hand like Axs, do it, and then look to make 2 pair or better.

Put this game on autopilot, and start focusing on another game, as long as you're paying enough attention to see if he's now only doing this occasionally (which would mean he's doing it with monsters). If you do it this way, you'll eventually peel 1000 off him with the best hand.

When you pushed with AK and ran into JJ, it was an unfortunate coincidence, but no harm done, of course. Don't get suckered into calling 150 with 77 and then deciding that you probably have the best hand on a 9 6 4 flop. You don't need to gamble with this guy. Of course, if you get 2000 in front of you, then you'll want to call 100-150 with 77 for set value, if he's following up with big bets. You're going to lose some blinds waiting for a big hand, but just your equity vs. his open-raise amount will generally recover all of them, not to mention if he calls your reraise.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's about what I figured, it's just annoying to constantly be throwing away hands because of absurd action on his part. Something in me refuses to put 10 BBs on the table with 77 as well. I guess limp-reraise allin with AQ, TT-AA is really the best answer.

I actually won the JJ vs. AK confrontation, but I wasn't happy about the situation. It seemed like he had the whip hand if my only countermove to his ridiculous preflop raises was to flip a coin for my stack.

He did start muttering strange things into the chat window after the hand was over, so I guess there's that. Obviously I got HIM rattled with that move, which was the idea.

I suppose eventually I would've gotten a big pair and had a nice edge, but it just didn't happen for the time while he was at the table. After losing a stack to me, he rebought, pushed around some of the other guys at the table until he got up to a double-sized stack, then hightailed it for higher stakes.

[ObnxNole]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi creed,

This is a great situation. For this guy to run his chips up to 2000 probably means others are adjusting badly, or he's getting lucky and his best hands are the ones that happen to get action, or a combination. This improves the chances that he'll still have chips when you pick up a big hand.

Stop limping with stuff you normally would limp with. Just fold AJ and worse, and push with AQ+ and TT+. If you want, make it only 600 or so with AA/KK/QQ and get the rest in no matter what. If you get the chance to limp behind him with a "bust'em" hand like Axs, do it, and then look to make 2 pair or better.

Put this game on autopilot, and start focusing on another game, as long as you're paying enough attention to see if he's now only doing this occasionally (which would mean he's doing it with monsters). If you do it this way, you'll eventually peel 1000 off him with the best hand.

When you pushed with AK and ran into JJ, it was an unfortunate coincidence, but no harm done, of course. Don't get suckered into calling 150 with 77 and then deciding that you probably have the best hand on a 9 6 4 flop. You don't need to gamble with this guy. Of course, if you get 2000 in front of you, then you'll want to call 100-150 with 77 for set value, if he's following up with big bets. You're going to lose some blinds waiting for a big hand, but just your equity vs. his open-raise amount will generally recover all of them, not to mention if he calls your reraise.

[/ QUOTE ]
Very well put, sir. Nice hand