Playing against a MANIAC

[TomBrooks]

I was just thinking.....if you always folded a hand from the SB, your loss with that hand from that position would be .5BB/hand.

So if you play it and it is a loser, but it's average loss winds up less than .5BB/hand, you would be making money by completing with it, or more specifically, you would be losing less with it than if you always folded it.

Is that correct?

[Paxosmotic]

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I was just thinking.....if you always folded a hand from the SB, your loss with that hand from that position would be .5BB/hand.

So if you play it and it is a loser, but it's average loss winds up less than .5BB/hand, you would be making money by completing with it, or more specifically, you would be losing less with it than if you always folded it.

Is that correct?

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Now you're on the ticket. Profitable is relative.

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Hi gr,

Check your SB Position stats for AXo in the SB.

I started a thread about A9o in the SB about 4 months ago, and when I looked into it more, I found out A9o was a marginal complete. Most responders agreed. I took a look but can't find the thread. I continued completing with A9o-A7o for a while after that but kept an eye on them, and eventually decided they were all -EV.

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A2o -0.25bb/hand break even

A3o -0.63bb/hand bad

A4o -0.33BB/hand not AS bad

A5o -.50BB/hand bad

A6o -.17BB/hand better than folding

A7o -0.05BB/hand even better

A8o +0.20BB/hand alright

A9o +0.67BB/hand now we're talkin

ATo 0.00BB/hand weird

Now that you mention this I remember looking at these a couple of months ago and actually stopped playing A5o and below from the SB. Somewhere along the line that slipped my mind so I thank you for reminding me. I'll be knocking off those completes from now on.

I still defend my choice of calling the A6o in this hand though. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Your choice of just calling the A6o in this hand is horrible, and I don't care how much you defend it. The pot is not heads up against the maniac, the pot is multiway. What possible card are you hoping to hit? An ace and get out kicked? Trip sixes? You need to either raise to isolate the maniac (if your read on the limpers show they are not all-out calling stations) or fold and save your money.

If you are this hard headed about taking advice (from four people, not just me), I hope to play against you some time. I like money.

[MATT111]

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TURN CALL: Good with 9 nine outs in this now inflated pot.



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It`s 7 to be very optimistic.

[jrz1972]

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I was just thinking.....if you always folded a hand from the SB, your loss with that hand from that position would be .5BB/hand.

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Sorry to be a nit, but it would be .25 BB/hand.

Any hand that does better than (0.25) in the SB is a "winner" relative to folding.

[jrz1972]

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You can't count my preflop call in this hand as calling a raise because the villain was raising EVERY hand.

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What does that tell you about the two guys who limped in in front of the maniac, knowing full well that they were about to get raised?

[SCfuji]

i like doing this on the turned King rather than the harmless river three.

[grjr]

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I was just thinking.....if you always folded a hand from the SB, your loss with that hand from that position would be .5BB/hand.

So if you play it and it is a loser, but it's average loss winds up less than .5BB/hand, you would be making money by completing with it, or more specifically, you would be losing less with it than if you always folded it.

Is that correct?

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Like JRZ said if you fold every hand in the SB you lose .25BB/hand which is why I labeled A2o as "break even". Every hand you fold from the BB costs you .50BB/hand which is why I don't mind calling a single raise with some marginal stuff.

[grjr]

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Hi gr,

Check your SB Position stats for AXo in the SB.

I started a thread about A9o in the SB about 4 months ago, and when I looked into it more, I found out A9o was a marginal complete. Most responders agreed. I took a look but can't find the thread. I continued completing with A9o-A7o for a while after that but kept an eye on them, and eventually decided they were all -EV.

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A2o -0.25bb/hand break even

A3o -0.63bb/hand bad

A4o -0.33BB/hand not AS bad

A5o -.50BB/hand bad

A6o -.17BB/hand better than folding

A7o -0.05BB/hand even better

A8o +0.20BB/hand alright

A9o +0.67BB/hand now we're talkin

ATo 0.00BB/hand weird

Now that you mention this I remember looking at these a couple of months ago and actually stopped playing A5o and below from the SB. Somewhere along the line that slipped my mind so I thank you for reminding me. I'll be knocking off those completes from now on.

I still defend my choice of calling the A6o in this hand though. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Your choice of just calling the A6o in this hand is horrible, and I don't care how much you defend it. The pot is not heads up against the maniac, the pot is multiway. What possible card are you hoping to hit? An ace and get out kicked? Trip sixes? You need to either raise to isolate the maniac (if your read on the limpers show they are not all-out calling stations) or fold and save your money.

If you are this hard headed about taking advice (from four people, not just me), I hope to play against you some time. I like money.

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Dude, it's just 50 cents. It's not like I make a habit out of calling raises in the BB with A6o (I don't). This was a special situation. If you wouldn't call here that's fine but don't act like I'm some donk for doing it.

Maybe your thinking is a little skewed since this time the Maniac happened to have A9s. If I had known that, then no, I wouldn't have called. The thing is, the Maniac's hand is just a random hand preflop and A6o is good against a random hand. The other two players just limped in so I doubt they have a powerhouse hand and since I'm the BB there's no one behind me we haven't heard from yet.

As far as the other players a raise preflop is not going to get them to fold (it would just bloat the pot) so I waited to see if I hit any part of the flop. I did hit part of the flop so I raised to try and fold the others. Folded one and got one caller.

Now we come to the turn. If I don't improve I'm done with the hand. Luckily I hit a card that gave me some extra outs so I'll call one more to see the river.

On the river the 3 doesn't help me but it probably doesn't help anyone else either. Mp2 checks and Maniac bets and now I have 2 choices, fold or raise. If I fold I'm definately not winning. If I raise you have to think how that looks from MP2's position. He has to call 2 BB's with probably an underpair and for all he knows I hit a set on the river or slowed played the straight from the turn. Why would I raise if I couldn't beat top pair?

In my original post I said y'all can debate my play up to the river but I didn't say I would necessarily agree with 4 posters (!) who think the preflop call was "horrible". Fact is, I didn't post the hand for advice. I posted it to show a concept that hasn't been discussed much here. Try not to get too caught up in a 50 cent nit and miss the point of the whole thread.

Final added thought: I you want to talk "horrible" then go back through the thread and see how many people said to just call on the river. That, to me, is "horrible" in this particular situation.