Pocket Aces and a beginner

[Shillx]

And if he has a weak hand, you're still probably better knocking him out on the turn or forcing him to make a big, bad call. And if he has (or turns) a strong hand, the turn card may come bad and slow you down all by itself, and you'll be happy you didn't raise the flop.

This is fatal thinking in a hand like this. This isn't like having

5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] on a J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] flop.

-or-

6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] on a K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] flop.

We know what the bad cards are in the above hands. We have no idea what the bad cards are in the AA hand (though we have an idea of what is good). Assume a king comes off on 4th street. Is that good or bad? Stove says it is bad, but not terrible. How about a queen? Stove is indifferent to that card eventhough it looks pretty scary. A nine is about the same as a queen according to PokerStove. The 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] puts us in the same place as the 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].

There are going to be a decent # of cards that we don't want to see (any K/J/9 or 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]) and still more below average cards ([img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]/Q/9/8). The problem is that we can't seperate the bad cards from the scary ones. It is much better to wait when you have a idea of what really kills your equity. In this hand we know that our equity is huge on the flop, and that we are almost always boss. Worrying that we might be behind is terrible reason to not step on the gas pedal. Good for him if he flopped three queens this time. The vast majority of the time he will have a hand that is ready to payoff all bets.

Great discussion guys! I'm still reading and rereading the above......maybe
someday in the heat of the battle I can make some of these plays. Most
of the time, I just try to make the straight up value play with no trickery.

I think that on the river, I should have made up my mind to either call it
through or check-fold before it hit......so I threw away two big bets at
the very least.

The CO had K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]! He won with a straight.
This hand has been haunting me.....I thought, How could he cap with these
cards???? But, now I think that what he was doing was waiting for his
opportunity for the maniac. The maniac 3-bet, he didn't respect the
maniacs raising standards, he hadn't seen much from me....so he saw his chance and went for it. Good play on his part........

Jim

PS: What do you guys do when there is a maniac like this on your left?????
moose47 said that he would never leave a table like this......I'm thinking
that I should only bet when I WANT it to be raised behind me? So basically
I would play the SSHE recommendations for what to do when confronted with
a raise.

[shant]

It would be better to have a seat on the maniac's left, but I wouldn't leave the table. It's better to play at a table with a maniac, just wait for an oppurtunity to switch seats.

When there is a maniac behind me who is going to raise 90% of the hands I tend to tighten up a little and not play the more speculative hands on the SSHE chart. When I get a hand that has a draw on the flop, a hand that I would usually raise to protect I tend to get passive and let the maniac do the raising since you can't protect against him and usually the rest of the table won't go away to another raise. If the draw hits or I have a monster that hits the flop I will usually c/r the maniac then push the hand hard. Generally I get more patient and hope I'm the one who catches a hand against him. The second or third time he sucks out against my monsters is about all I can stand before finding a better table.