AK86ss - 350bb deep, 2nd nuts vs maniac.

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AK86ss - 350bb deep, 2nd nuts vs maniac.

Blinds: $0.25/$0.50 (5 Players) BB: $186.30
UTG: $250.40 (Hero)
CO: $91.90
BN: $187.05
SB: $110.89
Villain playing 97/37/30 over 200 hands. Although by definition not applicable, note that he was raising and c/r cbets around 30%. In general also aggressive, but did not braindead dump chips into the pot.
Preflop ($0.75) Hero is UTG with A K 6 8
Hero raises to $1.75, 3 folds, BB raises to $5.50, Hero calls $3.75
I think theres nothing to discuss here. Folding out of the question. 4betting seems too light for me.
Flop ($11.25) 5 6 9
BB checks, Hero bets $5.67, BB calls $5.67
I think this hand should be check backed here, because hes very capable of c/r me. which is not the end of the world with this hand, but still not good. Also the hand is really not that great. Yeah i have an 8 and a BDFD, but other than that its way low in my range.
Turn ($22.59) 5 6 9 7
BB checks, Hero bets $16.95, BB raises to $72.31

Turn:

Heres where iam lost and why i hate playing against maniacs. credit to all of them out there :D

first of all i really dont like my betsizing. Its too big i think. He will fold too much of the weak part of his range. maybe i should bet something like 12$.

Secondly: If this was 100bb effective, i wouldnt post this hand, bc i snapcall his jam, but at these stacksizes would you ever consider checking back here? This is exactly why i have so much trouble playing against them. In theory i should value bet second nuts here, but getting c/r reaaaally sucks with this hand, bc its the second nuts with NO way of improving.

What options do i have? Some of you might consider jamming over his c/r and although hes a maniac, my impression of him definitly wasnt that hes totally braindead calling off with a trash hand. I could imagine him c/r him any Set, maybe wrap+Twopair, any combodraw, any straight.

What do you think i should do here?

4 Comments

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devwil 5 years, 8 months ago

Preflop is looser than you think it is. AK86 with three of a suit is okay hot/cold but PPT ranks it top 23% which is honestly on the loose side for UTG, to the point that it's fairly likely to be a losing VPIP if your PLO50 rake is as steep as the PLO50 rake I'm subjected to. Even in a no-rake environment, it might be an open fold.

Also, suited aces are the single most overrated hand in PLO in my experience. Once I started folding the weaker ones (of which this is one), I paid way less rake and made way more money. 3flush boards are often action killers except against exceptionally bad or exceptionally good players, so playing mostly for a nut flush is a fool's errand. Plus, when you have AxKx you can't get called by the second nut flush. So your implied odds fall dramatically.

Anyway: I hate calling the 3bet even if you maybe have to mathematically. Villain, even for their wide range, can have us dominated pretty easily. Our hand just isn't that good. It rarely flops smooth and we have our own diamond out.

I'm not betting the flop, at least not for half-pot as UTG PFR (albeit with a capped range). We're not supposed to have much and we barely have anything and our blockers are so-so. I prefer an even smaller bet if we bet at all.

IP with almost no redraw, OTT I think there's merit to checking. Against this villain we can win a bet from worse on the river pretty often. Against a more passive player, I do think it's a pretty easy value bet. Even here, I don't hate the bet, but the high SPR, our precarious standing (no redraw hardly at all), and villain's tendencies could be reasons to check back.

But let me return to my original point: this board is way easier to navigate if your starting hand isn't so disconnected. If memory serves, we shouldn't be opening as wide as 23% UTG, which—as I said—is where this hand ranks hot/cold.

Outside of pure hot/cold equity, PLO starting hand selection is—to a large extent—about navigability on postflop streets as texture changes (sometimes dramatically). The texture of this board didn't change dramatically, but we ended up in a low-visibility situation due to the uncoordinated quality of the ranks of our cards.

You'll be in situations like this far less often by being more selective preflop.

Muehlenzwick 5 years, 8 months ago

i appreciate your in detail reply and realize i shouldve elaborated a bit more on the preflop dynamic. Your definitly right in terms of opening AK86ss. Im not opening this hand under regular circumstances. However, in this specific case there were a few things coming together.

  • we were only 5 handed
  • CO a huge nit/playing very straight forward
  • BU Loose/passive guy like 44/9/3, so im not at all concerned.
  • SB is a straight forward TAG to which im in position with 200bb
  • and obv biggest factor in position the huge maniac (villain) with 360bb in the BB

I am by no means thrilled to open this hand UTG, but it will be veeery difficult to convince me not to open this hand under said circumstances.

regarding OTF and OTT:

IP with almost no redraw, OTT I think there's merit to checking. Against this villain we can win a bet from worse on the river pretty often. Against a more passive player, I do think it's a pretty easy value bet. Even here, I don't hate the bet, but the high SPR, our precarious standing (no redraw hardly at all), and villain's tendencies could be reasons to check back.
Blockquote

wholeheartedly agree here. could not have said it any better. Do you mind sharing your opinion on the decision what to do against the c/r as played here? devwil

devwil 5 years, 8 months ago

Muehlenzwick I don't follow your reasoning for opening looser UTG given the table dynamics. To the best of my knowledge, you really only loosen up preflop when you can get away with it without resistance: i.e. your opponents are too tight. BTN (loose, who has position on you) and BB (who is liable to 3bet you) disqualify this condition pretty hard.

Re: as-played OTT... I think the easy option to rule out is raising: I don't feel like we can get a call from worse and we're value-eviscerating ourselves way too often. Between folding and calling... I'm just not sure that villain is raising with worse often enough for us to call. This board combined with villain's x/c, x/r line is just going to be underbluffed (imo), even for this player. With our lack of redraws and non-nut straight, we're almost kind of bluffcatching here. And I just don't know that villain has enough silliness to justify a call, but I'm honestly not sure.

And I do want to reiterate that this headache was caused by the preflop looseness.

God_of_War 5 years, 8 months ago

Ouch, bad things often start preflop. I heard that very often and this is a good example for it. AK86 with 3 suits is clearly not an openraise from utg, if you want to get in as many hands as possible against that donk you can also limp, otherwise just fold. you dont win much by copying his style and loose up that much. That hand is clearly not suited for 3bp SPR's with only 1 nut component, it is bad to call against 3-bet as devwil said and has alltogether a bad overall performance.

The flop bet is a second big mistake, when you know villain is likely to check-raise why you bluff? You would have to fold or even worse, I dont know if you were considering it, to get it in with a bare midpair to play for stacks, where you willl be NEVER ahead (being ahead is not possible cause you dont flop air that often and even the dumbest fish dont get stacks in with nopair no draw). The 8 blocker is worthless with that wide stack-off ranges. The flop is the most important street, so this is indeed the end of the world.

Your hand has good SDV on lots of rivers and is way ahead way behind, no reason to bet here (no value from worse, on this 4-connected cards board pairs and 2pairs aint catch up, set are barely existent so the main hands beside straightdraws you would need protection are ouuta window, no foldequity against better that probably stack off now).

Turn is more difficult but I guess I would fold it. I'm not interested in finding out if he has the nuts there cause with the more tight c-bet range he still might not bluff for stacks, many player dont do that when deep-stacks can go in. You would need stats like Check-raise, AFq% and AF for the river on a bigger sample.

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