Pot Limit Omaha Poker Forums

Do you change your play deep with AA against a maniac, or do you just shovel it in?

The villain's playing 87/50 over 8 hands. He's potting all the time and winning most hands without showdown.

I looked back in the history and noted that his first hand was the only non-maniac hand he played, so I missed it at the time. He had AKQ2ds in the SB, didn't raise pf, flopped KQ with the nfd and a backdoor fd, and slowplayed it 5 way including min betting when the flush hit. His play is a disaster.

$0.50/$1 Pot Limit Omaha Hi, 5 Players
Hero (UTG) ($281.38)
CO ($188.14)
BTN ($286.50)
SB ($300)
BB ($314.09)

Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is UTG 8 A J A
Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BTN calls $3.50, SB raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $34.50, BTN folds, SB calls $24.50

Flop: 3 10 2 ($73, 2 players)
SB bets $36.75, Hero calls $36.75

Turn: K ($146.50, 2 players)
SB bets $147, Hero goes all-in $210.13, SB calls $63.13

I was way outside of my known territory with this hand. The 4 bet preflop, for instance, though it's a clear value raise against his range, it's still only 10% of my stack. Is raising worth the (large) value if I give away my hand? Once the flop comes T32r, do you at that point decide that you are playing for stacks, even though you the psr is like 4 and you have over 200bb behind?

looks fine to me, the only hand i fear on the turn is KQJT style hands.

If you plan on getting it in here I think raising the flop is better. Even his air range probably has somewhat decent equity. I think that generally I'd rather shut the hand down and not let him realize his equity unless you think he is willing to make that PSB on the turn with like...total air/top pair+kickers. I don't think you really can know that yet though.

Also the fact that you think this guy is a maniac seems like a thin read when you only have 8 hands on him. I generally consider myself a tight player but there have been times over 8 hand samples where I play 100/100 and there are times when I will be 0/0. I'm really not thrilled with the read you provide here. I think long term you are making a serious -EV decision to brand someone as a maniac after 8 hands.

Whether or not he's a maniac is the heart of the question. Now I don't know how many hands I need for a solid read, but nonetheless I have to play this hand, and I can't put in 100bb then fold to aggression against someone who even might be a maniac. Not on a T32r board. So how can you play it while protecting yourself?

Anyway, it's not just his preflop 87/50 that makes him a maniac. Putting away the HUD for a minute, I've seem him fold once in 8 hands. Every other time he's potting or he's got a monster. You tend to notice that pretty quick. If you consider 20% of hands playable, getting an 8th in a row is (1/5)^7 probability, or 1/10000. Getting 7/8 in a row is then about (1/5)^6 * (.8)^1 * (7 choose 1), or about 3/10000. Being able to pot every one to showdown lowers it further. Possible yes, but against an unknown, probably he's overplaying his hand.


So raising the flop is reasonable and I don't know why I didn't do it. What do you do if he comes over the top? It just felt right to me to call -- like no way I can fold to a 1/2 pot donk. Perhaps raising lets him know too early in the hand that I'm not folding?

If he comes over the top I just get it in since the pot has gotten large and there shouldn't be too many sets in his range which are really the only things that have us crushed with only 30BB left behind. We've got our 30% equity vs his weird 2 pair hands and I think he can have some pair+draws that we are flipping with. He shouldn't really have too many sets in his range. Mostly though I don't want him to see 5 cards with his hand or pick up a draw on the turn that lets him ship in his stack when we could've had fold equity earlier.

Raise/shove the flop for value; you got >60% vs TP+kickers, and this is by far the largest part of his range when SPR is about 3.