€100+10 NL HE MTT: Can you fold 77 to a maniac?

[primrose]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

MTT

Buy-in

100+10

Currency

€

In this hand (10-handed table, 50/100 blinds, 5250 chip stack), I have UTG+2. I open to 250. UTG+3 and LJ flat. The Big Blind who is also the chipleader 3bets to 1250.

The Big Blind was obsecenely aggressive, probably the most aggressive player I've ever seen a this tournament. Probably the first one I'd call a maniac rather than just a LAG. That's also why I didn't want to fold, which would be my default play.

In retrospect, I could have just gone all-in here, but I decide to flat, I have position after all. UTG+3 and LJ get out the way, so I got a really good price.

Flop comes (Pot=3050). Villain checks.

I'm a little surprised about this check. Is he trapping or did he get cold feet? Or does he just want to gauge my strength? I decide to check behind.

Turn is the (Pot=3050). Villain bets 2200. I only have 4000 chips behind so this is all-in or nothing.

Decision:

Spoiler

jam

Reveal in case I all-ined and he called:

Spoiler

He did call, he had .

Thoughts:

Spoiler

In retrospect, I think the check on the Flop probably meant strength. But I'm only saying this now that I've seen this player in more hands and noticed a little bit of a pattern of betting less when he had it. I don't think I could have known this at the time, or at least I don't know how. So I don't know how I could have folded with only one broadway on the board, and the third highest one at that -- he should have missed this board more than half the time. The only decision point I don't like for me is preflop; I think an all-in here had a lot of merit. Folding is definitely wrong since I in fact had a better hand then he had, and I got a great price. What do you think, could you have found a fold on the Turn?

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
I think, this is a push or fold spot. 77 does not play well with a low SPR, and you also have two other players left to act behind you. And even if he is a maniac, can we not find a better spot than going all-in for 50BB with 77? It feels pretty marginal.

Flop
Its an awkward spot, but I lean towards a small bet like 1k chips. If he check-raise, I am getting it in.

Turn
As played I think, you need to get it in now. Other than flopping a set the board does not get much better than this for 77 with only one overcard, which is not the A or K. Yeah you also lose to a 4 now, but that would pretty much only be A4s, unless he is totally out of line. And if he can have K4, he can also have K5 or K3 and be bluffing etc.

Reveal
I still think, the real decision point was preflop. Only calling usually just delay a difficult decision to later. And him turning over KQo does not mean, you were ahead of his range. KQo is part of a top 10% of hands range, against which you only have 42% equity, so folding is totally fine. Its not like, he showed up with something completely out of line like Q5s or Q9o.

 

[primrose]

Reveal
I still think, the real decision point was preflop. Only calling usually just delay a difficult decision to later. And him turning over KQo does not mean, you were ahead of his range. KQo is part of a top 10% of hands range, against which you only have 42% equity, so folding is totally fine. Its not like, he showed up with something completely out of line like Q5s or Q9o.

Bolded: agreed, I didn't have the awareness to consider pushing preflop, I treated it as call/fold, but that's a mistake (separate to whether you fold or not).

Italics: That's true -- however, it also doesn't mean I was behind his range. It's not like if he shows KQo then his range is KQo+, it could still be JTo+. But it is true that in both hands, he ended up with stronger holdings than I expected. Maybe he was not quite as wide as I've pinged him as preflop, and he just had an unusually high number of good hands in addition to being pretty wide. It's difficult because if someone is this aggressive you must adjust even based on a small number of hands, but it's not clear how much you adjust because the sample could be skewed.

There was another hand against him where I 3bet AKo and he 4bet and I folded (this was before this one) because I thought that even though he's aggressive, it's not enough of a reason to call; 4bets are almost always the nuts. So there I made the opposite call, and idk if that was correct either.