Hi guys, yesterday TerrorBlade couldn't do the coaching, so I took it from him. After like 25 minutes the coaching player screwed up, but that was solved after a few minutes aswell 
We didn't get a lot of interesting hands, we didn't get a lot of good hands anyway, but there is 1 hand I'd like to review.
Party Poker $0.25/$0.50 Limit Hold'em - 10 players
Pre Flop: (1.4 SB) Hero is BTN with 9♠ 9♣
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 5 folds, Hero raises, 1 fold, BB calls, UTG+1 calls
As you can see there is 1 limper on UTG+1, we have 99 which is definitely a strong enough hand to raise with. So we raise and the BB and UTG+1 both call.
Flop: (6.4 SB) 7♠ 9♦ K♣ (3 players)
BB bets, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls
The flop is superdry, only a few gutshots and an OESD with T8 or 86 is possible, but those are not too likely. We see that BB donks on the flop and UTG+1 folds. Now it's up to us what to do, we have a set which is a monster ofcourse on this board. Now that we are headsup we have to decide between raising the flop directly, or waiting for the turn and then raise. In order to make the right decision we should think which range of hands he will donk here. For me personally a donk means that he doesn't have a monster, he could have anything else, whether it is 33 for underpair or QJ for a gutshot. We have no reads on our opponent, so we don't know that if we raise him and he has a K whether he will 3-bet or not. Because the most players on this limit are pretty passive I think it's better to just call the flop and then raise his turnbet. If he donks the flop with a 7, a gutshot or some other mediocre hand he will probably bet the turn again, hoping that we will fold. Because we are pretty certrain that he will bet the turn again we will win 1 SB more with a turnraise than we would have won when we raise the flop directly. An additional reason to wait for the turn here is that if he has a complete bluff like 54s he will fold to a flopraise directly, so we only win 1SB, but if we wait for the turn we will win 1SB+1BB.
Turn: (4.2 BB) 4♥ (2 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, BB 3-bets, Hero caps!, BB calls
A very very good card comes on the turn, no draws complete, only 65 now has a draw, but that hand is very unlikely. So we can be pretty sure to have the best hand. Our opponent bets into us as we expected, so we have an easy raise. After he 3-bets this cap is pretty standard aswell, he could see our flopcall as weakness and might think his K or 2 pair are good if he is a maniac.
River: (12.2 BB) 2♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB raises, Hero 3-bets, BB calls
The perfect river card, we have the 2nd nuts and because of the preflop action KK is very very unlikely. Our opponent checks to us and we ofcourse make a bet. To my surprise he check/raises on the river, which is basically the strongest move somebody can make. Now we have to think, does he really have KK or could he just be overplaying another hand? Even though his move is very strong I think we have a value 3-bet here, KK has to be heavily discounted and he could also play another hand the same way, maybe he is on tilt and just plays this with a weak hand or whatever. Another good reason to 3-bet this is that if the situation were reverse, and he had 99 and we had KK the same thing would happen, the river would get capped aswell, so we basically don't lose any money in this spot, because if the situation were vice versa we'd win the same amount as we lose now.
Final Pot: 18.2 BB
Hero shows 9♠ 9♣ (three of a kind, Nines)
BB shows K♠ T♠ (a pair of Kings)
Hero wins 17.3 BB
(Rake: $0.45)
And he shows KT for a pair of kings, he actually showed them and didn't muck.. Probably thinking lolz top pair i have the nuts1!!
A question I promised I'd come back on was about isolating a maniac. This is actually more advanced play, and if you are not 100% confident about your own game, playing against a maniac in general or you are afraid that you can't handle the big variance I recommend you just play like you would usually do, which means only 3-bet him with a very strong range of hands.
Say, for example, we are sitting right behind a maniac who has stats of 90/90/5 and almost never folds postflop. He will raise 90% of his range from any position. Because we have position on him we want to play a lot of hands headsup against him, he will make huge mistakes postflop which we will benefit from.
Let's start with preflop, we are on the BU and our maniac is on the CO, he openraises there, and we have to think about 3-betting him ofcourse to kick the blinds out and play headsup against him. Against this player you want to see the showdown fairly often because he will just bluff no matter what and most pots will be reasonably large, and folding the best hand there is a pretty big mistake. Because we want to see the showdown often we don't really like hands like 98s, because they have no showdown value, even against a player like this. Even with 98s we might fold the best hand sometimes, but there is just no way we can see a showdown with 9 high. Also against his 90% range 98s is an underdog,
Equity Win Tie Loss Hand
Player 1: 51,575 % 49,651 % 3,848 % 46,501 % 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 82s+, 72s+, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A2o+, K2o+, Q2o+, J2o+, T2o+, 92o+, 85o+, 74o+, 64o+, 54o
Player 2: 48,425 % 46,501 % 3,848 % 49,651 % 98s
Implied odds are not big enough because we play headsup, we won't hit a straight or a flush that often, and with a pair we won't win every time. Usually we play hands like 98s for a big part because of their semibluffing equity, so if we flop a strong draw we can semibluff and make better hands fold, against a maniac there is no fold equity, so there is no value in semibluffing and hoping he will fold.
But when we have A3o, we do want to 3-bet him preflop because we can see the showdown quite often with A high, so even if we don't hit our hand is strong enough to see the showdown against somebody who just bluffs on every street. Those calldowns depend quite a lot on the board though, just fill in a few board in equilator and see how well your hand does against his range. Preflop A3o might look like a worse hand than 98s, but in fact we are ahead against his range, which is basically just because we have A high that will be good at the showdown a fair amount of the time.
Equity Win Tie Loss Hand
Player 1: 45,501 % 43,346 % 4,310 % 52,344 % 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 82s+, 72s+, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A2o+, K2o+, Q2o+, J2o+, T2o+, 92o+, 85o+, 74o+, 64o+, 54o
Player 2: 54,499 % 52,344 % 4,310 % 43,346 % A3o
Now on to postflop. Playing postflop against a maniac is pretty difficult, you will have to fold the best hand pretty often and you don't have any fold equity. But be aware, sometimes players are maniacs preflop, but then they play pretty well postflop, actually folding bad hands and just playing strong with good hands. A lot of players don't see this and just blindly assume, o he's a maniac postflop, I have 2nd pair let's cap every street. As you might feel this is a big mistake, and you should always pay attention to the postflop play of the maniac, if he really plays like a maniac you can play your mediocre hands very strong, but if he doesn't play like 1 watch out that you don't put in too much action with those hands.
On the flop you get the most information, so this is basically the point where you decide what to do with your hand, if the board is scary and hits his range hard you can think about folding, maybe not on the flop but if a bad card on the turn hits. But don't fold too often, in general you need like 35% equity for a calldown if the pot is capped preflop (which it most likely will be), so equilate a few boards and see how well your hand does. Don't be afraid to put in raises with middle pair either, you will be ahead a lot of the time, and a 3-bet doesn't have to mean that you are behind.
A thing you should definitely NOT do is trying to play even more loose and agressive than the maniac by just 3-betting any2 and raising every hand postflop. Most of the time you will end up losing a lot of money, just stick to the strategy "tight is right". When you always get your money in ahead, no matter how much he sucks out, you will win in the end.
Hmm, quite a long story but I hope it explains the topic of how to play against a maniac a bit better Keep in mind that this is advanced strategy and you shouldn't use it if you think your game isn't good enough.
Cya next time!
I chalked this one off to my usual luck I get at poker, there's no other way you can profitably play the hand in my opinion. This adding to the "folding fh" tilt I got even further tilted, but at least I wasn't playing 2/4 like I will be in tomorrows coaching ♠
