[Closed] NL20 SH ATs vs maniac IP preflop play

I would say nearly always raise-broke with ATs against this guy. For 100 BBs I would still consider raise-broke, though I would look closely at 3bet / 4bet frequency and what he has gone broke with so far (202 hands should give you something to look at).

You should 3bet as a value bet in this spot, as well as to isolate to heads up. Villain's open range of 52% probably means something between 25% and 35% from UTG+1, and ATs is on the 6% line. You are way ahead and the villain is often calling the 3bet to try and take the pot away on later streets.

You are way ahead and the villain is often calling the 3bet to try and take the pot away on later streets.

And thats the problem - flop is 742 and he donkbets, or raises and does all the things he can to take the pot. And if I don't hit, its hard to play, hard to know where I am at. We can call once because our hand has showdown value against his donk bet, but what about other streets? He is bluffing so often on them.

Definitely, the LAG come maniac's edge is from the marginal spots he can force you into postflop. As you said his small stack makes the play easier - bet-broke I think, even if he just calls and the flop comes 742 - but if you 3bet then fold any hand that doesn't hit on boards like that, then for sure you should never 3bet anything that isn't JJ+ against this guy. In that case he is causing such disruption to your best game that you should probably just leave the table.

Vs a big stack villain here I would raise his donk like it never happened. Not many maniacs will continue past that point without at least a pair, not after the advertised strength of a 3bet, especially if you have a tight image.

If he calls the flop raise and checks the turn to you, bet any turn to buy a free showdown in position.

If he raises the flop raise, you'll have to make a decision based on past history. 200 hands with a maniac should give you an idea of whether he can broke with absolute air on rag flops.

Your other option of course is to just call down 3 streets, letting go if the villain shows unusual bet sizing. This would avoid isolating against the stronger part of the villain's range, but again you would want a previous read that the villain is capable of 3-streeting a hand like JQs unimproved. If you have that read, this is probably a better line to take than raising the flop donk.

Yeah, could be ok, but with those big bets its easy to loose much money I think - I mean if he calls our raise on flop and checks turn. We bet, and he does not fold, the pot becomes huge for Ace high hand.

But I think we turn our hand into a bluff and bluffing againt this opponent sucks. So maybe we can play our ace high hand like we do play top pair with other opponts, we have showdown value, so just call down until showdown - sometimes we loose, but sometimes we hit, and if we hit, try to stack off with top pair for 100 bb? What do you think?

But of course with 200 hand sample I should filter all hands where he goes to a showdown and try to see how he plays and write notes.

But I didn't ask - what will I do if I call a lets say min4bet and the flop is like 742?
- since he has there 50bb I think you can play for stacks with ATs, so if he shoves or 4-bets I´d just get all-in pf. If he is rather passive pre-flop then you can also 3-bet/fold to his shove or 4-bet.
When he min-4bets and flop comes low, you likely have to fold.

Or maybe I should just 3bet push him? Against this stack probably push is ok. But against 100bb I should 3bet/call IP.
- push is too big and likely would get called only by better hands+ SB/BB might always wake up real hand and you then loose your 100bb to them.