Best strategy against a smart maniac heads-up as the little guy? (1 Viewer)

legonick

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What's the best strategy against a smart maniac heads-up as the little guy?

A smart maniac totally ran the table last night. It worked beautifully for him...the deck hit him hard! So all his bets looked good by showdown. Some of his hands include 33, flopped a set. AhQh, didn't hit, got a 4-way chop - quite the hand actually. Ax, called a smaller all-in light, sucked out with a broadway. QQ, filled up on the flop, got a ton of value against 2 other players. He busted 6 of the 8 players! Only 1 other player busted someone.

Anyways, it gets down to 2, I'm at ~10 - 15 BB. He's super-aggressive. Basically betting anything preflop regardless of my action. I think I got 1 fold out of him on a re-raise. I mostly fold preflops because I know the flop will bring more bets. I limp in with AT on the button knowing he'll put a raise in, he obliges, I shove, he snaps it off with Q4o. Binks a 4 on the turn, GG. Even if I had won that hand it would have been a long uphill battle considering his stack size.

Is there any smart play when you are small stacked against a super-aggro maniac, aside from riding the variance by widening your range and getting it in when you have it, and betting his VERY rare weak plays (like checks)?
 
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Heads-up tournament with short stacks is "solved". The only options are all-in, fold or check.

This approach works vs any type of villain but it is GTO - there might be some villains where Hero can do better exploiting flaws in their game. Take the time to study up, the hand charts are pretty simple.

DrStrange
 
Heads-up tournament with short stacks is "solved". The only options are all-in, fold or check.

This approach works vs any type of villain but it is GTO - there might be some villains where Hero can do better exploiting flaws in their game. Take the time to study up, the hand charts are pretty simple.

DrStrange
Now I feel smart
 
Heads-up tournament with short stacks is "solved". The only options are all-in, fold or check.

This approach works vs any type of villain but it is GTO - there might be some villains where Hero can do better exploiting flaws in their game. Take the time to study up, the hand charts are pretty simple.

DrStrange

Any chart(s) you recommend studying in particular? Linky? :)
 
I use push fold charts for online tournaments. Once you get below 20bb is kind of nice to have some automatic decisions you don't have to think to hard about. Though I think the charts are just a guide as you run into two types of players in most small stakes tournaments, ones that call too light, and ones that call too tight. So deviate as you see fit for the situation.

A way I've used determine whether a specific hand is a profitable jam preflop against a single villain is to take your hand's equity against the range of hands that's only better hands and assume your opponent always calls with that range. Then figure out if your equity of the final pot (your stack + call + blinds + antes) is more than your current stack. If it is, a jam is always profitable since any more hands added to the range are hands you have more than 50% equity against.

These charts are probably similar in theory though extrapolated to even more opponents. Not sure if my way is actual GTO though, but it's probably the same starting point.

Edit: I forgot to mention, you have to weight out in the calculation since you obviously don't get called 100% of the time in general. So if their calling range is only 15% of hands, then you do:

Not called:
.85 * (stack + blinds + antes)

Called
.15 * (your equity * final pot size)

Add those two together. If more than your stack, Jam.
 
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