Getting All In With Ace-High on Flop Versus a Maniac
This week's hand comes from a $2,000 side event I recently played at a World Poker Tour stop.
The blinds were 200/400 with a 50 ante. We'd begun with 15,000 chips, and hadn't started so well as I was down to a bit less than half a starting stack with about 7,000.
It folded to me in the hijack seat where I'd been dealt A?J?, and I raised to 900. A very loose-aggressive guy �� a maniac, really �� with about 20,000 behind called from the button and the two of us watched the flop come 9?6?2?.
I'd missed the flop, but the chances were decent that my opponent had as well. What should I do here? How should I play ace-high on the flop versus a blatant maniac?
This is a difficult spot because ace-high is rarely an amazing hand, but versus an incredibly wide range, it could certainly be good.
As the headline suggests, I did ultimately get the rest of my stack in on this flop versus my opponent, although not all at once and not without a couple of decisions along the way.
Take a look at how we got it in on the flop, and see what happened when we did:
How would you approach this situation? How do you feel when your opponent sucks out on you?
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,300,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
