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.
