approaches against a total maniac

Last night, we had the most ridiculous type of maniac at the table. He raised and re-raised every hand pre-flop and on the flop. He would sometimes slow down on the last two streets, sometimes not. Every pot was huge. To give you an idea of what he was betting, he raised all the way to the river with 10-6 offsuit on a board without a 10, 6, or
straight draw on it. I guess he thought he was bluffing.

Of course, as is often the case, he had some wicked suckouts. He had Q2 against a player with 5-5, the flop was J54, the turn was an ace, and the river was a 3. And he bet and raised all the way down with that hand.

There's a couple of philosophies for playing a guy like this. First, you can put him on his actual range-- say AA-22, Ax, Kx, Jx, Tx, 9x, and play him whenever you have cards that crush his range. This can work, but there are two problems. First of all, be prepared for a heck of a lot of variance and make sure you are properly rolled. The maniac will suck out on you sometimes, and you will have no idea when you are betting later streets whether you are ahead or behind.

Second, you need to pay close attention to what the OTHER players are doing at the table. Are they playing marginal hands to get into big pots with the maniacs. Are they playing like nits? We know the maniac is going to raise and re-raise, but are the other players raising back at him? Calling? And with what? What can often happen is that you get into a hand with the maniac and one of the other players, the maniac builds the pot with nothing, and the other player takes down the pot with a good hand. You were so focused on what the maniac was doing that you didn't get a good read on the other Villain.

The other approach to playing a maniac is to simply play very nitty and wait until you have a great hand to crush him. This is what I did last night, because 3 or 4 other players were trying to play the maniac every hand. In my case, the strategy succeeded, I raised up the pot with pocket queens, hit a set of queens on a flop, and a boat on the turn, and watched gleefully as this guy put more and more money into the pot before finally getting the point that a tight player was re-raising him.

The problems with this approach are you can still get sucked out on, and it will hurt even worse (e.g., the Q-2 vs set of 5's hand above), and you may not get that many chances to take on the maniac before his bankroll was busted (or, in the case of the guy last night, he got so drunk and lost so much money that he started being abusive to the casino staff and got kicked out of the joint). I've been in situations where everyone else got the maniac's money and I never got any hands that were worth playing against him. Not the end of the world, but it sure feels terrible when it happens.

there isn't really much you can do against a maniac except loosen up and be prepared for a variancefest.

that, or leave.

with this in mind, maniacs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nits imo. the game is instantly good.

Figure out how he plays when the big money hits the table.

Play back at him and loosen up the ranges you're willing to commit with a bit. Have plenty of money and accept that some days he'll get the best of you.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Figure out how he plays when the big money hits the table.

You are right about this. The maniac from last night was a "loose-aggressive-aggressive". In other words, he just kept on raising his bad hands as bluffs or chases all the way down to the river.

But probably the more common maniac that I see is the "loose-aggressive-passive", who simply loves raising pre-flop (probably because he's read so many poker books that talk about the value of aggression), builds big pots, but will get out of the way if you represent a big hand post flop.

My post was really about the first type of maniac. You can't bluff him. The second type of maniac, you want to try to isolate against him and represent big hands.

It's a wild ride with these guys, but I haven't had many sessions where I actually lost money with a guy like this at the table. I still cringe a little getting it AI with mid-pair or even TPWK, but against these players it's +EV.