PP NL $25 Maniac Strategy

Here's a strategy that's proved to be fairly effective for me on the Party Poker NL $25 tables. Playing tight, solid poker is a lot less risky and will probably net you more money in the long term, but I find this maniac strategy is a blast, and, the few times I've used it so far, it's been profitable.

-Join a full table and buy in for 20 or 25. A table with weak, loose, passive players is best.

-Lose the money as quickly as possible! Well, maybe not as quickly as possible, but play really loose and raise a lot of hands (i.e. any suited cards) preflop and then bet the flop just as if you hit it perfectly or have an overpair. Make sure to show down all your weak hands if you manage to buy the pot. If you happen to get good cards, then play those strong too. Also, if there are hardly any people in the hand preflop (i.e. you're in dealer position and no one called in front of you) you can make a huge raise with an atrocious hand just to advertise. You can have fun with it too, for instance typing jokes in the chatbox that correspond to your hand (i.e. typing "double down" and then raising 4 bucks with 8-3 off). If you're getting cards, it's possible to win big (and if I get up to 45-50 dollars with this strategy I start playing tight right then), but you should get cleaned out in around 15-30 mins (this bluffing strategy usually works well into you run into a couple great hands).

-After you lose the money, buy back in and start playing tight. Still do a lot of preflop raising to keep up the image that you're just raising for the hell of it (I'll start raising smaller and only on pocket pair, AK, AQ, KQ, suited face cards, Axs, and suited connectors), but check/fold unless you hit the flop hard. The other players at the table will just think you're a bad beginner and their reraising and trapping has you shook (since the better players will see your weak raises and bluffing and start reraising and trapping you), but in fact you're just waiting for big hands to win huge with. You can also make 1 or 2 well-timed bluffs w/ weak cards and show those down to reinforce that you're playing badly. You will get tons of action this way, so if you get good cards, you're pretty well assured of winning significantly. One thing you have to be really careful of is good players trapping you w/ very strong hands and then waiting for you to overplay your hand against them (They will think you're bluffing even if you're not. Raising preflop and then flopping top pair w/ AK or something similar, getting check-raised all-in, and losing all or most of your money to a set or two pair is always a risk). You're also more likely to get drawn out on as people start staying in when you bet big, but as long as you're making them pay to stay in for their draws, this is what you want to happen. If you are drawn out on, fold if someone's obviously hit their draw, and if you call, don't show down your strong cards. Above all in this second-half of the strategy: Make people think you're still playing rubbish and wait for surefire hands before putting a lot of money into the pot!

Shifting gears can be very effecitive. But the cost of your Maniac gear might be too high compared to the potential greater payoff in your tight gear. Also, many players at the $25 NL tables just aren't aware enough of the players around them. Others will hit and run, so giving them money doesn't help much either.

However, I do use a variation of this when I play. In my first few hands at a table I raise it up more and am more likely to bluff and steal pots. I do this both for table image and to get information about how the table is playing. Then I shift down gears. In one hand history I posted I was running this strat, got pocket Kings ("got *another* pair Fnord?") and I flopped the set. AK tried to trap me with his two pair and it blew up on him wonderfully.

I've seen players play like this against me. I've seen new players to a table over play and bet aggressively, in that maniac style, only to shift gears a little later, play tight, and hope that the others on the table still think they're playing very loose. Obviously, I'm not fooled, but I can see that this strategy can work... sometimes. The maniac disguise has to be followed by strong cards and strong hands. There's risk to giving away money, hoping you can make more of it back. I prefer to just make money.

Occasionally, I will make the maniac play, and show, but not commit my entire stack to that strategy.

I do totally agree that it's fun to play like that though! Raising big preflop, folding out the table, and then showing my 93o, is just hilarious!!! LOL. But that is a very rare play in my handbook, I only bust out those occasional moves to try to loosen the table up.

Anyway, if it's working for you, and profitable for you, don't change a thing... just keep thinking long-term, and if this starts trending downward, you may want to change it up again. Good luck.

I agree shifting gears can be very effective

wow, you just bumped a post from a member who obviously doesnt' even exist any more - it's almost exactly 4 years old!

I'm guessing spammer...several odd bumps w/ replies like that.