Stratagies to deal with an over-aggressive raiser in 6 handed L08

[junglebeatbill]

Last night when playing $1/2 limit at Full Tilt I was at a table with a player who continually raised, ultimately more than 50% of the time, preflop. After watching him I realized he was raising more often with junk hands, 5 8 9 Q no suits for example, and usually just calling with big suited wheel hands. Nonetheless, his raising had most of the other players scared and he was winning quite a few pots w/o showdown, and taking 1/2 with mediocre hands quite often as well. He was also talking quite a bit of smack, which seemed to compliment his raising tactic in terms of scaring the other players.

My strategy against him, which worked ok, was to wait for good starting hands and pound him with raises. However, I always read that the difference in starting hands in Omaha is quite small, so I wonder if this is optimal? Is it better to let him in with his crap (which usually equates to just cold calling his PF raises)?

I'd love to read peoples' various strategies for dealing with an over aggressive player who isn't a total fish (because this guy clearly wasn't, he had a method to his madness, even if it was a bit fuzzy).

[WMB]

This player may very well be an excellent player despite the laggy preflop play. If he plays well on the flop and beyond and has a good read on his opponents, I'm not surprised he did well in the game(although more info is needed to determine whether he was riding the high road of variance or not).

regarding your strategy, you're better off calling with your better low and combo hands and letting others in. A24Q will win more letting others in. If you have position on him, you can 3-bet with hands like AA3x or AA56 if you're sure you can isolate. What you really need to do though is play him hard from the flop on when you have something. if its 3 or 4 way, you need to judge your hand against the others as well, but sometimes you may need to play aggressively with mediocre 2-way hands. my guess is that is what he was doing, raising on the flop and/or turn, knocking out slightly better highs or lows and getting half the pot.

[TMTTR]

If he is the player I have seen at these tables, he is not very good after the flop. He will c-bet until someone else shows strength -- at the point he will (a) reraise -- if he has hit the board hard, (b) fold -- if he has missed the board completely, or (c) call -- if he thinks he has a chance of taking any part of the flop.

These type of players have tremendous swings up and down. He is frequently scooped but also wins big pots when he lucks into a real premium hand. As recommended above, I would play your strong drawing hands (A24Qs) to bring in other players. Call his preflop raise and build the pot. Reraise preflop to isolate him when you have position and a good heads up hand.

If you flop a monster, consider slow playing it because the crazy lag will likely bet it for you. If you flop well but vulnerable, raise or check-raise to get rid of the competition. Most important, if the flop is bad for you, get away. It could be bad for the lag as well, but save the fight for the pots you are sure to win.

Edit: If you can play well against him, he can help you a lot. He will often get more conservative players to lay down their hand OR call down inappropriately. By letting him bet your hands for you, you can build some nice pots. Again, the key is to get away from hands where you are weak and just calling him down because you don't want to give in to the bully.

[GreenIsland]

I played this guy last night. I just waited for quality hands and let him bet for me when I had strength. Check raise turn, bet/raise river. Plus call his raise with mediocre hands everytime he raised when I was in the blinds.

I got in a fun smack-talking match with him after seeing him win a hand with AAA4...he was just horrible. He came to the table with $100 and when I left he was down to $45.

The guy was raising preflop 3/4 of his hands on average. The first 10 hands he played he raised 100% preflop. After demeaning him and his chip stack he performed a beautiful cliche...by challenging me to a heads up match.

I just started LO8 this week and am really enjoying it...and winning. Variance has been considerably lower than PLO8.