Struggling against thinking, observant maniac

fooz · #1 11-06-2007, 11:46 AM

Our maniac is 70/26/4.3 after 660 and goes to show down 24% of the time.

So this guy had been running over the table. He was playing so many hands preflop whether the pot was raised or not. And donking constantly and double barreling. If you raised his donks, he would often donk again on Turn or call you down with any piece. This made pot control very difficult, and besides that I was running cold: never connecting with the flop and having to fold constantly to his donks, since bluffs wouldn't work. He was very good at reading lines that came off as weak (or weak timing tells, like quick bets by tilters) and playing back at you and would get very aggressive in big pots.

My general question is, how do you play against someone like this? The only real pot I won was when he pushed on an unlikely paired board, and I bluff-raised him off his hand on the river.

Here's an example hand:
I think my hand could easily be good when he min-raises the flop, and I felt like I had to stop folding every time to his donks and min-raises/min-cr's. My instinct told me on the Turn to check-raise...all-in? ...but I didn't.

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $1/$2
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
fooz: $251
UTG+1: $252.75
CO: $280.30
Button: $855.60
SB: $212.20
BB: $338.20

Pre-flop: (6 players) fooz is UTG with Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
fooz raises to $8, 2 folds, Button calls, 2 folds.

Flop: 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] ($19, 2 players)
fooz bets $15, Button raises to $30, fooz calls.

Turn: K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] ($79, 2 players)
fooz checks, Button bets $20, fooz calls.

River: 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] ($119, 2 players)
fooz checks, Button bets $86, fooz calls.

Results:
Final pot: $291