How to play vs maniacs/ x-looosey gooseys

[evilempire]

always always reraise them PF if you are going to play. I love limp reraising if you can count on them raising

[ticks]

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Also, against the "quick to bet, quick to fold" maniac, the best seat is on villain's left.

You're talking more about strategy against a bad LAG, and while I agree with much of what you say, I don't think that's the right label for the villain munkey describes.

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You may be right.
However, villain did call a turn all-in with 95 on a 987 board.
This might have been a correct call given pot odds,
it might have been bad (I suspect the latter).

His stats may be what they are because the table reacts to his aggression by turning into passive callstations.

I think your strategy is best if he is like you describe though.

[ticks]

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Has a tendency to AI the turn on weakness /escalate the betting quickly if you raise him back -especially on dangerous boards.

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...a very good reason to play hand 1 fast.

[BukNaked36]

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Hand One: Rope-a-Dope.

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Yes.

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If he's got the flush already, you still have outs.

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Yes, but irrelevant -- assuming he has the flush is seeing monsters under the bed. Don't even worry about the possibility, because you can't afford to play scared against this guy.



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AA over KK preflop
Set over set

flopped flush over set? Reasonable to get stacked on this?

I've gotten drilled on this a couple of times lately.

[Pokey]

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flopped flush over set? Reasonable to get stacked on this?


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This one depends on circumstances, but you've always got a one-in-three chance of boating up by the river, so it's rarely a big mistake to go broke with a set against a two-card flush. Given that villain is a maniac, it makes going broke perfectly reasonable. Now, if a very passive player wakes up and starts betting, proceed with extreme caution, and proceed with your hand only if you have proper odds to call for your boat.

[matrix]

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The very best way to deal with a maniac is to let him bet himself to death.

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it takes the grand total of ONE hand to stack a LAG.

vs a maniac I play less hands - but the hands I do play are top drawer hands that I min-raise him with pf.

this has the advantage of bloating the pot preflop making it very likely that the bet sizes on the river will be stack sized. So when I hit a monster hand like MPGK+ post flop I sit back and check call him till he hands over all his money. If I have a genuine monster (2pair+ on a non drawy board) I push the river all-in.

Rinse and repeat till he runs out of cash. Don't raise him off his garbage hands until it's too loate and he is pot committed, but raise him preflop every hand you play.

Never ever play at a table OOP to such a maniac - you always need a real monster to get all-in with and he'll never ever let you have odds to draw, if a mnaiac sits on my left I move pretty dam sharpish.

[munkey]

Thanks for the help and discussion all.
Sorry I was away for the weekend and unfortunately couldn't go on the skinterent so couldn't join in the discussion. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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Quote:

flopped flush over set? Reasonable to get stacked on this?


This one depends on circumstances, but you've always got a one-in-three chance of boating up by the river, so it's rarely a big mistake to go broke with a set against a two-card flush. Given that villain is a maniac, it makes going broke perfectly reasonable. Now, if a very passive player wakes up and starts betting, proceed with extreme caution, and proceed with your hand only if you have proper odds to call for your boat.



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Tks for clearing this up Pokey - I was never very sure what the best approach was in this scenario (set monotone flop) -vs this dude I was AI the flop if possible.

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My strategy against maniacs is based on getting a lot of $$$ in preflop with hands that are a favourite against his range.
A lot of the time you will be all-in on the flop with overcards and stuff like that, but it will be worth it.


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I see what you mean now ticks - I guess it's relatively easy to play a preflop game -les hard postflop decisions -I'm not sure if I'm ready for that kind of variance route here - I think you and others are right I should have done more reraising preflop.

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Never ever play at a table OOP to such a maniac - you always need a real monster to get all-in with and he'll never ever let you have odds to draw, if a mnaiac sits on my left I move pretty dam sharpish.


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I tried to find a draw hand as an example too but I couldn't find one - (I think I ditched any non-nut draw).

I think Pokey has the right kind of villan in mind -the use of the pigeonholing 'MANIAC' term leads us to our own view of what we temr a maniac and hence the slight confusion/different replies.
(NLHTAP chapter on this I believe)

The PT stats don't tell everything -you'll have to see him play to realise your stack was @ risk in every pot you played on any street.

Interestingly some of the other players adjusted badly or were just plain bad and went AI with marginal 3rdpair/underpair hands.

[jk3a]

Hand 1, reraise PF. as played raise, hope he pushes. Try to get the money in as long as another spade or straight card doesn't come off.

Hand 2, You have got to bet the flop. Your hand very strong.

[Pokey]

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Interestingly some of the other players adjusted badly or were just plain bad and went AI with marginal 3rdpair/underpair hands.

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This is the greatest strength of the maniac style (the same strength that the LAG style provides, only to an extreme level). When you are always playing every hand to the very bone, people typically respond in one of two ways: (1) fold everything that's not the absolute nuts, or (2) play back hard with ANYTHING (sometimes as little as ace-high). Both of these strategies are wrong, and expensive. The person who only plays the nuts goes broke one ante at a time, and the person who plays back with everything gets very quickly stacked when the maniac hits a hand (which he will do about one hand in three).

The best strategy against a maniac is to sit at his left, play premium hands passively, and semi-bluff aggressively. Playing this pure strategy works fine if you're only going to tangle with this opponent for one session, but if you play against the same maniac MANY times then you should be mixing up your play on occasion to fight predictability. (An EASY way to mix up your strategy: if your left hole card is a club, play the hand the opposite way -- aggressive with made hands, passive with draws. Then, every time you show your cards, pick a new suit to be the "tricky suit." That way your play will be 75% normal, 25% tricky, and that's a fair mix even against an observant opponent.)