How do you play maniac when not hitting the flop?

[SrMartis]

From time to time I found some guy like this.

He's calling everyone's bets, he's donk betting, 2 barreling 3 barrel, a maniac basically.

I found myself angry, after 10th raise PF I'didn't hit anything in the flop and was forced to fold.

I was wondering If its right to call these guys down the river with Ahigh? He was smart enought to play in position and avoid my raises in the button.

Or Am'I to impatient?

 

[fundiver199]

Yes you are to impatient. We win against maniacs by letting them bluff or overvalue their hand and show down the winner. So if you miss the flop 10 times in a row, then you fold 10 times in a row. If this bothers you, that means, you are on tilt, and then you need to sit out and take a break. If the maniac is on your left, you should also consider a table change, since this is a very tough seat to play and usually not all that profitable. In general you always want to have the loosest players on your right, so that they have to act before you, and this is even more important, if they are also very aggressive AKA "maniac".

 

[infonazar]

You are too impatient. Your strength is your patience and lack of it is your weakness. Everything is simple

 

[SrMartis]

Thanks for the aswers.

This situation in specific tends to tilt me really fast.

I'll work on it and be more patient next time.

 

[Gallarado777]

It was not easy to play against such players, but if he is a very aggressive player, then you must be a passive player and he will put a lot of pressure on you with his aggression. But you need a strong hand because you have nothing if you can't do with his aggressive play, then be patient and when you have a strong hand he will return all the chips you take and even give more

 

[mssmotilda]

Against maniacs you need to play like a policeman - set traps and ambushes.

 

[Aballinamion]

From time to time I found some guy like this.

He's calling everyone's bets, he's donk betting, 2 barreling 3 barrel, a maniac basically.

I found myself angry, after 10th raise PF I'didn't hit anything in the flop and was forced to fold.

I was wondering If its right to call these guys down the river with Ahigh? He was smart enought to play in position and avoid my raises in the button.

Or Am'I to impatient?

Are you getting angry because you cannot play?
Are you gettin angry because the maniac is raising too much, in spite if you had good hands or not?
We are not in the poker table to be happy or angry: we have to analytical and only make analytical decisions. We must manage and control our feelings and find the best spots to strike.
If we find ourselves on a table where a player doesn't let us play because it raises too much, it bets too much, we are free to find a more soft table, to play against players that are unbalanced in another ways, in other words, against super tight opponents (NITS) and super passive opponents (recreational, calling station, etc).
My overall strategy to play against maniacs is to be passive, conservative and let the opponent hang itself on its own rope. We are going to wait for a medium strong hand and let the opponent donk bet, bet flop, double and triple barrel and when we get into the showdown we are going to take the pot down most of times.
On the flip side, if we decide to call light, to be more aggressive than the maniac, to be calling rivers with ace high, we are playing with our ego, we are playing pretty much the same as the maniac, and we don't want it.
We are not playing poker to try to prove anything to anyone, specially to prove to ourselves that "we can make it".
Our sole purpose while playing poker is to be analytical and profitable. This is the only reason why we play.
What you are trying to do, given your example, if to be "leveling" against your opponent and this is something we try to avoid. We are not trying to "level" against our opponents, we are trying to find the best spot to take their stacks down.

 

[canbora]

From time to time I found some guy like this.

He's calling everyone's bets, he's donk betting, 2 barreling 3 barrel, a maniac basically.

I found myself angry, after 10th raise PF I'didn't hit anything in the flop and was forced to fold.

I was wondering If its right to call these guys down the river with Ahigh? He was smart enought to play in position and avoid my raises in the button.

Or Am'I to impatient?

Heres the thing.

People are giving you sound advice here, but heres the problem with that. Its all vague and generalized. I think that this..........situation is one of the most common "problems" in poker but no one EVER specificially tells you what to do. Its all generalized advice.

We're told manaics are good, they give stacks away. OK, so if thats true, how do we get it and they are making non mathematical bets? What if they do something bizarre,,, because thats what they do. Say you're sitting there with KQ suited, strong great hand. And the make a unusual preflop raise? We're told to avoid oddities like that. Do we call? Do we reraised? What do we do? Do we fold it? Or say you have .. i dont know... 10's. And they're to your right and they do a bizarre 7x open raise? What do you do? Say we do reraise, and they shove us all in.........do we call?

Ive seen this stuff happen every which way. I've seen manaics do that with GARBAGE, and I've seen them do it with garbage and get lucky becuase they agro'd the table. And someoen gets sick of it they shove back with AQ suited...great hand. Then the maniac has AA's. Either he got lucky just then, or hes on fire all night. I've had some sessions where I had pocket aces like 5 times as well as that many other premium hands. In one night I probably had 30 premium starting hands like that. It happens.

1. So. you have a decision to make. Either leave and play it more conservatively.

2. stay, and observe and hope you get as equally lucky that they bet in to you with you're premium hand and you stack them.
2a.. Stay and do as others have said, move if you can and make them on your right.

3. Fight fire with fire. Build a range against them, Pay attention to what hands t hey do this with. If they are pulling their crap and you feel your A-rag may be in fact the best hand, reshove back. Roll the dice.


I've encountered this situiaton in my days more times than I can count. Ive had it go every which way too. But Id say being a smart and calculated LAG right back to them. (being a LAG to their maniac, similar but still different player profiles) Is when I have profited the most. I remember this one session right now where I was up 400bb one night becuase I was against two maniacs' and I got dealth pocket 10's both times when they kept hard shoving with just any two high cards. My 10's held up every time. The same goes with Jacks. Is that advised? I dont know, probably not. But I've had this type of play work more FOR me than against me.

if anyone here has more wisdom than I, which I'm sure many do, I'll listen. But this is what I've found out for myself so far. I mean what are we suppose to do? eitehr play the game or not. Its poker. Thats why we love it. There is no end to it. Its constantly being recalculated and strategized and developing new philosphies and plans of action.

I will say this. If you do the LAG counter style, make sure you're rolled for it. Be prepared to get your rear end handed to you. If the cards don't go your way, that money will go just as fast out as it can come in. I don't advise this because of that. But I just don't see what other logical answer there is to this question. Beucase BELIEVE ME I've asked this many times to myself over the decades, as have countless others. And I've yet to see an actual, real, methodicaly, proven strategy. More than likely becuase their is none. Its like the common cold. You cant cure it because there are infinite variances of it. There are infinite nuts in poker. Thats why the standard advice is, if you're against a manaic, be a TAG. Ok fine, what happens when that doesn't work? Becuase I dont accept letting them run all over me. I'd rather accept "the cards aren't flowing my way" and just leave. Then sit there and have the manaiac run all over me like steamroller all night. You're human, its going to upset. Anyone that says anything else is telling you stories. Unless you're a psyhopath, no one here is a robot. Tilt even happens to the highest of players. Look up the video of Dnegs breaking his selfie stick lol. I'm sure even Ivey tilts in his own way, internally. We just dont SEE it.

 

[kon44]

From time to time I found some guy like this.

He's calling everyone's bets, he's donk betting, 2 barreling 3 barrel, a maniac basically.

I found myself angry, after 10th raise PF I'didn't hit anything in the flop and was forced to fold.

I was wondering If its right to call these guys down the river with Ahigh? He was smart enought to play in position and avoid my raises in the button.

Or Am'I to impatient?

Is say you need to be more patient. It would be great to get revenge for the stolen raises.... Tighten up against this guy and catch em out if the opportunity arises. It may never come and someone else gets them, at least you haven't granted them your chips for their eventual self destruction if it comes.

I actually had a player just like this in a $25 18 Man yesterday, drove me crazy initially as you only have 1500 to play with and it's a turbo. I nitted up and avoided him. We finally ended up heads up and I came from behind of a 4 to 1 chip in his favour to tear his skill lacking arse a new one.... It felt extremely good, but I had to be patient and once I broke his play style and was in his head I took control. For instance, he adopted a min raise ethos to my big blind and I made sure not to bite and only ever re raise if I was to play the hand. I caught his bluffs, showed only the goods and once the blinds started to impact I was able to bluff like crazy on drier boards with simply a min bet.

If you pull yourself back you'll feel it!!

 

[jonaselloco]

Against the maniac you have 2 game options.
1) you stand and wait for your firm hand to make him enter
2) you play all kinds of hands against him, and wait for a decent showdown to take everything away from him.
You must remember that the maniac plays you with any hand, Q2o for example, and that if the Q comes up on the flop he will call you or bet until the end.
For me the best option is to wait for them, and well, if I can play against good and if not I will play against others.
Don't forget that if you are at a 6 max table and a maniac enters and the other players are all regular like you, they will also adapt their strategy to play against the maniac.
For that reason against the maniac you have to analyze the game very well in position, the idea is not to eat reraise or Squiz from others by calling all the maniac's hands, because in the end if it happens like that you end up losing money.
Greetings colleague

 

[Rob Hobson]

If I do not hit the flop with a premium hand agains a maniac, easy fold, unless I have enough outs to go down to the river. The old and good 'rule' is always to be tight aggressive at a loose table (most of the time), and the opposite when the opposite. .

 

[bababooey]

Against a maniac patience is key, it may be frustrating having to wait for a hand and you may lose out to someone else winning their money.

There is no point in playing hands you wouldn't normally as this will just make you bleed more money.

I've had plenty of times where there has been a mega whale on my table and they have stacked off multiple times to other players and I haven't gotten a sniff. But other times I have managed to stack them multiple times in a session for a big win.

It's always nice when you sit down and the whale has a big stack and you end up taking all the money but these instances are few a far between.

 

[R.Holynskyi]

I think the situation looks quite simple. Your opponent turned out to be a little more intelligent than you might think, and you showed intolerance. I have met such opponents. They use the strength of their position and the strength of their bet against you. But such players also have weaknesses. Your strength in the game with such players can be both your patience and your aggression.

 

[okeedokalee]

Okay, it is a cash game? Leave that table and buy-in to another one.

 

[blueskies]

Even if someone looks like a "maniac" we still have to distinguish between the true fold-allergic player (a rarity) or someone who is very LAG but still playing intelligently.

The first group don't bother raising unless you have a strong hand, then you can stack them.

The second group, they are still bluffable but it's advisable to keep the pot small.

In both scenarios, patience is key. It's ok to fold and lose a small pot. It can get frustrating yes, but it's better than tilting and losing big with a mediocre hand. Multitabling helps to diversify yourself.

 

[AdamasDate]

The problem is that you feel like you need to do something about it, and that is not the case. Play soild ranges and call down lighter sometimes second and third pair if he is as loose as it seems.he wants to do the betting for you, so let him do it, and when you have a strong hand, hes an underdog because hes too wide.

 

[Recreationalplayer]

Tight and Aggressive..
Bluff catch when he is too unbalanced..

 

[Cooking]

When you are playing against maniac players and specially on 9-players tables, you need to have patience and wait for the right cards to win his chips.

 

[ObbleeXY]

Thanks for the aswers.

This situation in specific tends to tilt me really fast.

I'll work on it and be more patient next time.

Thanks for the tip! Good to know how to tilt someone!

 

[hamon08]

Against such players, you need to play in a completely opposite style to theirs. If your opponent is aggressive, you need to play passively and play for all your chips only when you are sure that you are ahead. If your opponent plays passively, you should be aggressive and try to take small pots as often as possible. It is also very important not to bluff against bad players, as they will take almost all of your bets.

 

[WrongUsername]

trap them with the goods and hope u win

 

[Igor Popadyk]

my opinion, in order to beat a player you need to be stronger than him and use his weaknesses, and so he turned his weak side of the game into one that took you out of your strong game, and you yourself know how to beat such a maniac

 

[martDdart]

Most of the time maniacs dont hit the flop like the rest of us,I would keep playing against the maniac if I think I have the best hand.I would try a reraise on the flop and see if the maniac folds.

 

[Atararo14]

I think you have to wait for the right spot for maximum value, otherwise you continue to fold and be patient.

 

[Tadi]

It is difficult to play against maniacs because they are purely too lucky.