I apologize if this is a dumb question in advance, but I've found myself in this spot a few times in the last few weeks.

3/5/300.

Maniac at the table. Initially, I sat directly to his right. Preflop, plays 90% of hands and raises over 50%. When someone re-raises his raise, he will always overcall. Even when he limps, he will overcall huge raises. He will, however, find folds preflop if he has nothing invested. On one hand, he limped T2o utg, two callers, and I raised my AKo in the BB to $60. He flatted.

Post flop, he will typically call enormous raises if he hits any possible part of a flop. I saw him call a turn $200 all in with A3o (no spade) on a AQ95 board with four spades. However, if he truly hits nothing, he will fold. If it is checked to him, he will bet regardless of whether he hit any part of a flop. I called him down while directly to his right ($30 preflop, $45 flop, $60 turn, $100 river) with 99 on a T732A board and he showed J2o.

Notably, the game was incredibly good even without the maniac. There were 3 other super loose calling stations.

Maniac lost two $300 buy ins, then ran his 3rd up to $2,400. He lost that $2,400 in less than an hour. Under the casino's weird rules, he bought in again for $450 (lost that on the first hand) and now is on another $450. A seat just opened up directly to his left.

My question is, should I sit directly to the right or left of maniac? Usually, I will always try and sit to the direct left of the worst player at the table. However, here, I'm not so sure. On that 99 hand, I wouldn't have even called the flop bet since there were 3 players to act behind. I feel like there may be other advantages as well, such as call-raising preflop as well as inducing bluffs on other streets.

As stated above, I've found myself in this position with other maniacs a few times in the last few weeks. However, there is one more wrinkle as to this particular maniac. Preflop, it is clear as day before he acts whether he is going to call, raise, or (on very rare occasion) fold.

TL/DR Cliffs - Is it best to sit directly on right or left of maniac?

directly to the right when short stacked. Limp your entire range, then you will have perfect relative position and more complete information when the action gets back to you.

For example, imagine if you have ATo and you are on villain's left. 3 limpers, Villain raises to 30. This is a difficult situation to play, since there's a good chance one of the limpers may have limped to trap the villain.

Now, if you are on his immediate right, 3 limpers, you limp, villain raises to $35, folds back around to you. Now you know you can profitably re-pump. You've got much more complete information.


Having position on a loose player is nice, but since your game is going to be predominantly preflop against this guy, you can completely negate any positional advantage that he may have by getting a big percentage of effective stacks in preflop.

I like the right seat.

1-2 300 max. I limp with KK. M raises to 100 blind. Two calls to me, I jam $325. M and one other call. Ship it!

M rebuys. 5 hands later he has $1000+. I rack up. I'm not gambling $1100 with him in position since I can't really jam $1100 PF and get action. IGHN.

lol

This.

Was playing against a legit 95/75/10 maniac the other day. Sit to his right, limp/raise all day long.

3x in one hour, no one adjusted.

Limp AK, M raises to $15, 4 calls I raise to $75 M calls others fold.

Limp AA, M raise to $15, 3 calls I raise to $60 M calls one other calls. Bet flop, ship turn double up.

Limp QQ, M raises to $15, 5 calls wtf? I raise to $100, M ships for $225, one limper calls for less I call, MHIG.

Just gotta keep an eye on people to make sure no on slow plays pre against you.