Yes it is.

I would agree that if you are playing for income you should be properly rolled and able to play for maximum profit regardless of variance. Obviously if you need the income from poker then it is actually pretty tough to maintain a healthy bankroll at low stakes because real life stuff costs a lot of bb in 1/2 money. No excuses though - if you want to do it for income you got to get the bankroll from real job if necessary.

I'm really talking more about people for whom it is a hobby and they don't maintain a dedicated roll but just play when they have the time/spare cash.

I am technically over rolled for 2/5 with about 75 buy ins. The problem is lets' say I am willing to stack off to him with something as narrow as AQ-AK and say 1010+. If I widen this range, I take on more variance and if I narrow it to only QQ+ then I am folding tons of hands I really don't want to. Also am I ever a significant favorite over his range? Lets say he is crazy enough to stick it in with 78s or something ? My AK is only a small favorite. So I am pushing small edges (at best) for stacks, which doesn't really sound like very smart bankroll management when there is another game where I can squeak out value with TPTK, over pairs, sets, flushes, etc playing mostly small pots and ONLY building pots when I have nutty hands. But all of this flop, turn and river play is now out the window and we are basically just flipping coins for stacks and at the same time I have to watch out for other players trying to wait for him too. It sets up a pretty crazy dymanic. Variance is great if we have 80% equity. If we have AA vs KK or a set v overpair and we lose - I am ok with that variance. But why should I be ok with a 60-40 at best? Its rarely going to be 80-20 with this guy unless I wait around for QQ+ which sounds like an insane amount of patience and would mean we start open folding AQ, AK, 99 etc just incase he makes one of his crazy 3 bets. I just think if I am playing for the most steady income possible I would rather just avoid this.

Lets say for example I decide instead to stack off with 88+ and AJ+

I raise and get it in with him and lose four buy ins in short time. This is entirely possible based on this range. This would never happen, ever ever, at a "normal" table. I usually stop at 2 buy ins regardless of my bankroll because why dig myself into a hole? I will not be playing my A game either, and only put me into a negative frame of mind. If I am going to do this I might as well go put 500 on black or play bj - it just seems a lot more like gambling and less like actual poker.

Call me a pus** if you want, but I just don't see it as a good position. My standard deviation and variance would just be through the roof with this guy and I can't emotionally handle that. Maybe that's a flaw, but whatever, then I suck I guess.

OP, the logical flaw in your thinking is that variance is super high doing this. Well it is, in the sense that we play for stacks, right now, in a very short period. However, the EV$ if you can get it in 3x in a row vs. a maniac that we dominate is also very high. If you have that opportunity at stakes you normally play and are rolled for, you should take it.

The variance over 5 minutes might be higher than your normal game but if you could play flips HU vs. this guy all day long, come cash out time you would not be able to carry all your chips to the teller. The constant wins would cushion you against the occasional 4 or 5 in a row losing streak. It's actually lower variance than your normal game in that sense.

javi has made the only useful argument ITT against the 'maniacs print you money' mantra, even then note he doesn't say to avoid getting it in vs. a range we dominate, just that it's not as profitable as one might imagine.

EDIT

Also, your edges are far from small, you are making common rookie errors in your thinking:

You imagine 'low variance' postflop poker is somehow safer than stacking off preflop as a big favourite - wrong

You think 10bb or 20bb chunks of EV are 'small edges' - wrong

EDIT2

Finally, the last thing you should ever worry about is being a pussy. Poker is not a contest about who can rock up to the table and be most gangsta. It's about exploiting weakness in order to take money. Removing your ego from the equation is perhaps the first step to success in this game, luckily 90% of your opponents refuse to do just that, which is why they make terrible and easily fixable mistakes on a constant basis.

"I don't want variance and I don't want to fold."

Perhaps you have heard of a recent invention called Pokerstove.

$500 effective preflop, EV is $95. Small favorite, you said?

Many will disagree, but few will put up the effort to help you to figure out why.

Sounds like a personal problem, not a math problem.

Steady income in poker?

FWIW, all of this can be solved with math.

You are risk averse and that's a personal problem. If you cannot handle the swing, then change table.

You are not here to defend your manliness to want to stand your ground against a maniac...

Richard Parker wins.

I don't know if I will explain this so well, and of course, you may disagree (Javi probably does). Avoiding situations like this does NOT lower your variance. We all bleed chips on every hand we don't win, not to mention the inevitable coolers. If you have never experienced an extended downswing, you may not be able to understand this, but it is in taking the 55-45 and 60-40 edges that we maintain a positive win rate throughout negative variance streaks.

If we are simply waiting for the situations where we are 80% or better, we are not winning enough to offset negative variance, which can include unfavorable flops, Vs not having strong enough hands to pay off when we hit, coolers, cold decks, etc. I once folded preflop for 8 straights hours in a 1/2 game, my best hand during this time was K4o. I had no As, no PPs, no connectors, suited or otherwise. I had no good steal situations materialize during this time (wrong Vs at the wrong times). I bled $72 in just blinds alone. This

can offset that entire stretch of negative variance.

I congratulate you if you have not yet experienced the kind of negative variance that can destroy a "steady income". I suggest you read some of the poker journey blogs, especially the one by Rayz Rayl, and I.G. and ask yourself what would have happened to their winrates during their downswings if they did not push the small edges all the time.

Like I said, I am probably not explaining this well, but For What It's Worth, there it is.

Oops, I hope I didn't imply that open shoving K8o from EP is anything but massive spew. I was thinking of a particular hand I had against a drunk short stack whose calling range was atc. There were 1 or 2 other players who had not vpipped yet. This is admittedly super thin or maybe even -EV (I thought at the time that the play was worth a dollar or two), but I was just throwing stuff out there. The A8s and ATs hands I was recalling were BU open/4! vs. me in the SB.

My post was maybe too vague, but I'm not sure what I can say concretely when we're talking generally about a table dynamic when a maniac is around. Different maniacs have different ranges so it's hard to say what kinds of hands I would be comfortable playing in which spots without more details.

I don't think the variance/bankroll argument applies. If we were talking about 1|2, then the argument might apply that it's okay being underrolled and turning down fat value, high variance spots like in the OP. Since we're talking about 2|5 I'm assuming by default we have a healthy bankroll to play with because if we didn't we should be playing 1|2. If for whatever reason 2|5 is the lowest stake the OP can play then this argument could apply again (but it doesn't because he himself stated he has 75 BI, which is plenty for these plays)

The spot in the OP should be a fat value double-fist pump GII for anyone with a healthy bankroll size. If I were in that spot I might have to chang my pants.

Calculate the AI EV of AK vs. 87s for 100BB each and tell me this is a marginal spot.

I don't think you're a pussy, but you're clearly playing scared money and leaving a lot of money on the table because of it.

What you guys are saying makes sense. Thanks. I feel much better about losing a hand when I did the right thing. I guess I am just not used to players like this since they are such a rare breed, and it always feels spewy anytime you stack off with A high.

You have explained this well. I think a lot of live players don't run bad enough to witness this for themselves through not playing enough hours and having a big edge.

The bigger your edge the longer you'll go on average before hitting a downswing. Live I have a much bigger edge because my opponents make frequent large errors. I'm sure I will eventually suffer a significant downswing and when it comes I will wish I had always had a big BR so I had been able to win even more money during the good times.

Online I've suffered some horrific downswings and played extended periods of time when I effectively have no edge. Then you are purely at the mercy of variance. You win when the cards favour you, you lose when they go against you. The rake eats away at you all the time and you lose steadily.

75 BIs is not over-rolled for the game. If you had a 200k roll, then you wouldn't think twice about stuffing it with AQ against this guy. I think that your risk-adversion comes from the size of your roll.

$200K? 400 buy ins is mental. Are you trying to get a sub-zero risk of ruin? I mean you're collecting $4K p.a interest on that roll so you auto earn 8 buy ins a year. Nice one

grab the seat to his immidiate right, so you see who called his bet

limp anything you stackoff vs him only

limp QQ+/AKs too to stack the inevatible other light stack offer

profit??

FWIW I also noticed that his particular maniac seemed to increased his 3 bet sizes and pushed the action the more stuck he became and the more the night went on. He seemed like he was ready to leave, but needed to so empty handed to feel satisfied like many do. When he had the AK vs me he stood up like he was ready to leave so I don't know if it was a slow roll or he really thought he was beat or wanted to leave.

Also, I do not know if his bigger $200+ 3 bets from the blinds (which he did for the second time in a row before I ripped it back with AQ) mean a slightly tighter range than the "smaller" 3 bets on the button to 85 or so. I don't know if he just decided to start making crazy bets to play for stacks or if this bigger size meant a slighter better hand. Even still I know if we have a slight edge against his range especially if we include A10 and AJ, and even more so if we include small pocket pairs or suited connectors which I am not entirely sure about but I did see him 3 bets these hands IP a few times as a steal but not the crazy $200+ amount.

From a psychological standpoint how would you interpret his suddenly large 3 bet sizing when someone opens to 25 - 30 and now he starts making it $200+ which is about half his stack?

No joke, I once sold my seat for $100 to be next up to the same game. The other guy wanted to play with maniac as described so badly that he didn't want to wait 10 - 15 minutes.

These guys have one goal in mind: getting the thrill of gamble (and probably making people cry about losing). Only psyche you should be worrying about in this situation is your own.

You said he's increasingly stuck, without previous data on this sizing, I interpret it as frustration or just upping the gambool.