At my local 1/2 home game, I typically buy in for $200. There is no max buy in, and there is one player that is the definition of a maniac, sometimes buying in for thousands. I've thought about proposing a max buy in, as I feel that even though he is a maniac, myself and others will almost always be at a stack disadvantage. I try to be patient and wait for premiums, but I feel like if I get it all in against him, eventually he will beat me and because he'll have always have me covered, if he beats me once I'll lose everything. I would really like to hear others views on this. Is my thinking flawed? Should there be a max buy in? I've been building a nice little bankroll but I definitely can't match that big of a stack every time I sit down.

Your thinking is flawed, he is not at a ‘stack advantage’. My suggestion is not to do anything that limits a maniacs fun and that definitely includes conspiring to stop him slamming down multiple Ks in order to be the big dog at the table.

The best thing to do is get better at poker and embrace maniacs. This guy is coming to the table with effectively unlimited funds that he wants to give away to you. Welcome the man with open arms.

Edit

Side story, a rare mid morning maniac at our table. This guy clearly wanted attention, announcing his action in a dramatic tone and making crazy size bets blind etc. I gave him all the attention he wanted, laughing at his antics and generally playing along with him. He donated $100s of dollars to me with a smile. We both got what we wanted.

Your thinking is flawed. He has the disadvantage, not you. No matter how big his stack, the effective stack is limited to your stack. If you have a 100 BB stack and the other stacks are 300 BB, they are making mistakes against you even if they are making the right moves against everyone else.

What I'd do is just play until your stack is as big as you are comfortable and then leave. If that takes 1/2 hour, than that's the way it will be. I wouldn't worry about what they say. Without a change, the game will die in a couple of months anyway.

If your going to play against a maniac with a deep stack you need multiple buy ins on hand. If that is impractical then split up your buy in and play a short stack strategy until double up once or twice. If you get more then your comfortable in front of you then go ahead and leave early. Buy in for 50BB and double up twice and you will have 4 50BB buy ins for the next game.

This sort of play can take a lot of courage and the ability to take some beat downs but it's some of the most profitable poker around.

See above.

Can I please play in your game? Seriously, I just begged to get in on a game with a similar situation -- guy buys in deep and straddles for $1,500 in a 2/5 game. I can't wait to play against him.

I'll take your seat. Seriously, this is a great game to play in. That guy sounds extremely profitable.

There is no such thing as a "stack advantage" besides emotions.

Your thinking is absolutely correct in theory.

If V always rebuys to cover you eventually he will beat you and take that money back especially if he is getting all-in before the river.

Really the only thing you can do is leave when you have a stack you’re no longer willing to risk.

Up 1k. Will you be content getting your stack in good and losing? If so keep playing. Up 2k? Same question.

You always have an edge on the maniac but at some point it’s not worth risking all the money in front of you even wirg an edge.

If having unlimited money means you can never lose, let me tell you about the Martingale strategy...

The fact that he has thousands of dollars in his stack doesn't matter. The fact that your effective stack may be larger than you are comfortable with does. If you end up with more money than you can handle losing at once then quit. That's a nice problem to have.

OP, do you know what "effective stacks" means? This is cash, not a tournament. There is no such thing as a "stack disadvantage." I think you might have a bankroll disadvantage if you are actually worried about this.

As others have said, play until you're deep enough that you're uncomfortable, then get up.

Can you elaborate on this? I’m familiar with the Martingale strategy but I’m not sure what you’re implying.

He's implying the logical fallacy and the ability to lose infinite money. A lot of people think that it means "eventually you will back everything you lost," but it's actually just a way for degens to end up having to sell plasma.

Yes but that fallacy only holds if BOTH parties have infinite $. If one party has finite $ then the player with infinite $ will always win as long as the odds of winning are not 0% and other player continues playing.

If you can afford it buy in for 1k and overbluff him, a lot of times these guys are not going to want to lose their huge stack calling off with weak hands. It's very easy for him to beat you if you're sitting around waiting for premiums.

Edit: I see now you're playing short rolled, you still have to just value bet him to death, probably thin if he doesn't care about money that much. Just play solid poker and it'll work out.

Only if you put your not-quite-infinite money all on the table at the same time. In table games, degens who try this almost all get broke, because the casino has much closer to infinite money than they do.

In poker, you are only risking whatever you have in front of you, so if you have $200 and the other guy has 400 million-bilion-megabucks, you are still only playing for $200. The big stack has zero advantage, as you are both playing the exact same effective stacks. Sure, if you double up, you are now playing for $400, but if you are rolled to be able to handle losing $400, that's not a problem.

Once you have enough money that you're not playing optimally because you are willing to lose it, it's time to get up. But that's a you problem, not a "stack disadvantage" problem.

His stack is the same size as your stack when you are in a hand with him.

To tie this theoretical Martingale discussion back to the OP a bit...

The simple answer to the original question is something others have already said--OP, you just have to stand up from the table when your stack is big enough that you don't want to risk it against the maniac.

The more complex answer is that while there is no advantage in any single hand, and there is also no long-term advantage to playing a larger stack, there is something that the OP might perceive as a "stack advantage", and it's related to the idea of Martingaling, which is why people are talking about it.

For anyone reading this who doesn't already know--which could easily be the OP--this is how Martingaling works. Let's say you and I are going to flip coins for money. You bring exactly $1,023 (you'll see why later), and I tell you I'm willing to let you bet any amount you want to on each coin flip, giving you 1:1 odds. Now let's say you employ the following strategy: you start out betting $1. If you win, you have won $1 and can then repeat the strategy. Every time you lose, you double your bet on the next flip. What this means is that anytime you win a flip, you will recover all the money from your previous losses, plus a dollar. (For example, if you are betting $16, it means you just lost 1+2+4+8, which is 15--so if you win the $16 flip, you'll be up $1 after accounting for that previous loss.)

So, that betting strategy is called the Martingale strategy. Its appeal is that it looks as though it is guaranteed to win. But in fact, it is not. If in this scenario you lose 10 flips in a row, you will have lost 1+2+...+256+512 = 1023. If this ever happens, you will be out of money and unable to bet anymore. That means that your EV with your Martingale strategy is

(1/1024)*(-1023) + (1023/1024)(1) = 0

which is exactly the same EV as if you just bet the same amount on every flip.

So Martingaling doesn't actually give you a guaranteed way to win, and it doesn't improve your EV. What it does do, however, is it gives you a way to concentrate your risk of losing into a very unlikely but proportionately costly event (in this case, losing 10 flips in a row and losing all $1023 at once).

What your maniac is doing is the poker equivalent of Martingaling. He is not actually using his stack to guarantee that he beats you, because he actually can't do that. What he can do, however, is concentrate all of his risk of losing to you into one very costly event. If you play well, are patient enough, and you are willing to lose enough $200 buy-ins, eventually you will catch a run of cards where you bust him out of all the money he is able to buy in with. This might be an extremely unlikely circumstance, but the payoff is that when it does happen it could be for tens of thousands of dollars! Of course, for you, the frustrating part is that this might take so long to happen that you could bust your entire bankroll while waiting. In that sense, he has, not a stack advantage, but a bankroll advantage.

There is only one way to negate this advantage. In the above Martingale example, it is an implicit assumption that I am always going to let you bet again as much as you want, and that's one of the reasons your Martingale strategy looks like it works. If during one of your losing streaks, I suddenly stop taking your bets, you will be out a significant amount of money! That's what you have to do to this guy--build up a stack and then rack up and leave. That's how you ensure he doesn't get his money back from you.