I know traditionally we want position on super lags and maniacs but what about sitting to right at a table where everyone is calling him and 3 betting him light that way we can check to him with our monsters get all that dead money in the middle then 3bet/4bet/jam...what’d more plus ev direct left or right???? Has anyone heard of this strategy before??

Direct right and range limping/checking is far superior than having absolute position. Against players with extreme frequencies position isn't very valuable because they don't provide as much info if they're always doing the same thing. Relative position on the rest of the table is far more powerful.

Wowwwww mind blown lol I was crushing a table sitting 4 seats down from a maniac with my 3 bets iso and destroying him postflop and then changed to a seat directly to his left and watched my chip stack dwindle as the players further from him started crushing makes sooooo much sense

I think this situation is just a matter of opinion. Personally I like to be across the table (4 seat gap each way) from the maniac. It allows other opponents to put money in light against the maniac's opens, and in turn gets a lot more dead money into the pot when you squeeze/isolate him.

There are merits to wanting to sit to the direct left/right of the maniac, but when you're to his direct left you're often going to be isolating just his open and you're ability to pick up more dead money preflop goes down. Of course the upside is absolute position. When you're sitting to the direct right you'll be someone shutting him out from opening as much when you're coming in for a raise right in front of him. Sitting to his direct right dictates that you'll have to trap more PF with limp/raises to attack his weak range. It obviously can work, but it sometimes leaves you more dependent on picking up hands.

I agree with Browni.

It's true what Branch says, sitting to his right leaves you more dependent on picking up hands, but against a maniac (at least my maniacs) we are dependent on picking up hands anyhow.

And everyone else at the table who is paying attention is ALSO pretty much dependent on picking up hands. Sitting to the right of the maniac lets us see what they ALL do before we have to act.

To me, that's what makes sitting there valuable - relative position preflop with the possibility of dead money and few callers when we get frisky enough to fold some of the dead money donors out of the hand.

If we want to max out our chances of having a range advantage, this will do it.

Ride the variance, buckaroo!

Yeah. I don't have a problem with any of this. There are different methods to exploiting this player type depending on where you're seated at the table in relation to them. That's why I think it's just a preference thing that comes down to what you're preferred strategy is.

Wow these are all super amazing thoughts here. I noticed when you play the limp raise game against a maniac to get the dead money the really good players limp their monsters pre as well and come in for some 4 bets against your squeezes..I wonder what a good strategy would be to adapt to this

You want to sit on the direct right of nits and maniacs, so that you can steal nits blinds, and so that you can limp range against the maniacs and mix in some limp-folds, limp-calls and limp-3bets.

But you want to sit on the direct left of loose-passive fish and strong regs, so that you can isolate the fish and avoid pots with the regs.

I am in the browni3141 & 6betme camp vs my richest maniac. He'll bet bottom pair on a board of T75 with a gutshot. He'll bet nuttin' but a gutshot. I don't know about everyone else, but I only flop a pair about 30% of the time....

Yup, this. /thread

For me this is all about stack sizes.

With a shortish stack, I want to sit on his right to limp/reraise for huge percentages of my stack with relatively huge dead money already in the pot, so very good risk versus reward ratio.

With a bigger stack, I want to sit towards his left and more play postflop positional poker. The limp/reraise doesn't work as well as there is less chance of getting in a huge percentage of stacks, the dead money won't be as significant (relative to stacks), plus the mistakes we make by widening our range and running into better become a lot more devastating.

GcluelessseatpositionnoobG

It depends on the type of maniac and how the other players play and adjust. I usually try to sit to the left of true maniacs because I get to see what everyone else does before the maniac acts and then after he acts, I can decide what to do based on who limped, raised, etc. I like having position on the maniacs when the hand is in motion. Not sure if I'm correct, but it's always worked well for me.

Also agree with the following and sitting to the right of nits: But you want to sit on the direct left of loose-passive fish and strong regs, so that you can isolate the fish and avoid pots with the regs.

Interesting. I posted a thread about sitting to a maniac's left in 2013 and said I'd change from then on. I guess I forgot! Ever since, I have sat to most true maniac's left. I had specifically moved to this player's left at the time (2013):

Just to clarify again, this maniac straddled EVERY hand to at least $15, but usually $22 or $25. He called EVERY raise. Example:

Hero ($960) limps with AA (I never do this in a regular game, but knew I could re-raise if raised and get it in versus maniac post. He would have called any raise I made if first to act, but would not go all in post. I figured I could get more out of him this way. As I stated, other players were pretty tight. I can get away from this post vs. them if it backfires.)
Three callers
Maniac (covers) raises to $100
Hero raises to $300
Three folds
Maniac calls

Flop: KK7ss
Maniac shoves
Hero snaps
Maniac mucks

Now I wonder if I should try sitting to the right, but the left has always worked so well. I posted recently about a maniac/bad player to my right and thought it was the perfect position -- I did felt him twice.