He plays deep, raises 80% of his hands at 11xbb and will call a shove with any 2 cards. i play at a 100bb stack and i find it hard to play him without position.
He fires almost all the time.Wait for a hand and shove?

Wait for a hand, call raise. After villian c-bets, THEN SHOVE.
What is the rest of the table doing (waiting for the same thing, I imagine?)

just buy in short and torture him.

Yes. they all did the same thing. Such a bad game, should i not play this table if i like playing a LAG strategy? I cant sit and wait for AJ+ right? is any pp good here?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...72/index2.html

Read the last page or so of responses.

Not at first. AJ isn't even playable. You need AA, AKs, KK, QQ. After he calls your shove and gets shown AA and later calls your shove and hopefully your QQ hits a set -- now you have his attention. Then any pp, AJ+, etc. and you can start pumping up the LAG. Be aware of the other players, so you aren't both paying one of them off.

If your bankroll cant stand playing Lag and table thats even laggier than your style... then yes leave... but if you can out gamble the gamblers a little bit and push back it could be good for you... otherwise sit tight. Either move to his left and get position or sit on his right and limp raise and check raise him with premium hands until he cant take it anymore.

Quit leveling, this person has asked a legitimate question...

If ur BR can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Ask urself, if somebody wanted to flip coins and he was offering u 55/45 at $200 a pop, could u do it?

This guy isn't a 'professional maniac' playing this way for an advantage; he's a gambler who likes the action he gets and he enjoys making people feel uncomfortable. These guys always leave the table broke, it's just a question of how quickly.

I wasn't leveling, I gave a very legitimate answer. Since he is ready to shove/call a shove at anytime, you are going to have to have the best hand at showdown.

Your AJ vs KT is no good when unimproved and a T hits the turn, you just gave the maniac more bullets to play with.

You need to double up a couple of times, and then you might be able to play poker. Making 52/48 coin flips against a deep stack, variance is going to cause you to rebuy and get more bullying instead of busting the big stack.

I disagree completely. If you're bankrolled and he's literally calling with any 2, you should be shoving with any hand which is (even a marginal) favourite vs. his range. Fine, there's a good argument for passing on crappy above-average hands like J8o, but AJ is far too strong vs. a crazy gambler's range to not want to get it in. I'll take a 100BB 60/40 (or 55/35, or 52/48) flip any day.

If you're not willing to, either for bankroll/stress issues, then sitting back and playing premiums is a legit tactic. I feel you lose value + you run the risk of the gambler going broke before you even pick up a big pocket pair.

I am assuming the maniac is playing much deeper than the hero.
From the sound of the table conditions, Maniac is stealing blinds right and left, and probably getting the 11x raise callers folding to a cbet everytime they miss a flop, since it was said everyone is waiting for the nuts. I assume the buyin is capped, hence the maniac is able to bully with a bigger stack.

I'll flip you 52/48 with 10x the chips, let's see who goes broke first.

Waiting for a big hand? At 1/2 you see 9 or 10 hands for $3 in blinds, you can see a lot of hands for $100 if someone is ready to double up your remaining $200 when you get a hand.

If somebody (who wasn't a magician) was offering to flip coins (not two headed) and was laying me +110, I would do it until he was broke (that's why I live by the 50BI rule.) AJ vs. KT is offering something closer to +120

So basically your advice to beat a shove-on-any-two-maniac is
run away or bring 50 buy-ins. k thks.

lol... ur such a troll. it's called a BR.

Grt strategy though, wait for aces (or a set of queens lol.)

EDIT: I bring 5BI with me to the casino but even if I only brought 3BI I'm still getting in there against this guy with any PP, any A and pretty much any two broadway cards. If I lose 3BI, I leave the casino early and enjoy a rare day off.

Nice to see a sane post here. OP, why would you not just call or shove with anything that you think is ahead of his range. Double up one time and you are playing deep enough to play poker with him.

I like this too. Are we there to win money? If we are why would we be afraid to get it in these situations even if some of them are marginal?

Spot on kneedurdough

...in 2 hours u should see one of those hands about once (4 hours about twice.) like I said, great strategy.

Even if he's only raising 50% of his hands and calling everything, you're a 55/45 favorite with 66+, A7s+, A8o+, KTs+, KQo. That's about 13% of hands. You'll lose 3 BIs in a row 9% of the time. Keep in mind that even with 20 BIs, you have a 4% risk of ruin playing cash over time.

Getting to 60% would reduce your chances of losing 3 in a row to only 6%, but at a cost of only playing 88+, ATs+, AJo+, or only 7% of hands. Somebody is going to get rich tonight, playing this few hands lets somebody else get the money.

PS. I should note I'm playing more hands than this, these are just the hands I'm happy to shove over on him pf.

PPS. You'll be amazed that after you stack all the chips and he finally leaves, people will thank you for getting rid of him. Enjoy the rare time that you win lots of money and the table likes you for it.

If you have the BR and the mentality to take some bad beats, wild swings, buy in deep and play some poker with him.

I have had the joy (?) of playing in uncapped games with guys like this a couple of times. They love action, but they love someone who will play with them more than anything. Trust me when I say you will make more money against these guys than anyone else, ever. The key is to convince them to play post flop. If you can get them off their raise and shove the flop mentality oh boy fasten your seat belt and get ready for the ride of your life.

The last time I played a guy like this was in a 5/10 no cap private game. He would buy in for anywhere from 500BB to 2000BB and raise some ridiculous amount ($200 was his standard open) and ship it on the flop the majority of the time. Most of the table went into strat eightfold suggests. I took the other path... "Hey, do you ****ing want to play poker or what? If you knock that AI on every flop crap off I will play with you." He agreed to tone it down with the AIs and we played poker.

He had a great time and became a semi regular in the game. When he sat it pretty much became a HU match with a few interlopers from time to time trying double up their AA/KK/AK hands. I made a **** load of money off him, took some of the biggest beats from him too. All the while I kept it light and fun, kept him having fun. He played about 6 months on and off and then was gone, never seen him again.

Nothing like waiting 90min for AA and losing to 53o (which will happen ~1/5th of the time.)

Pick up ur skirt, grab ur balls and make some ****ing money!

OP take a look at the advice. You got me, KUD, Venice, and Perc all saying th same thing in our own way... Bottom line is bankroll and variance. Not to toot my own (or the others) horn but id say you got some pretty good advice from some semi-ok players. That wait for AA and w/e bs is lol.

+1 to their advice, nothing to add.

Widen ur opening range. The play him as u would play a fish I would start by rasing his flop raises few times. (ISOLATING) ISolate him with good hands or not just make sure ur in postion, if he were to shove most flops, id call him off with any pair given board texture mebe even call some ace high hands based on tells, if he checks flop your in control but i wouldnt bet unless i know i would call a shove. The only value bets u need to make are in your mind fortelling his future play

This is a really good table to be at.

I don't think you should be playing 52/48's against this guy, due to bankroll limits and the two problems below. If you're looking for at least 60% equity against any two cards, you're looking at something like 55+, A8o+, A5s+, KTo+, K9s+, QJs. This is 17% of all hands and it seems like plenty.

I think you should be comfortable playing any of these hands heads up AIPF against a random hand. However, there are two factors you really need to consider:

1) Lost opportunities if you get stacked. If you're playing 300BB deep against this guy, you should be tightening this range significantly, because if you just wait a few hands, you're more likely to get an even better hand to play against him with better odds to double up. If you shove A9 against him and lose, you can only play 100BB deep, which hurts your equity.

2) There are other players at the table! You need to be concerned about these guys. Shoving 88 pf isn't good when there are 6 people left to act, there's simply too much chance someone wakes up with a monster behind you to risk it. Think about where you want to sit at the table. If you have something like 99, raise 3x, see how everyone else reacts, then you can shove over villain's 3bet preflop if no one else seems excited about their hand.

Oh, something else, take the seat directly to the right of the bully. You want to see what everyone else is going to do PF before you commit to further action.