I'll say playing these guys can be +ev in more than 1 way.

I had a guy like this at my table a while back, I don't remember exact chip counts but we were both pretty deep, I'll say +200bb at least.

I was 2 to his left (position). He opened, I 3 bet w/ 9Ts, all fold, v calls ( this is what he did, if he 4bet I could actually put him on a range but he would flat here w/ atc). Flop AT2r, he donked, I raised, he shoved I snap call, (I knew he didn't have an A or he would 4bet me pre, so I knew I was way ahead of his range and was calling). He flipped over 44.

Now the table saw this and now I'm the "maniac spewtard" and no one was giving me credit for a hand thinking I was going to get it in with any pair.

It was a good night.

If you cant pull the trigger, then you pull it preflop. The guy isnt good if he is playing 90% of his hands and fearlessly 4 betting (although for all I know the guy is just getting the maniac title but is actually good)

as i mentioned above, you can 3B this guy one in every 12 hands, thats not really at the mercy of the cards.

Hey digiharris read the post and dont be a run of the mill 2+2 trollin fool lol.

This. Especially the bolded part. You'd be amazed what calling down a $500 pot with A high (and winning) on a 1/2 will do for your image for the rest of the night.

I will say that these types of extreme scenarios only happen rarely though. I've been at the table twice in the past month with a guy who consistently donks 10+ buy-ins at 1/2 (over $3K where I play) when ever he sits down. The first time it took people a few orbits to get adjusted to $17 PFR every hand, but once it was clear what was happening it became very profitable for everyone.

With respect to position, I actually like being to a true maniac's direct right. Guy from my example had a VPIP of 100% and would c-bet 100%, so I would limp basically the top 25% of hands, let him raise, and then see what the rest of the table would do. Most 1/2 tables people are not 3-betting without 1010+, so if he got callers I would 3-bet to isolate (if he was raised before it got me I was typically folding unless I actually had a preimum hand), folding to 4-bets from anyone but the maniac unless I was in top 5% of hands, and if he didn't get callers I would call and be heads up . Because he would always c-bet any board it didn't matter that I was out of position every hand, because I knew that 30+ was going into the pot regardless every time. Multi-way this allows you to basically play perfectly against the whole table, since they would play fit/fold post-flop.

As noted by other posters above, BR is very important though. You can't be afraid to get it in with middle pair and lose to a spiked top pair on the river. You have to have the attitude that you'll get it back soon enough.

Hold on, if villain's range here is SO wide, then woudn't even A pair of 8s or 7s be ahead of his range? So if we hit an 8 or a 7 and villain bets, couldn't we just raise him because we betting range( being that its mostly air) and we want to protect our weakish pair. if he does call we're obviously going to be behind alot of the time on boards that we have mid/bottom pair BUT this is still poker and its still very hard to make a hand being that we miss the board alot of the time AND even when he hits the board, if his range is so wide there is a chance on boards like K75 that he has a 5 and is bad enough to call the raise( if he's a maniac),,. so the raise is for value lolz

Depends how comfortable you are playing marginal hands against people that have wide ranges. You could certainly profitably nit it up and end up winning some decent pots when you have strong hands.

Alternatively, you can widen your ranges and try to play pots in a lot of situations with him. Think about it this way, your implied odds go up a lot with a guy like this in the game because if you flop a strong hand he's always putting some money in the pot.

Postflop you should be calling them down lighter and making thinner valuebets against them. This is very high variance (they do in fact get hands sometimes) but is much more profitable than nitting it up.

As for the 3betting discussion. If he calls 3bets wide, 3bet him. But if he doesn't its going to be a mistake to 3bet him a lot of the time. You should still 3bet big PPs that we don't really want to play multiway. But if he folds to 3bets you let him fold PF rather than make big postflop mistakes which is usually going to be a bad thing.