I vs. a maniac the other day and he absolutely destroyed me. He reraised me often, did pot size c-bets and basically was just a plan menace.

I kept on accepting his rematches as I was intent on learning how to beat this person. After 3 games I gave up.... I did not know how to play against this player.

He truly had me at his mercy. If I went to play back at him he'd basically commit himself; if I called his bets with small hands he'd get to decide how much money would go in. These players aren't hard to beat when short, since I can just push the hand but when we're reasonably deep I have no clue how to beat them.

I tried playing passive and let him take bluff me of a strong hand but it didn't work; I wasn't getting much cards + he seemed to catch on to that was what I was doing and changed gears.


Sorry if I'm not giving much detail. Just wondering what how you guys generally play against a maniac

Tighten up your preflop range, open up your stacking off range, let him do the betting, try to induce.

Doesn't sound like a maniac to me, sounds like a decent LAG. BIG difference.

There are a lot of suggestions: play tighter esp. preflop, call lighter and let them do the betting, and play back at them. The absolute best thing is to get a handle on their ranges and do all of them at various times--change it up and it might confuse them. Don't like only playback with air, do it with strong hands on dry flops for instance. Otherwise, you are playing into their hands.

Take him to valuetown and control pot size.

"if I called his bets with small hands he'd get to decide how much money would go in" is awful in so many ways, and why it's better to be aggressor in general.

Most importantly have a plan if you're going to play the hand for how it might unfold.

ChiRy said this in the beginner's thread and would be vvv helpful to you.

Cbetting with air is still fine against loose players that steal on later streets, you just need to stay aggressive on those later streets or else you'll get run over and pushed out of too many pots.

Double and triple barrels, raises and reraises are good to combat that player, rather than tightening up.

The only time to really tighten up a ton vs a lag is one that is insane or never adjusts and will always pay off, but those are few and far between except at the lowest levels.

Try not to narrow their ranges down too much, using aggression by default and adjusting to the things that you observe in game should be plenty good in the $5s and keep you from outleveling yourself too much or arriving at the wrong conclusion when trying to "put them on a narrow range or hand."

How I would adjust:

-tighten up a lot preflop (play hands that flop well).

-widen your stack off range

-if he's barreling, don't float with air to take away on later streets. instead call with your medium/strong hands and let him hang himself. you can also call with hands that have decent equity (Ac9c on a 8c6dQh board)...i like calling against maniacs on boards like these because your equity is decent (backdoor flush draw, backdoor str8 draws, overcard...even if he has a hand like K8 your equity is over 30%) and because when you flat a board like this it looks very much like you have a queen and it's harder for the maniac to continue firing. If you turn an open ender or flush draw you can shove if he bets, turn an ace u can get it in, if he slows down you can bet and take down the pot often. if you turn a 9 and he bets again, call, he'd be very hard pressed to fire a 3rd barrel with air.

-Don't continue post flop if you think u MIGHT or PROBABLY have the best hand but aren't comfortable calling a turn bet or river bet. You know he's aggro, you know he's going to fire often, don't call pf with A4o OOP and then call his c-bet on a 458 flop...you know he's gonna barrel often, yeah, you probably have the best hand but your equity in the hand sucks often, you have no idea where you're really at in the hand, almost every turn card is bad for you. think about it. there are better spots. what's that? you want to c/r here and protect your hand? NOOO!!! He will simply call with better, fold when he's destroyed, or call when he's slightly behind and still has good equity. Now you have a bigger pot that u don't want to lose, you're OOP, and you still have no idea where you're at.

-You can try widening your 3betting range as long as he is flatting 3bets and not 4betting you. If he's flatting 3bets with hands like Q9o, A8s, 76s, then you gain a ton of value by 3betting hands like KJs, QJs, ATs when you otherwise couldn't 3b those hands. Often times when you make top pair, he will have made (1) nothing at all and fold his hand (2) a weak draw which he will play strongly as a weak semibluff (afterall he's a maniac), (3) he will make top pair weak kicker and get it in for value when he's behind, (4) he will make 2nd pair or 3rd pair, say to himself "oh man, it's a 3bet pot and i flopped a pair, i have a boner now, he may have missed the flop, i'm gonna play aggro and win it now because my hand is weak and i need to protect it and thinking about that now is making my boner go away a little and i can't have that: SHOVE!!!" ....then u stack him. Note: if he's 4betting you, don't 3bet these hands.

hopefully this helps a little. sorry about ranting, thinking about LAGS makes me angry. good luck.

You gotta learn to love bad lags. They will valuetown them selves so much. I know, playing lags will SUCK when they turn on their run g00d, but u just have to ride it out, I find them much more profitable to play than the nits (positive red line ohyes!)

Good advices from Cavino tough, spared me some time ^^

To deviate from "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em": If they continue to destroy you, just try and play a couple of games like they do.

If you beat your opponents this way: congrats.
If they beat you: figure out how they do it, and take this in mind the next time you play a LAG / maniac.
Will be a useful exercise and helps you to answer your own question.

Good luck

This is a very good post

keep raising strong hands from btn, call his 3bet occasionally with decent postflop hands to flop big, coldcall AA, JJ,1010,99 to let him hang himself by just calling flop c bet and jamming or calling turn, call also with smaller pockepair to setmine, limp call btn with hands that play well postflop in position, stay away from oop unless u have a hand, 3bet bigger oop, and only 3bet top of ur range in beginning, then later open up 3betting bit, 4bet small AK, AA, KK, QQ in position for value and get it in

Great post, cheers! The (Ac9c on a 8c6dQh board) was very enlightening, thanks

i agree with PaperWalls that "you gotta learn to love bad lags. They will valuetown themselves so much". even if they run well a couple times, as long as they don't hit and run, you will be able to get it back very quickly most of the time. I ALSO find them MUCH more profitable than nits.

I also agree that I give good advice

+1

There's nothing more infuriating than playing nits who won't put in more than 3BB into any pot without the nuts. You spend 45 minutes stealing blinds from them then they win a medium sized pot to win back the blinds they lost, cycle continues... Playing people like that tilts me so much.

I find that checking to induce works really well given villlain is barreling and bluffing plenty. If you flop a K or A pair on dry boards checking back flop confuses villain and they own themselves betting turn and river w/ 2nd/3rd pair/air.

Also if you have a strongish 2nd pair and you don't want a huge pot/can't go for 3 streets of value/hate getting raised, esp on drawy boards, I love: cbetting flop, checking turn and letting villain fire air/weak hands for value on the river. e.g. raise 910, cbet Q107ss, they call, turn 3, I love checking here, then snapping villains pot bet when draws miss.

ummm, the face that the penguin is making is the same face i made when i read this post. this is absolutely awful advice.

Checking back your top pairs is not a good idea (unless the kicker is weak, in which case the hand plays more like a 2nd pair good kicker type hand). Betting the flop is a much better idea with top pair good kicker type hands. A maniac will likely c/r you with a weak holding and you can usually call all streets and let him hang himself. btw, maniacs own themselves betting turn and river anyway, no matter what you do. Suggesting that you not value bet a hand that clearly merits a value bet is f'n ******ed and goes against the very foundation of good poker.

Again, terrible advice. Checking back the flop accomplishes the same thing AND you don't risk getting c/r'd like you do by betting the flop. He's a maniac, right? Do you really think maniacs just call OOP with their draws? No. They c/r. Good job, you've just helped villian build a pot when you have 2nd pair diarrhea kicker on a very coordinated board. Checking back your 2nd pairs for pot control is a better idea. How does "if you hate getting raised then you should bet" make any sense at all???