We've had someone like this in our game for the past couple weekends and it has me wondering if I'm reacting appropriately from my blinds. I have been folding all of my marginal holdings from the big blind for one more bet even though I know he has 4 random cards. But sometimes I second guess myself because the pot odds are so good and sometimes there's only 1 or 2 people with real hands in the pot.

Does anyone here think I should be auto-defending vs his raises? I'm just afraid of the usual flopping 2 pair and getting run down by something else. Defending bad hands from the blind is generally a leak IMO, but I realize he is creating special circumstances.

Going to need more details, especially if this is limit or pot-limit O8.

in limit o8 you need to be defending the majority of your hands here. you can fold absolute gutter trash and play the rest.

rely on your knowledge of his player tendencies to deal with postflop. if you're not sure what the play is sometimes you can just break it down like "my hand on this flop vs a 100% range." run those equities and it will help you decide whether you need to be check/raising.

and figure out how thin he's drawing to your lead-outs and how often he's cbetting and with what.

obviously a lot of general advice but i'd say those are the first things i'd be thinking about.

It depends some on the openers position and heavily on how many other players are in the pot and how they got there. But, generally hu for one bet you have to defend super wide. the more mw the more you want better features in your hand and an understanding of how you are going to see the river, realizing the equity of those features. You are getting a great price so you don't need those features in combination. But the more flops that give your hand a reasonable path to the river, the better.

What position is this player in?

If they were just to your left, I would play different than just to you right.

Great advice above.

Check raise the devil with good holdings. Call down medium strength. Fold junk.. tighter range with more involved. A blind saved is a blind saved but extreme calling or folding too much either way in the big is probably the least correct.

Assuming you are playing LO8, if you believe you are overdefending in the BB, you are probably actually underdefending in the BB.

I think an important concept to think about is what limits are we playing? If it’s a live say $3/$6 game, in tightening up my range due to rake. I think it’s also dependent on how many people are in the pot.

If it’s a $20/$40 game, we can safely defend a good majority of our hands or even 3!


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gosh this is so true lol

Sorry guys, this is about limit, and the game I play in is 10/20 with a half kill. I always take the first seat open to the guy's left when possible so I'm rarely OOP vs. him.

I used to be a proponent of always defending for one bet in the BB but I'm really starting to second guess it as I fine tune my strategy. There are many hands in LO8 that are only going to scoop if they make a full house with no low on board and too many ways to get trapped in with the 2nd best hand. I've stopped defending rags just for the sake of it and my results have been much improved. Maybe that's a reflection of me not handling marginal holdings well post flop but it just seems to me like asking for trouble getting involved all the time hoping to eek out half the pot with 2 pair or whatever.

What value will you possibly realize with hands like K962 or Q833? It's just not worth putting any extra money in with such junk IMO.

Now granted this raiser having any 4 cards might alter that, but he usually gets at least 1 or 2 callers and they typically have decent holdings. I'd still be going up against them asking for trouble.

It is interesting that everyone so far has said to defend though. I used to be the loose guy!

If it were pot limit I'd be more inclined to call wider since you can actually bet people off their hands, but in a limit game where several people get to showdown no matter what it's really hard to make marginal hands hold up. I watch people defend rags in their BB and get run down by rivered straights and flushes every other hand it seems like.

We still need a lot more detail.

Is the guy literally raising 100% of his hands regardless of position or previous action? If this is true, having position on him is probably not the best move; you'd prefer to see how everyone else reacts to his raises first. If he's a more "typical" maniac, raising 30-50% of his hands, that's a different story.

And how is everyone else responding? I can't imagine there are many heads-up pots in this game at all. Those of us who advocate defending very widely are usually speaking about heads-up situations. You do want to defend more narrowly when there are a bunch of players in the pot.

If you are literally talking about a blind vs. blind situation where everyone folds to the SB, who raises 100%, I would be in favor of calling all hands except trips. But if the guy is raising from the SB in 6-way pot, the advice is going to be entirely different.

I like the idea of trying a different position against him. If you sit on his right or just far away from him then you won't be constantly facing the decision of what to defend with. On his right you can limp-reraise some fun hands and generally see how many players are in the pot before you close the action. On his left you are prone to others doing the same and getting caught in the middle.

He literally raises, 3-bets, and caps pre-flop every single hand. You'd think people would love a player like that but it actually angers a lot of the old nits. Most of them are responding by loosening their calling ranges against him for spite. A few of the better players 3-bet trying to isolate him or thin the field, but you're right that it is almost never heads up.

Being on his right is an interesting idea. It is certainly better for my blind decisions and I like limp/re-raising the field, I've done it a few times before I could change seats. But I feel like I have more control over the pots if I am on his left as not only can I 3-bet him, but also my occupying that seat means there's one less person there to try that. Often I will just flat call him with my limping range and I find others are far less likely to 3-bet behind me. When I am on his right however, I am basically reduced to folding my limping range entirely because too often I wind up facing 3 bets (which will mean 4 bets) by the time it gets back to me. All of that not to mention being on his left means I have position on the unpredictable loose fish post flop and there's nothing I don't like about that.

What I really try to do is get on the left of him AND the 1 or 2 players there who love to have position on him and 3-bet him. The ideal position for all decisions except for the blind issues IMO.

Yeah you would have to tighten up a bit on his right, but that's never a terrible idea in a wild game like this where you usually need to draw to the nuts anyway. In Ray Zee's Hi-Lo book he recommends sitting on the left of nits so you can get out when they enter and especially raise pre. So the converse of that would seem useful against a true maniac.

How does he play post-flop? Does he still crank random nonsense or does he use his image to buy free cards / but relentlessly value-bet people when he connects? If he turns into a calling station when he whiffs then that's another benefit to sitting on his right. Also if he is raising / 3-betting you a lot, then he's protecting your hands or increasing your value as long as you are betting into him with the goods when it is multiway.

I would want to be just to their right.

If they raise, you call, someone else re-raises and they cap. then you are almost stuck with pot odds until river.

If you were just to their right, you are in position to call to close action or re-raise for them to re-raise and isolate or cap.


The biggest issue is pre-flop isn't it? or is it constant until show down?

Is that at the Beau Rivage? You don't need to loosen up against these players. Just 3 bet them with the strongest part of your range and if you don't flop well, don't be scared to fold (or hang on with 1 pairs or whatever).

These types of players are the best to have at the table because they'll eventually run out of chips.