How to Deal with Maniacs
published on 10/01/07 at 10:35 am
Have you ever been driven mad by a maniac hogging all the action at your table? I bet you have.
If you’ve played online poker for a while, you probably know what I’m talking about. A guy betting left and right, raising with rags and dominating, while nobody at the table seems to be able to keep him honest. Even as you look like you could finally put him in his place, he outdraws your pocket aces on 6,9 offsuit, and bitchslaps you effortlessly back to silence and frustration. Guys like this can be so annoying, they’ll often have the whole table on a tilt.
Under such circumstances, it is essential that you keep calm, and attempt to push a good edge again if the chance emerges. Do not tilt. Tilting is a sure bankroll killer, even if the whole table you’re playing at, is tilting. If you manage to keep the only cool head at such a table, the odds will be greatly in your favor. At any rate, you want to have position on a lunatic like this, if possible, not only so that you can see him act ahead of you, but also to be in position to raise his bets.
Even though he seems invincible at times, you need to be aware of the fact that this guy is playing mediocre hands most of the time, and as such, he has to be viewed as a source of EV+. It won’t be easy to take him down, because he’ll induce wilder fluctuations in your bankroll than usual, but provided you have the firepower to stay with him, you’ll make better money off him than you would off any player under normal conditions. Also, as I said before, he might just turn the whole table upside down, thus generating even more EV+.
If the table tilts, the course of action should be obvious: only commit on genuine monsters and take them all the way, no matter what happens. Most of the time though, the table will take a step back, and if they see you tackle the maniac, they might just let you do the dirty work. Any way you look at it, the very first thing you need to consider before directly engaging him is the attitude of the rest of the table, and the likeliness of any of the other players interfering with your battle.
The fact is, the more the other players want in on the action, the more you’ll have to revert to your standard tight-aggressive or whatever ring strategy. If you have position on the maniac though, you’ll also have a chance to put the squeeze on him and encourage the other players to fold, all in one move. Raise the maniac, and that won’t just pass as a direct challenge against him, but it will also put the other players, coming up behind you, in a very difficult position: they’ll no longer be able to play marginally strong hands (such as medium pairs or A,x) against a bet and a raise.
Marginally strong hands will be exactly what you’ll need against a guy who plays weak or mediocre hands most of the time. Drawing hands, such as medium connectors will lose their value, because they’re based on implied odds, and those odds dwindle when you’re faced with a escapee from the looney bin. Try to avoid being seated on his right as much as you can. If you see that the crazed maniac is dominating and making other people leave, think seriously about getting up from his right, and waiting till a seat on his left frees up. If you’re on his right, you’ll still be able to get in a whack or two, but you’ll have to be much more selective with the hands you commit on, and that will take away from the edge you have on him.
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