Maniac mining

I have been facing quite a lot of maniac players online and just accidentally beat one heads up. Looking back at some of the hands I know I made crucial mistakes because of the constant pressure from bets and reraises. Once you realise that a player is maniacally aggressive you have to work out if they are doing it in response to your play or not. If your opponent is responding to you then they will change if you change. If you begin to fight fire with fire, then they should, in theory tighten up a little. I just faced a player who ramped up the aggression even more when I fought back.

I knew that I had the post flop skills to outmanouver this guy but I was getting crushed preflop. Every time I picked a playable hand I was faced with the options of: limp call a raise; raise call a three bet; or raise with the intention of 4 betting/jamming or just open jamming. I settled upon mostly limp calling to keep pots smaller but then this left me without the initative on the flop, which is basically handing your money to maniacs.  I therefore decided to pepper in a few small raises for initiative, which he quickly stole with 100% 3bets anyway. I also four bet a few hands for value and increased my range to do this, whilst trying to avoid getting pot committed with a raggy ace. I was basically all at sea and having reflected on the match I think a 100% limp strategy may well have been the way forward because we ended up in some pretty big pots without a great deal.

I said at the start of this article that I won accidentally, because the turning point was an ill timed 4bet jam I pulled, when I should have seen the insta-call coming. I sadly tabled 57s only to see my maniac friend holding 45o. My hand held up, as it often will, but I felt like the naughty micro donkey that I am for pushing so hard with a mediocre holding. It was a case of 'right read, wrong action' since I want to keep the likes of 45o in bloated pots, not try and push them out preflop. Or if you are results orientated it was the right action for the wrong reasons, since I ended up getting it all in ahead. I shall try not to make a habit of stubbornly 4bet jamming and if I am going to do it against maniacs, at least expect a call and put ace-rag and suited Kings  into this mostly value range. The game turned around after this point and I spotted a couple of steal spots when I noticed he played more cautiously to my limps, if I had folded a couple of hands previously. I also pulled a hero call in a spot where I was content to check down AQ high for good showdown, but the board ran out double paired so my kicker became the golden bluff catching card, and he obligingly shoved his airball on the river.

Should I be playing a more trappy game against such players? A lot of players might think so, but since this guy had such a willingness to put his money in the middle and gamble I should be looking to still value raise and valuebet good hands (with a wider range than normal), fold my worst and limp the rest. I know this sounds exploitable but this is probably the only way to see pots with position and the likely best hand most of the time. I do not want to bloat pots to the point where we are suddenly playing for stacks at the earlier stages of a heads up sit and go.  At around 20bb I should be willing to stack off with maniacs with all of my raising range since at this stage they will likely overadjust and shove with a range that includes trashy hands they would have three bet previously. I have come across a lot of erratic play so far at heads up, and survival seems to be a big factor since sooner or later they will blow up and make a daft play. I was just lucky that this time I made the daft play but got away with it.  I also think I just advocated a calling station approach to playing maniacs!! Hmm...maybe this needs more research...