How To Deal With Maniacs

We've all played against them. The lunatics who raise preflop 40% of the time. The psychos who routinely bet four times the amount in the pot. The people who could have just about any two cards, and will force you to pay a huge amount of money to ever get to a showdown. Here are some basic tips on how to play against these people. Once you get comfortable with them, they'll do wonders for your bankroll. Hopefully, instead of fearing them, you'll soon be salivating when one of them sits at your table.

Tip #1: Fold preflop, fold preflop, fold preflop. Don't go to war with these guys unless you have a hand that's likely to be playable on the flop. If you can get in cheap with suited connectors or a low-mid pocket pair, that's great, but otherwise try to stick to solid starting hands. You have to be patient, or these players will eat you alive. This is the single most important of these tips.

Tip #2: The top-pair flop check-raise. If you flop top pair against a maniac and you're acting before him, check. When he bets, raise it, and raise it hard. Maniacs tend to be much more willing to bluff than to make loose calls. So when you're pretty sure you're ahead, let him take a stab at the pot before you do anything. Yeah, occasionally you'll run into a great hand, but he's usually just throwing free money at you. Remember, because you're only playing solid starting hands, you have a good kicker. The probability of him having two pair or better (or an overpair) is very low if he's frequently playing hands and betting flops hard.
Keep in mind that if he's only moderately crazy, he may check behind and get a free card. If this is likely to be dangerous for you, betting is usually a better idea than check-raising.

Tip #3: The pre-flop jam from the blinds. If you're a blind, and you have a good but not premium hand (something like AQ, TT) that might be hard to play out of position without a friendly flop, your defense against the maniac's raise is very simple. Huge reraise. If blinds are $1/$2, and he raises it to $10, reraise all in for your remaining $70. This eliminates your positional disadvantage, and is likely to get him to fold hands which are behind, but could easily catch up on the flop. Depending on the nature of the maniac, you may even sometimes get a call from a weaker hand. If this particular maniac raises preflop reliably, you may want to limp with these hands from early position with the intention of reraising huge.
Keep in mind that you should NEVER use this play against good players. The success of the play is reliant on high pocket pairs being a very small portion of his raising hands. This guy literally has to be raising 1/3 of the time preflop, unless he's very likely to call you with anything. You should also not do this if you're deep-stacked. In this example, his initial raise is 14% of your stack. If his initial raise is 5% of your stack, taking his raise becomes less important than how you'll fare against the range of hands he'd call you with.

Tip #4: Make your ultimate decision on the flop. If you have a marginal hand on the flop, and you're facing a significant bet from Maniac Jones, you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT call him and then fold to a bet on the turn or river (barring very scary turn/river cards). Decide on the flop whether or not you're willing to commit a lot more chips to this hand. If the answer is no, fold. If the answer is yes, you may want to raise, or you may want to check/call all the way down; it's usually a judgment call that depends on the situation and the player. In general, you want to avoid the "call the flop and pray" mentality against maniacs.

Tip #5: The river trap. If you're in early position and have been betting the whole way with a good but not outstanding hand (e.g. top pair, good kicker), check the river intending to call any bet that the maniac makes. A check in this position screams weakness to non-sophisticated players, and the overaggressive ones are likely to stab at the pot with a lower pair, a missed draw, or whatever other godforsaken trash they have. Occasionally they'll have hit a miracle and you'll lose the pot. But if they did, and you bet, they'll probably raise you, in which case you're losing this money anyway, and possibly a lot more.