Anatomy of a Poker Maniac
written by BeatTheFish.com
...Fishy says, "Are we playing
Hold'em or video poker here, buddy?"
The following article was submitted by one of our most helpful forum
members: "jslavi01" over
from the Poker Forum.
He is a regular winner at the small-stakes no-limit cash games and
Sit 'n Gos on
Bodog. This response was an answer to another member wondering
how/if maniacs make money and what their strategy is.
...
jslavi01: There is definitely a
maniac strategy, but it’s much more complicated than some people
think. I’m sure most maniacs don’t think about it in such depth. But
I’ve been thinking about it (maniac that I am…or try to be
sometimes) since you asked the question and here’s my explanation:
The easiest way maniacs make money is to make someone go on tilt and
then pull the trigger by pushing with a really premium hand.
However, this is the least likely scenario. More likely is they’ll
push with any marginally reasonable cards. Folding equity also plays
a big role in maniacs play, but that’s for later.
“They (the maniacs) wouldn't be doing what they do if it wasn't
profitable.”
This is not necessarily true. Degenerate gamblers don’t care. They
just want the action. You don’t know where the money comes from.
Most may get their money from other means than poker.
“In short, the maniac player seems to make a heck of a lot more
money per hour compared to the tight aggressive player.”
In about 20 hands, maniacs make more money per hour than anyone else
(about 20BB/hr…so at a $.50/1.00 table, $20). After 20 hands,
though, 80% of maniacs will have busted out or left the table. The
moral of this story is patience, patience, patience. If you want to
be involved in a pot with a maniac, be prepared to play for your
whole stack. Otherwise, let them try and take someone else’s money
or find another table where you’re more comfortable.
“Genuinely stupid (and/or rich) players are exempted.”
You have to group these players into the sample pool. Maniacs are
maniacs whether they know it or not. The only thing that matter is
that they do it, and that it works (or doesn’t). This is a thought
exercise at heart anyway.
“There must be some logic to this madness.”
Basically, this style is like playing a fixed odds game, like
blackjack. The maniac puts all of the decisions on you, without
letting you know what his cards are.
This example only considers pre-flop action. But you can extrapolate
the thought process from this scenario. Consider all the poker
variables like position, bet size, prior history, stack sizes, etc.,
etc. The most important of these to the maniac is stack size. Does a
random online player want to risk his stack playing any 2 random
cards?
Here’s the situation:
.05/.10 NL 10 seat full ring table (where you’re most likely to find
one…)
Seat Positions:
SB - Maniac (6.00)
BB (9.75)
UTG (xx)
UTG+1 (xx)
You (10.00)
UTG (Under the Gun, meaning first to act pre-flop) and UTG+1 both
limp to you. You have QJs and you raise to $.50. The other players
fold, but the maniac re-raises to $6.00. The BB, UTG, and UTG+1
players fold. Now the decision is on you.
Notice how you went from being the aggressor to the defender. Do
you, a random online player, want to risk your stack playing any 2
cards? As an underdog against any 2 random unpaired cards you have
about a 40% chance of winning pre-flop. And you always have 3
choices: fold, call, or raise. You have a decent starting hand, but
is it worth it to risk half of our stack on what is essentially a
coin flip where you may be behind? Most people fold here and keep
their money rather than risk it and so do you in this situation. And
the maniac just made $.75.
Some loose aggressive players are winners and rely on hand reading
and probability of what you will do. Maniacs don’t look this
far or that deeply. They only look at their own hand and the others
be damned. In reality, if the maniac keeps pushing like this, he
will make money as long as everyone keeps folding. Also notice that
we haven’t even considered what the maniac is holding but merely the
odds we were getting on the call!
A maniac takes the idea of raising 3-5x before the flop
(tournament), or using the 4xBB+1BB for each limper (standard ring
game) and exploits it to the nth level. They prey on everyone else’s
tendency to think that poker players are reasonable. What happens at
the table, though, is everyone becomes supposedly reasonable. The
table tightens up in response to the maniacs methods, and that’s
where the article comes in:
Playing Against Maniacs
...
The original poster had a good
question: What is the actual strategy behind the blind aggression of
so-called poker maniacs and how do they make money. Joe has provided
a great profile on the common table maniac and some thoughtful
advice to put into perspective the next time you consider calling
enormous bets with mediocre holdings.
As Joe addressed in the first part of
his response, there isn't always a correlation between profit and
choosing a strategy at the table. Many of these "maniacs" are
perhaps wealthy in other business avenues and are looking to blow
off steam with something they've seen on television. Another
possibility is that the table maniac is normally a higher-stakes
player but is on tilt and is making a compromise by dropping down to
a lower level to play crazily. Perhaps these players have weak
personalities in their daily lives and are looking to bully everyone
in some form. The rest may just be looking to gamble or perhaps they
just don't know how to play poker. Whatever the reason, keep in mind
that profit is often not the motivation behind a maniac's style of
play.
The profile of the maniac here is
dead on: they want to put you on the defensive and they play at your
weaknesses rather than the strength of their cards. If their
strategy is left simply at that statement then they could be very
smart players. After all, you could consider wildly successful pros
like Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey "maniacs" if the
only qualification was the play aggressively, raise a lot, and play
the players rather than the cards. However, most online players
aren't smart aggressive players because they act with blind
aggression. They push ahead simply because they feel like it, make
decisions on a whim, and do it all too often. These are the players
that will either bust out of the game first or eventually lose it
all after the other players at the table wisen up.
I also appreciate the brownie points
for mentioning one of my other articles in the response. Hopefully
it can be helpful in giving a couple of simple ways to
defend against maniacs.
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Poker Strategy
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