Playing Against a Maniac - Postflop

Having a maniac at your table is a profitable situation, as you might have imagined. However, there are significant strategy adjustments that must be made in order to take advantage. In my last article, I detailed some of the adjustments you should make against a maniac preflop. Here I will show you the two most important postflop ones.

Be prepared to check and call. There are very few situations where you should play passively. Checking and calling is usually the worst option to choose consistently. But when you are out of position against a maniac, it is often the best line to take. You can play passively in this situation because your opponent is so overaggressive. A lot of the value of playing aggressively comes from your opponent folding, but a maniac hardly ever folds. Also, a maniac bluffs so much that you shouldn’t take the lead or betting momentum away from him; just let him bluff off all his chips. And of course you don’t want to fold much against a maniac, because you play so much tighter than him that you should be ahead most of the time, unless he hits. And because he’ll be betting and raising regardless of whether he hits or not, you have to pay him off when he does. In a Limit Texas Hold’em game, for instance, you will often check and call on the flop, turn and river with as little as A or even K-high! Of course, when you hit a hand on the flop you want to get more than one bet a round in, which leads us to our next tip.

Get into raising wars. A rasing war is where two players raise and reraise each multiple times. There is hardly ever a situation where two reasonable players should get into a raising war on the turn or river, and especially on both. Even the second nuts can start to look small when a normal player reraises your reraise. Against a maniac, it’s a completely different story. I try to get into a raising war with a maniac as long as I have top pair, and sometimes even with a middle pair. He’ll have hit two pair or better once in a while (I wouldn’t do it on a scary board), but he’ll go three or four bets with a draw or a pure bluff so often you have to take the chance. That’s the problem with playing against a maniac: you have to risk more to win more. But a good player recognizes a good opportunity and doesn’t hesitate to act.