preflop, acting before a maniac

[tpir90036]

you are playing in a 5-10 game and have a terrible seat in that the tighter players are to your immediate right and a total maniac who always straddles and raises 75%+ of his hands is to your immediate left. the table has adjusted by doing a lot of cold-calling with it's playable hands. i personaly would be trying to isolate him.... but my seat sucks.

anyway, what would you do with 22-99 in EP? the maniac liked to raise (a lot), would 3-bet if someone in front of him raised and played very loose after the flop usually chasing and folding the river unless he had anything piece to show down. i almost wanted to start raising my smaller pairs and letting the maniac isolate himself! kind of bizarre.... but i didn't feel like putting in 3 bets with a small pair out of position.

thoughts?
-tpir

[J.R.]

If the table is coldcalling a lot you could consider limping and trying to play the hand 5-6 ways for 2 bets, especially when there are limpers in front. Folding isn't necessarily wrong with the smaller pairs, especially when the pot has not yet been opened and you are in MP or later. I would also consider limp re-raising more frequently with your best hands.

I don't consider 66 and up small pairs, and with 88 or 99 would raise, hoping the maniac would isolate himself with a 3-bet. How low to go is a function of the other players' propensity to call, the range of hands you think the maniac will 3-bet and the propensity of the maniac to go off post-flop (which offers you nice implied odds if you hit your set).

[MarkD]

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anyway, what would you do with 22-99 in EP?

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I would limp with them. In fact, I'd be tempted to limp with all pairs 22-77, raise with 88-JJ (hoping that he isolated himself), and limp with QQ-AA (limp reraise). Your position relative to the maniac is not horrible. If you flop any big hand with this guy to the left you check, let everyone call or raise or whatever they want to do, then you get to checkraise for value. Doesn't seem too bad to me.