help me beat my maniac friend heads-up

[top2pear]

7-player NL holdem home tourney. My friend the maniac dominates the 4 loose-weaks and busts a solid player by calling off all his chips w/84o against AKo and an all-in preflop bet. I hope i'm not playing too tight, but i get to heads-up w/him. He has about 6k; i have 4.5k. When i got heads-up, the blinds were already 500/1k.

So i move all-in preflop whenever i get a decent hand in the sb and he's finally folding. We go back and forth for about 6 hands this way, then i get A3o in the sb and push hoping to get called like he did earlier w/terrible hands, but of course he has AQs and it's all over.

Question: against this kind of player in this situation (where the maniac has finally become somewhat passive), should i hope to get away w/limping preflop OR do i fold and wait for a better spot to push OR do i make a smaller raise to find out what he thinks of his hand OR did i do the right thing?

Driving home i realized i should NOT have wanted a caller because there aren't many hands he'll call with that i have any kind of dominance over w/A3o. If the 3 were more like a T or higher, then, obviously. But A3 is still a bad coin flip against even the smallest pairs and any two cards are only a slight underdog to me. Also, the heads-up game is much more psychological, so should my read of him as a truly fearless player (e.g., he thought nothing of calling off all his chips early in the tournament w/84o against a weak player's initial raise and a strong player's all-in from the button) affect how often i'll enter a pot even heads-up?

[NUReedy]

With the blind structure as it is, it is nearlu impossible to utilize skill and good post flop play to defeat your opponent, and it really becomes a crap shoot. Seriously, at this stage the big blind is 1/10 the TOTAL POOL! Any raise necessarily has to be a push.

[BaronVonCP]

Limp-call, with your better hands.

[top2pear]

y'know, i really felt like the start of the tourney rewarded a crapshoot mentality: blinds "double" every 15 min.--which included lots of b.s.ing, torturously slow shuffling, runs for drinks, tending of children, etc.--but i didn't really worry about it once it was *mano a mano*.

But i guess you're right: that is a really steep blind structure for that size pool of chips. After all, the Fox Sports Net tourney on TV last night had 68 people buy-in for $10k each and the blinds at the time heads-up action starter were only $800/1.6k! I thought it was only that that tourney had a ridiculously slow progression of blinds.

[top2pear]

so A3o qualifies as a limp-calling hand even though it's rarely a big favorite even against a random hand?

[Peter Harris]

push push push with the blinds like that. If you have them on the backfoot, all the more reason for more aggression. A3 isn't great against a pocket pair or bigger ace, but the guy will call with 60-40 draws KQ-T9, maybe A2!

Our home games now last 3-4 hours, 500 chips, blinds at 1-2 double (2/5, 20/50 to make up slack) and go up 30mins if over 7 people, 45mins if under 7.

To beat a nutter heads up in your situation requires AA. With a smaller+longer blinds system HU, you'll clean him out.

Regards,
Pete Harris

[ddubois]

I don't think Barron was referring specifically to A3o when he said limp-call with your better hands. But I do agree with his advice. If the guy is really a maniac, exploit his tendency to bluff by checking to him. If you somehow get to a flop cheaply and hit top pair, check to him, let him bet your hand for you. If he's pushing every hand you don't raise, and you get 99 or AJs, check to him, let him push pre-flop. As much as folding equity is touted on these boards, against someone bluffing a huge range of hands, you have to yield your fold equity to exploit your pot equity. You don't want to raise and scare him off Q6s when you have a heads up monster like 99.

The fact that you both got an ace at the same time isn't really indicative of the quality of your strategy, nor for that matter indicative of the quality of Barron's advice. It's just bad luck. With big blinds, it's nearly impossible to get away from an ace pre-flop, maniac or no.

Of course, this is all just my opinion, and I'm just telling you what appears to work for me at $10/1.

[SeppDeitrich]

if the blinds are that high you cannot wait. the game is push and pray