Hyper aggressive

[PokerFoo]

What is he best way to deal with the hyper aggressive players in a tourney?

That is, a player who will call every pre flop raise indiscriminately. Or limp in with any 2 cards then call all pot sized raises or less.

This player type will always bet the pot on the flop or call pot sized bets on the flop. When checked to, they will always bet a large amount.

I find this type of player to be the most frustrating player to have at the table. They usually dont cash because they eventually blow up for all their chips, but before that happens they can often build a sizeable chip stack by bluffing so many pots and catching odd 2 pair hands and odd straights when put all in.

Should you just risk your tourney early agaisnt this player type and gamble with him? Or is it best to turtle up and hope the cards come before the blinds eat you?

[parappa]

In general, I lower my calling standards a bit (not much, just a little), and make a really big raise or even push when I play back at them. Either I get my chips in with an excellent chance of doubling up (and imo it's not usually the kind of 50/50 gamble you want to avoid, I'm looking to be say 60/40 or better, maybe the top 10-15% of hands), or they give it up, I get the blinds, and usually they don't push me around anymore.

Note that when they give it up to a re-raise, I immediately upgrade my opinion of the player at the 10+1 level--being really aggressive is not the strategy I play, but if someone is just crushing the table and then folds when I (who usually have a tight image) play back at them, it's likely enough that they're a strong player to give me pause.

[SixgunSam]

One thing to keep in mind, it's just as hard for him to make a good hand as it is for you. Hyper-aggressive players are often predictable and easy to trap. You do have to risk more of your chips against them, but often you get rewarded when you do. You would like to get heads-up with him otherwise you end up discounting the other player who is in the pot with a legit hand that could break you.

I was playing in a tournament with a hyper aggressive player two days ago. We were on the fourth level of blinds and I noticed he would push all-in frequently on the button if no one had raised the pot. I got JJ, limped in middle position, he raised all-in as I expected and I called and doubled-up. He was pushing with Q4 btw.

[Doubling12]

If someone like this is pushing preflop, you probably just want to avoid them without a super-premium hand. They *can* blow you up before they flame out themselves. But if their weakness is indiscriminate bluffing post-flop, and you have good position, try to see flops with them with looser than normal standards, as your implied odds have increased substantially. Don't play to his level though - if the flop misses you, let him win, reinforce his behavior (this advice only pertains to the first few levels, where you have little invested in the pot relative to your stack).
If the flop hits you, check, or bet the minimum (I find that idiots can't help themselves when faced with a min-bet - they have to come over the top like they saw on TV).

[slogger]

PF, I think the other replies have some decent advice. I think it's most important to not let this player affect your game in any drastic way. I think you should continue to play how you normally would, especially when others are in a pot with you (with a huge hand you could alter your style to allow the crazy guy to bet your hand for you and trap others, but for the most part, you need avoid big confrontations with other players if you don't have a strong hand). When heads up, you can adjust your strategy to take advantage of any over-aggressive action by this player.

As an aside, when describing your opponents, be careful to distinguish between loose play and aggressive play. Preflop, your description of your opponent is characteristic of a very loose player (but not a very aggressive one). A player who limps with a wide range of hands from all positions and calls many raises is not playing aggressively. He is playing loose and he is playing passively (the opposite of aggressive).

On the flop, your aggressive label for you opponent is more appropriate. You say that he makes large bets at pots when he has the chance. If he does this often, then this is an aggressive tactic. But if, when faced with a bet himself, he only calls, this, again, is loose play, not aggressive play. Now, if he always bet when checked to and often raised when bet into, then you could say that he is hyper-aggressive.

The reason I mention this is that it will help other posters provide you with better advice and commentary on your hands.

[PokerFoo]

What if you KNOW he will call you all-in, or put you all in with a hand like J9 suited or K4 Suited. You know this because youve seen him out draw big hands several times already to knock players out.

Should I wait to see the flop to play back at him for all my chips? It will have to be an all-in because of the pre flop play and his current huge bet on the flop. You also know you will get called on the flop for your all-in if he holds anything at all. Even bottom pair with a rag kicker. There is also very likely another player in the hand with you to worry about as well (although this other player will probably fold to the aggression unless they hold the absolute nuts).

Or should I risk it all pre flop?

To be more specific about this player type, He is usually the type who has gone all-in early with any one painted card and recieved 3 or more calls. He caught cards and has 3 to 4 times the average stack. He is now forcing players who play back to gamble for all their chips. Most of them are folding and the ones that have played back with big hands have gone broke (so far). So he's crushing the table so-to-speak.

Sorry to miss lable this player. I guess he is passive pre flop. he is calling all raises or limping in to see every flop and then becoming hyper aggressive I guess.

[golFUR]

**May end up being longish post, I'm wordy....**

First thing to note is I'm a glutton for punishment and play on UB. I just can't get used to other interfaces and put up with the tougher pool of players as a result. However, I believe the SnGs to be, for some strange reason, much easier than the ring games of the same level.

Second thing to note is my 'standard' style is tight-aggressive. I play slowly in the beginning learning who my opponents are, I only play premium hands and I overplay them to set up my image. "Don't play loose w/ me, I only bring monsters."

After a few hundred SnGs like this I noted that in a fair percentage of them I earned a chip lead rather early. I got one of those premium hands, I got played back at hard and liked the odds, went for it and won. With comfort came experimentation and my natural first experiment was playing the maniac.

This typically meant I'd bet the pot, a very small amount in the first levels, with all sorts of mediocre hands from any position. If someone else raised preflop but not enough, I'd call w/ the same mediocre hands. Basically I'm looking to hit it hard and have my opponents a bit more committed for having come in for a raise. Because I am playing a wide range of hands I'm likely to 'hit' one of them within the first two orbits. If I don't hit anything at all and find myself down half or so of my chips I either switch gears or look to aggressively steal. When I find myself up chips I rest on the image I've created and use my chip lead like a club. Here I am looking for great flop reads and folding more than those with selective memory might recall. My inital image lasts longer than the actual style.

I've had players, on numerous occassions, near the end of the SnG or immediately after it was over express to me how much they hated playing against me. Playing the maniac means forcefully taking tempo in the game. Every hand, every player is wondering one thing first: where is the maniac and what is he going to do this time?

Now to the advice part. Your first determination has to be, is this player good or not? (Maybe that deserves a "Duh", lemme expound.) Playing aggressively, even hyperaggressive, often makes a player look better than they are. They are stealing (winning) a disproportionate amount of pots. As you noted though, many times (most?) they lose on or near the bubble to a better player. Playing more hands means giving everyone else at the table more chances to get a good read on you, to get in tune w/ your tempo and determine if it was time for a bluff or if you really have it this time.

Look for a clue early on against this guy. Did he walk away from a pot when you least expected it, did he make a really questionable call that happened to pay off, or a really questionable read that turned out to be brilliant. You need to determine, is this someone playing aggressively because they got beat by someone else, are they experimenting or learning the style? Or is it someone who uses it as a tool, who has other tools in the bag, who uses it effectively.

IMO, this style is difficult to play and difficult to play against. If they are good at what they are doing, give them proper credit and only go all in when you have nuts. They may do all the work for you and you end up heads up with 1200 chips to their 8800, take 2nd place and look to avoid them in the future or pound em heads up and thank them for doing your job for you. If they are just learning it, if they have weaknesses to exploit, hang back and wait for the inevitable, you or someone else will injure them badly on a hand and they will self-destruct within a few more.

This advice falls in with general advice on SnGs. So many ppl feel the need to move more quickly than is necessary. Granted I don't rely on this or expect to repeat it, but I've come back from as few as 65 chips. I've come back from a few hundred more times than I can count. Sometimes its a bad beat, sometimes its paying for info I'll need later. Either way, it taught me that in a SnG that takes an hour to complete, you aren't required to do anything at all in the first 15 minutes or even 30 minutes. If someone sets you all in and you aren't quite certain, if you feel its a bluff but you may be outdrawn, if you feel you have the best of it on the flop but know the guy is a maniac who might have anything... Fold. Play another hand later. Against a maniac you don't have a read on, same thing. Your goal is to get to the money, then get to 1st, not to get to 1st right out of the gate. Especially so when you consider that heads up his hyperaggressive edge is gone. Heads up you should by now be as aggressive as he is. So don't look to exploit his potential weaknesses right off. Watch him make a mistake once, twice and nail him on the third. Let him get up and over-confident before you look to punish. The twin concepts of "nobody can put me all in but me" and "'a few' chips and a chair are plenty" have served me better than anything else. I don't feel any ego blow folding to someone who I feel is a weaker player, I don't mind letting a maniac steal a few pots I might have been ahead in. I trust that my reads and continued presence close to the bubble are enough, I'll get the hands back.

To sum up this ridiculously long, self-indulgent, post: patience and an accurate read. It is not your job to punish the maniac, nor is it required that you lose w/ KK. Wait for best fit on flop, don't worry about chip leads too much in the beginning and pay close attention to specifics. Hand types repeat, positional plays repeat, and knowing what someone is going to do before they do it is way more valuable than trying to get all your chips in on a 65-35 pf or early on.

[Sal Allegra]

Don't get caught with weak hands out of position, it's that simple /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[PokerFoo]

Ya, I guess you all have reinforced What I already knew but didnt realise. Good to hear it from the mouths of others though. Still a frustrating game when you KNOW that when you do enter a pot this guy is going to be in there with you. This type can force you to wait for a premium spot to move all-in. You may find yourself having to work with 800 chips against 4 players who can afford to gamble. The 5th player out is usually the guy I'm talking about here.

Thanks everyone /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Pubknight]

That's a great post golFUR, and very well written.

I could be biased, as I agree with everything you said, and we seem to play a similar style.

[PokerFoo]

forgive the bump. I just needed to vent.

Happened to me again just now at UB. Sit N Go. half the table appears to be maniac. Watched the first 3 rounds without playing a hand. Every time there is a pre flop raise same 3 players I have tagged as insane call. 2 of them are way up, one is about out. The man to my left I target as the guy I want to double up through. I get Kings and make a 150 chip raise. Slightly higher than a pot sized raise because the pot sized raises seem to be encouraging calls instead of thinning the field. Sure enough the man to my left calls and we picked up one in the back. Flop 10 5 2 rainbow. I bet slightly more than half the size of the pot and get reraised all in by the man on my left. Button folds. I call knowing theres a HUGE chance he is weak. He has 10 8 offsuit. Turn is another blank, I start grinning then BAM he catches the 8 on the river. IM out.

These players are so frustrating.

[golFUR]

Expanding upon the solid maniac vs. the ridiculous maniac... You ran into a very bad player there. Put a note under his name and hope to run into him again, he is going to pay you off a lot more often than not...

UB's Bet Pot button is a curse, I hate hate hate it. It was good to hear that you were betting slightly off amounts, I've had much better results with those as well. It lets people know that you thought about your bet rather than relying on UBs thinking.

Some further details on playing w/ these freaks.

So, KK in middle position with a maniac behind you? Betting a bit less than pot also seems about right. A lot of times a pot bet seems like overkill to me. What I want is something about two and a half times, rounded to convenient round number, of the BB or whatever is the most someone has come in for so far (You are looking at a single picture with 9 ppl in it, but they are making decisions still one at a time.) On that flop however you let the maniac influence you a bit too much and may have invited his response. Granted it should have worked for you, but if you are worried more about continued existence than getting all in on a single good odds situation... I'd have lead out about 180-200 or so. I have a strong overpair on a pretty safe flop. A set would be trouble but they would tell you they had one in their reraise. So you bet out an amount that is appropriate to a strong hand but doesn't look overly defensive, it looks like, maybe, could it be? yup, he wants a call. A smart maniac will likely reraise you w/ his top pair just to verify what you are on or to get more info, he might even call, guessing he is behind, to see another card and go for the suckout. A stupid maniac will do something stupid... bet pot, go all in, whatever. You can safely call that, they can't always suck out. (It just seems like it.)

I had a big problem with suck outs as well. Getting tossed out of a SnG by cheese would rile me for an hour. As a defense I began betting my monster pockets much more heavily, trying to tell everyone at the table to go away, it's mine. This didn't seem to help. Stupid people you can't do anything for, bad maniacs take big bets as personal attacks on their egos and anyone who wants to play you ends up being pot committed and increases your chances of hitting a rotten river.

So, I tried getting a bit more subtle and relying on the math a bit more. I'd bet amounts on solid hands that would encourage a call or a testing reraise. I'd wait for turn to really dump the chips on em, or as soon as they showed too much interest in the hand.

I'm sure this line can be argued against easily but it is what has worked for me.

Weigh your desire to continue in the SnG vs. your desire to go all the way on a certain pocket, figure out your % to win on the flop and same question. Rough math says he had 1 in 7 to beat you after the flop? Go for the smaller raise, let him call along w/ his pair, get ready to walk away if he catches that 1 in 7 but otherwise don't expect to go all in until turn or even better until river.

And again, this is based on how I play, not a specific book or necessarily good math. If an experienced poster or players sees a flaw here, please point it out immediately, as I could use the advice as well.

[PokerFoo]

Hmm, So perhaps keeping the pots small and only continuing with a set or better against these types is appropriat. Had I limped or made a smaller raise I most certainly would have been in with 4 or 5 callers instead of 2 though. And because these types are so willing to shove all-in it may not have mattered after the flop anyway.

I'm not sure sitting around waiting for a monster after the flop is correct either though. That seems a little weak tight.

My stack was about 875 at the start of the hand vs the 3k+ the maniac had. Avoiding him was not an option because he was in every hand.

This seems to be the norm for sit-n-go's though. More often than not I see at least 3 or 4 of these types at the table and one or 2 of them get lucky up front to create a big enough stack to be scary for the rest of the game. And why I find them to be THE most frustrating to play against.

I can't see how calling a large raise pre flop with 10 8 offsuit and then re-raising all-in on the flop with top pair and a kicker smaller than the board would indicate a solid maniac though. I'll keep him labled as kookie in my notes.

BTW, this guy made first. And must have seen 97% of the flops.