What to do with a complete maniac to your left?

[A-Baum]

Playing $3/$6 6 max and I have a complete maniac to my left. He is raising and capping with almost anything, raising and calling down to the river only to be beat by high card A or something.

Everytime I raise, he reraises, and he seems to catch every flop. I raise QKs on the button and he reraises and MP1 calls and I call. Flop comes Q high and I bet out, get raised, MP1 calls, I raise, he caps. What do you do from here with this kind of player? turn and river were 8 8 and his Q8 is good. I was livid.

How do you handle this type of complete maniac who raises/caps with anything? You have no idea where you are in the hand with a guy like this. What do you do?

*edit* no this isn't a bad beat story, I was at the table with him for 15 minutes and left because it was insane. He went in 2 $110 swings in that period.

[PokerBob]

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Playing $3/$6 6 max and I have a complete maniac to my left. He is raising and capping with almost anything, raising and calling down to the river only to be beat by high card A or something.

Everytime I raise, he reraises, and he seems to catch every flop. I raise QKs on the button and he reraises and MP1 calls and I call. Flop comes Q high and I bet out, get raised, MP1 calls, I raise, he caps. What do you do from here with this kind of player? turn and river were 8 8 and his Q8 is good. I was livid.

How do you handle this type of complete maniac who raises/caps with anything? You have no idea where you are in the hand with a guy like this. What do you do?

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Don't enter pots with weak holdings, or hands that don't play well HU. Check/raise the hell out of him with your strong holdings. This guy is an ATM, you just need to learn the code.

[paco]

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Check/raise the hell out of him with your strong holdings. This guy is an ATM, you just need to learn the code.

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Bingo. You just have to have a hand that your comfortable with putting some real money into cuz you know you're going to have to. Your Q, K kicker definitely qualifies--you were waayyyyy ahead on the flop (he hit his 3 outer, what can you do).

Since he's betting for you I like to keep my foot on the gas until I'm comfortable, then go into check-call mode, then bet into him on the river to make sure he doesn't check behind (calling the raise). If this guy is VPIP 90 PFR 90, Agg 5 5 5+ I would (with your example hand) cap flop, c-c turn, bet river (call raise). The fact that there is a guy acting after mainiac complicates things a bit. This is why it is so much better to be on the maniac's left--you'll be the one in position when you 3-bet or cap preflop to isolate...

REalize you can get stung too. I see people cap on all streets with your hand only to lose 10 BB when he has his boat. Thats why I think its important to take a balanced approach--you just figure how mcuh your is worth against this type of player and put that amount in the pot. For example, a small flush would also get a turn cap, etc.
My 2 cents

[Bluffoon]

[ QUOTE ]
Playing $3/$6 6 max and I have a complete maniac to my left. He is raising and capping with almost anything, raising and calling down to the river only to be beat by high card A or something.

Everytime I raise, he reraises, and he seems to catch every flop. I raise QKs on the button and he reraises and MP1 calls and I call. Flop comes Q high and I bet out, get raised, MP1 calls, I raise, he caps. What do you do from here with this kind of player? turn and river were 8 8 and his Q8 is good. I was livid.

How do you handle this type of complete maniac who raises/caps with anything? You have no idea where you are in the hand with a guy like this. What do you do?

*edit* no this isn't a bad beat story, I was at the table with him for 15 minutes and left because it was insane. He went in 2 $110 swings in that period.

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This is a very profitable situation but you have to be prepared for variance. There is no way around it.

One advantage to having a maniac on your left is you effectively have the button. You can close the action with a call or open it back up with a raise. You can also isolate or charge the field two bets by betting into him. Having a guy like this at your table also helps put the entire table on tilt. If you keep your cool and stay tight and aggressive you have a huge edge.

[captZEEbo1]

with your top pair/mid pair weak hands, you should bet out, so he can raise. With your better hands you can go for check-raises (so you can get a lot more overcalls).