Table position vs a maniac

[NRS]

Playing on a 2/4 table. The player betting immediately in front of me is a maniac. He raises preflop with EVERYTHING. Literally everything - he has the autoraise clicker on. (OK, he won't reraise if the hand is bet in front of him). Rest of the table is average passive.

I got up and left my (virtual) seat, and moved across the table. My thinking was that being forced to commit to a $4 bet to see the flop, without seeing any of the other action at the table, was a losing proposition. Moreover, it was disadvantegous on most hands that I'd want to raise preflop myself. In other words, it was as though I was playing UTG all the time.

Obviously, the presence of said maniac improves my EV (he's almost as irrational postflop), so it's a table that I want to continue to play at (I don't mind high variance). But was changing positions the right move?

[rjc199]

There are many times that I wanted to get up and move to a different seat at the table (to get behind the maniac), but I have been prevented because in order to take another seat you have to leave the table (at least at PartyPoker).

You can make alot more money playing to the left of a maniac because you should be able to get it heads up more often with you and the maniac. Plus he will always be betting into you so if you have a good hand you can always re-raise. Or if you have a decent but not great hand you can raise the maniac and make people behind you call 2 cold which could save you alot of pots if your hand is better than his.

[NRS]

Thanks. I've heard it suggested on this board before that playing to the left of a maniac is optimal, and I guess I did exactly the wrong thing.

Just after I'd changed positions ... caught AKo in MP, check-raised the maniac, and he capped. Hand came out K58T7 rainbow. Of course I was betting it the whole time.

Course *this* time he flipped up AA ... and the hand was won by a limper, who called 4 bets preflop with 64 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif. Served us both right.

[Bob T.]

You are thinking about this the wrong way. You aren't commiting two small bets to see the flop, you should probably be committing four small bets to see the flop. On the hands that you decide to play, and they should have showdown value, like a pair, or an ace, you should be three betting, and isolating the maniac. After the flop, you should be planning on seeing the river, and deciding, how much you want it to cost the rest of the way, depending on how well you flopped.