Bob Ciaffone article

Recently (3/30) on Pokerpages, Bob Ciaffone wrote an article where he espouses sitting to the immediate right of a "heavy bettor" (He refers to that player as a bulldozer). From all of the posts here on 2+2 about game selection and seat selection, I have gleaned that it is better to be to the immediate left of a maniac, in order to re-raise with premium hands and isolate.


Please help me settle this conundrum. The link to the article is below. Thanks.

In a game where it is difficult to get away with isolating the maniac from his left, it is handy to use him as a raising station on your left and trap more players for extra bets.


I think it is dependent then on the type of game and either seat has its uses to some extent in any game.


D.

I agree with Ciaffone and several players whose game I have mucho respect for also agree.


The isolation raise might work the first few times you try it but pretty soon other players will start to come in behind you. They do this either because they realize what you are doing or they get bored with folding all the time.


Now, in the multi-way pots your positional advantage over the maniac is totally gone as you will very often be facing a bet with many people yet to speak. Not a great situation. With the maniac on your left you effectively get to act last on all the hands you play and that is a great deal.


Also, position is of relatively little importance with a maniac because you already know pretty much what they are going to do.

I've always done better with the action players on my immediate right, the tightest players on my immediate left, and the guys who play better than I do as far away in either direction as possible, preferably at another table.

I'd like to KNOW what he's doing; keep him to my right.

"With the maniac on your left you effectively get to act last on all the hands you play and that is a great deal."


I just put this in my "bogus axiom" file.


If the guy on my left plays a bunch of hands, I almost never go last, and that sucks, now and forever amen. If I were to ever get enough monster hands that I actually liked not going last so that I could repeatedly check-raise the field when LHO bets, it wouldn't matter who sat where because I'd be making 10BB per hour just from brute luck anyway.


Tommy

'If I were to ever get enough monster hands'


thats an excellent point. the only personal experience i have with someone who raised *every* single hand preflop (6/12 o8) was in an omaha hilo game. i maneuvered to his immediate right, which was great, because i had the nuts pretty often.


brad

tommy - isn't it the point that you know he will always raise or reraise?


therefore if you check or if you are prepared to enter the pot after someone else has bet you WILL be acting last after his inevitable raise or reraise, insofar as you will have the option of calling or folding to his last raise or reraise


(if you raise, you never have the option of acting last in any case as someone after a caller-of-your-raise can reraise, taking the last action away from you)

I think one of the main issues here that is causing fuzzy thinking is what we determine to be maniacal play. First of all no one I've ever seen in my extensive playing experience raises almost every hand (which I would say would be (85% or more of the time). If your typical maniac raised this much then it would make sense to sit to his right because you'd have a high degree of confidence in what he is going to do. However this simply isn't the case, a player who raises or reraises half of the time preflop is a full blown maniac in my opinion and I think the typical maniac raises somewhat less than this preflop. Also the average maniac might bet the flop about half the time if it was checked to them (more often if they are last to act).


Maniacs play in a rather unpredictable and very loose fashion, however it is an illusion that they bet and raise every hand. M


Also its very useful to have positon on a maniac because you don't want to scare him off a weak holding by raising preflop before he has acted. Another reason its good is because other players might try and isolate him, which could make it very expensive to play drawing hands preflop. For example if he is on your immediate left and you limp with J10s and then he raises, and the pro to his immediate left tries to isolate him with a threebet you are now in a world of pain. If you call you know its going to be expensive to draw, and a flopped pair is going to be tough to play. I find that I have to play much tighter if I'm sitting immediately to his right because I don't know what kind of odds I'm going to get preflop.


Good luck,


Shawn Keller

Another reason I prefer the tight players on my left and the loose ones on my right is so that my button and cut-off raises have a greater chance of blind-stealing success.

I guess I shouldn't be in this discussion because it's been so long since I've had an always-raise-always-bet player on my left for any length of time. I always move. So I'm not rehearsed on the advantages. I just can't imagine that they outwiegh the advantage of having a rock on the left insuring I get position on the maniac at least two hands per round instead of one.


Tommy

That's why I always like to sit between you and Dave in Cali when Dave is dealing to us.


Respect.


M.

"I just put this in my "bogus axiom" file."


OK. what goes in your circular file?


I think the value of position goes down after the flop against these types of players. Since the flop rarely hits me square in the face, there are many marginal holdings I would hold on to if I knew I would be heads up with the the loose goose, but would fold if other players are involved.

He doesn't say in his article whether he's talking limit or no-limit, or I missed it. They're two completely different games. I personally would rather sit to the right of an aggressive player in a pot or no-limit game, and to the left in a limit game. Though actually to the right of him in limit wouldn't be that bad either. I thought he was the pot-limit guy, so was he writing about pot-limit games?