All-in on nearly every hand.

[triplc]

I played in a $10 SNG at party recently where one of the players was going all-in on nearly every hand. Sometimes preflop, sometimes post-flop. He always went all-in when somebody made a decent sized raise. He knocked out three people with hands like J2o, T5s, etc.

How do you deal with someone like this?

Two observations that I made, and am wondering if they are correct...

1) I happened to get to the final four with the all-in nut and two others. My compadres would quite often raise to 3-4XBB, he'd go all-in, and they would fold. Is it more correct to try and limp and see the flop (which he would often let us do) and then bury him when you really hit? It seems counterproductive to me to raise and then automatically fold when he goes all in. I never tried to steal from this guy.

2)I loosened up when he would push all-in. Granted it was only one hand (I called an all-in preflop with KQ...I had him covered and it crippled him...he had T6o). Afterward, I felt like I'd made a huge mistake there, and should have just waited until I really had him dead to rights.

Any thoughts would be welcome. Thanks.

CCC

[JDO]

1) I happened to get to the final four with the all-in nut and two others. My compadres would quite often raise to 3-4XBB, he'd go all-in, and they would fold. Is it more correct to try and limp and see the flop (which he would often let us do) and then bury him when you really hit? It seems counterproductive to me to raise and then automatically fold when he goes all in. I never tried to steal from this guy.

Who ever makes a big raise, knowing that the guy is coming over the top all-in, and is unwilling to call, is throwing money away. If he has acted behind me, and is out of the hand, I wouldn't change anything. If he is yet to act, I would probably limp instead of raising, unless I had a monster ( a hand I want to be all-in with and get a caller). I also would be willing to call all-in with less against this guy than I normally would, post-flop.

I'm curious, how did he react when someone went all-in in front of him?

[triplc]

He would call an all-in with just about any piece of the flop. He outdrew a couple of players and his stack fluctuated wildly (At one time holding more than 1/2 the chips, yet busting out before the top 3).

That was my reaction ("You're throwing money away!") when I would watch them raise, then dump to the inevitable all-in.

As for calling the all-in, I desperately tried to wait until I had KK, or AA, or something like that...but I just felt like KQ was the best hand by far against this nut. Unfortunately, a lot of times I call a hand against a nut when he's holding AA or KK...therein lies my dilemma with these nutzoid all-inners.

[t_perkin]

I think the thing to do is wait for a PP as high as possible. You want one if not both of his cards to be less than your PP.

If you can reliably get to the flop by limping then do so. Especially early in the tourn (first 2 levels) where you can afford to fold a few limps if he raises allin. This pays off as you have the possibility of doubling your stack against him when you hit the flop (I would say with 2 pair or more).

One thing to be careful about is that when you do decide to go up against him that there is not another player or two in the hand, you want to be against him and him alone if you can.

If you can get your stack up above 1000 before level 3/4 then just sit tight and wait for him to bust the rest of the field out. Fire off the odd shot if you get AA/KK/QQ, I would even be wary about playing AK too heavily.
Tournaments with players like this tend to be short, you can be down to 5 players by level 3/4. Lots of people don't adjust to this and play their usual steal-a-lot game, you can sit tight and get a lot of chips by being more selective.

One more thing to remember - If you play a lot of these tournaments you have to realise that every now and again someone will have a very good run of cards. If you are getting the cards it can be extremely profitable to project a crazyman image. This is obviously not the case with this guy, but it is worth remembering.

Just my thoughts.

Tim

[Prickly Pete]

I think t_perkin's comments are right on. I see this from time to time and people will start calling the crazy guy's allins with hands like 55 and AJ, where the crazy guy's any 2 cards are rarely a big underdog. Just play tight and wait for him to inevitably cough up his chips (hopefully in your direction.)

[triplc]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I felt that way when I decided to call with KQ, but it's just too tempting to try and grab those loose chips when you finally see a "much better than average" hand.

Since he had shown down several times with junk, I just felt that my KQ was a very good hand against one random one (which was all i could really read him for). Of course, after I did it I realized that a little more patience was probably called for there.

Could one of you guys come stand behind me and shout "NOOOOOOO!" when I'm thinking of doing something like this again...I could really use it /images/graemlins/laugh.gif.

[t_perkin]

Do you play at party? I'll come and play at the same table if you like!
10+1s are my bread and butter (I'm a bit crap)

tim

[FeliciaLee]

Hi, CCC.

Back this past spring and summer I played a lot of SNG's on Stars. I was sick and unable to play live (my desire). So I started playing the one table SNG's and developed a sort of "strategy" over the next couple hundred of them.

Instead of answering your questions specifically, I am going to post two of my SNG "stories" that I wrote during that time.

I'm not saying that they are perfect strategies, nor am I a perfect player (I know other Stars SNG players who have a higher EV than mine ever was). But I do hope this helps!
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Playing against a maniac in a one table NLHE sit-n-go

Every now and then, I will come across a maniac in a SNG. It seems to happen a lot more in limit tourneys than not. For instance, when I was still playing Stud SNG's, one maniac literally just had his pointer on bet/raise any. He never varied his play. I doubt he was even looking at the cards, just the pointer. This strategy paid off for him very well, as he was far and ahead the chip lead when I got busted out.

The other day I found a maniac in a NLHE sit-n-go. Some people refer to a certain opponent as a "maniac," when it truth, they are not. The poker dictionary defines "maniac" as:

'A player who bets, raises, and reraises without regard to the quality of his hand; someone to whom getting in the last bet is a matter of pride. Such a player is most often found in flop games.'

If I am playing with a player who seems to raise a lot of marginal hands, someone will comment, "He is a maniac." Well, no, he isn't, he is just pushing marginal hands, value betting when he thinks he might have the best of it.

The other day, however, I truly did play with a maniac. It didn't take long for the table to discover his ways, since he was forcing other's premium hands all-in, and getting quite a few amazing suckouts with bad hands. The table, as a whole, was steaming. Other players started mixing it up with him, with barely playable hands. If they lost, they could not survive, yet he could, since his stack was so huge from the frequent steals and occasional suckouts. He had about five times as many chips as the next lead, so he could weather many storms, while constantly replenishing his stack by stealing when no one had a hand to "stand up" to him.

Seeing this pattern, I took on the passive/timid role, and let him do his best to bust out the other players. They fell fast. We went from nine to four players in record speed. During this time, I did not receive a premium hand. I folded even good, playable hands to the maniac. I let him feel he could run over me, that I was the scared mouse who would not take him on. I let him dominate me, and refused to join into the table heckling that the other players were giving him, all of them tilting and steaming badly. I kept silent, and let him do his damage.

A lot of SNG players, who seem to be decent on the surface, never bother to think outside of the box. While planning my strategy against the maniac, I saw some awful plays. For instance, a seemingly solid player was to the left of the maniac. He was UTG, and went all-in with an obvious premium pair. The maniac was the BB. The maniac was intelligent enough to know that the UTG player was tight and solid. So he folded his BB when it got back to him. No value for the solid player in that hand. Sure, he got the blinds, but he could have gotten so much more out of his premium hand.

By hand 42, I was down to 815 chips from my original 1500. Maniac was up to 4800. We were already down to five players, and I received 66. The maniac did his usual large raise. I went over the top of him and made him pot-committed (not to mention the fact that I only had 815 chips anyway). Thus he fell victim to trap #1 with his J3 raise.

On hand 50, I was dealt AA. I once again set a trap for the maniac. I limped in, and let him make a hefty raise. I went over the top and pot-committed him. He instantly called and turned up 22. Now our stacks were 3000 me, and 3200, maniac. I was closing in on him. He seemed kind of angry about the tables being turned. He didn't like that the predator had now become the prey, and made the comment that I wasn't going to be able to win them all.

Hand 51 found him steaming and calling an all-in versus another opponent. He managed to knock the other guy out. Down to four.

The other two opponents of the maniac played more like me. They showed incredible restraint and patience in the eye of the storm. One is a Vietnam Vet who has probably seen it all. I have played against him many times and respect his play. We were all playing our very best game and letting the maniac steal the blinds virtually every hand. Kudos to my other two opponents!

On hand 63, I found myself with 99. Earlier, my Vet friend had tipped the scales in his favor by getting the maniac to call his all-ins, so we both had the maniac outchipped. The maniac raised pre-flop. Both the Vet and I called. The flop was all rags, which prompted the maniac to immediately shove all-in. Both the Vet and I called. We checked it down the rest of the way. I got my third nine on the river, and the maniac was eliminated with J3o.

I think we all sighed a breath of relief, but we were astounded when railbirds suddenly started cheering. I had no idea that many of the victims of the maniac had stayed around to see themselves vindicated when someone took him out.

I used to get very uptight playing against a maniac. My heart would race and I would feel like I was going to have a heart attack. Now it is just a minor bump in the road, which usually puts money in my pocket, and helps me improve my play.

Bring on the maniacs!
-----------------------------------------
My Pokerstars $10+1 NLHE Sit & Go Strategy

Basically, I try to play super tight in the beginning part of the tourney. Unless I'm getting monster cards, it is not worth the risk to go broke when the stakes are so low. I will allow many steals against me. They don't hurt me in the beginning, they don't help my opponents much, and they do reinforce to them that I am just a "weak" woman. Someone even had the nerve to tell me that I played like a woman the other day. Then I kicked his butt right out of the tournament.

I try to stay ahead of the blinds, when they start increasing. Just a pot here and there will keep me well ahead. I don't worry about chip position or big, all-in pots at this time. I let the ATC players duke it out, and stay out of the way with a marginally favorite hand, in a multi-way pot, with bad players.

As the game gets more shorthanded, I open up a bit. I play more hands in good position. I raise more with marginally playable hands in late position when there have been no limpers.

I always try to raise enough to put others in a defensive mode. I put the pressure on them, forcing them to make decisions that they don't want to make at that time. Things like 3.5x the BB do not work in these little one table SNG's. 3.5x the bb is a tease for these players. You are just begging them to call. They love it. They will call with any two suited cards or no-gap connectors. Any pair will make them go over the top of you, if you raise such a teasable amount.

When the game gets to four, unless I am well in the lead, I cool down. Cinch hands are gold here. Marginal hands are garbage. No one wants to be the bubble, so stealing is easier, but big plays are not recommended unless you are desperately short.

Once the bubble is burst, I go into hyperdrive. I raise every hand I'm voluntarily involved in. I raise if I am the chip leader. Raise or fold, no limping. I keep up a tremendous amount of pressure if I am the chip lead. I will not hesitate to go all-in, even though I don't have to. I never slowplay before the flop, never. Desperate stacks will call limps or small raises with nothing, and will outdraw that AA faster than you can say boo.

I keep pressuring the other stacks until they finally engage, usually with an inferior hand. I want them to get so angry with me that they finally take the risk, and get blown out. That way, I am not only chipping away at them with my big stack, but also causing them to go all-in frequently, but only when I've usually got the best of it.

If I am the short stack, I use the all-in or fold tactic. Even the big stacks hesitate at calling all-in's with no hand. They want to hold on to their lead, not give it away. They don't understand the concept of being able to knock me out. They just aren't to that playing skill yet. I constantly go all-in, taking my chances when I feel that I have the best of it, and knowing that I have absolutely nothing to lose by doing it, and only have something to gain. I constantly put the pressure on someone else, while relieving myself of my entire stack, and having no further decisions to be made.

It is amazing the number of people who try to slowplay shorthanded and HU. They will throw away superior hands to my all-in's, not wanting to lose their lead or 2nd place.

Once it is HU, I put even more pressure on. If I am the chip lead, every hand is raised, whether I have AA or 72o. Even if I have 2nd place outchipped by 11:1, I go all-in frequently. I constantly push him to commit. I wear him down by putting pressure on him. He never knows what I have, but doesn't want to make a move when I might have him beat.

I usually wear him down until he gets tired and his stress levels are through the roof. That his when he calls with inferior cards. Then he is out and I win.

If I am short when it is HU, I push even that much harder. I have absolutely nothing to lose, I am already 2nd place, and all I can do is either go out like a meek rabbit, or take the lead away from him and win it. I choose to push him every hand. I either fold or go all-in, there is no limping, there is no weak raise. If I get lucky, I double through a few times and take the lead, if not, I'm out at 2nd and onto the next tourney. Simple as that.

Hyper-aggression like this will not work in just any tourney, with any opponent, at any game. It works at the 9-top one table SNG at Stars, NLHE only. That is the strategy based on just this one example.

Every tourney is different, every table, every player. I have to adjust my play based on everything I can possibly come up against. But the hyper-aggression at this particular type of tourney is the only way to go. I never slowplay unless I flop a monster that is virtually unbeatable. There is rarely a time to slowplay in these quick tourneys. It doesn't pay off, and you end up out of the tournament quicker than the worst player in the room.

[cferejohn]

I've run up against these sorts of players from time to time, specifically ones who will go all-in preflop all the damn time. Generally, my strategy is to call the all-in with pocket 9's or better (assuming of course, no one else has called - if someone else called, I probably will want AA or KK).