The good news about maniacs is they play too many hands, often raising with poor or mediocre hands. The bad news is they are aggressive players, making it more difficult (at least for me) to play against them than if they were passive.


Although you want to be in pots with the maniac, you still have to watch out for your other opponents. I think you want to be very cognizant of how the maniac's play is affecting your other opponents, and take that into consideration when betting or raising yourself. You may be able to use the maniac to help you beat your other opponents. You just have to figure out how to do it, and how to do it depends on your other opponents.


I've been in games where the presence of one maniac has induced *all* of the other players to adopt a tight aggressive style. Thus, although the maniac is obviously playing a loose style, the general tone of the table may become much tighter with the maniac playing the role of a fish and the other players all becoming sharks! If so, you have to become one of them, joining in the feeding frenzy when it is your turn to take a bite.


Note that all maniacs do not play exactly the same. Some are better players than others.


You have to be in the hand with the maniac to win money from the maniac. Accordingly, it may seem as though you want to be in more hands with the maniac. However, this may be an illusion, depending on how the maniac's play is affecting your other opponents.


There will tend to be more money in pots with a maniac at your table, but it may be coming from fewer players. When that is the case a higher percentage of the money in the pot will come from you, your pot odds will thus go down, and you will not be able to get favorable odds to play some drawing hands you might have played had there been more players contributing to the pot. When the money in the pot is coming from fewer players, you should want to be in *fewer* pots with the maniac.


However, in the pots you do play, due to their increased size, you will win your share from the maniac. This increase in the size of the pots you do play will more than make up for the decrease in the percentage of pots you play against the maniac. (Note that you are only playing fewer hands than normal when the maniac's play is limiting the number of other opponents who would be involved in the pot).


As to playing more aggressively, you're not going to leverage the maniac out of a pot, so don't even try. That is, playing aggressively against a maniac, unless you are simply trying to get more of the maniac's money into the pot, doesn't work! However, depending on the situation, you may want to play more aggressively against your other opponents sometimes (and less aggressively other times).


You might try a few rounds of re-raising a raise from the maniac, when a maniac has raised your blind. After a few rounds of this your other opponents may tend to steer clear of calling your blinds only to face a double bet, and, if you succeed in usually getting one-on-one with the maniac, then you can switch to only re-raising when you have a good one-on-one hand. Of course if re-raising does not succeed in isolating the maniac, then you have to change tactics.


Just some ideas.


Buzz