How to handle a maniac?

[sirpupnyc]

Last night in a Pokerroom 22, I found myself 3 seats to the right of an utter maniac. Or maybe he was an idiot, or some of each.

Early on, he goes all-in on an A-high 3-[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] flop with AQo, neither one a club. (We know this because he got called by AJo, also clubless.)

A while later, I raise PF with 99 and he calls. 3-[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] flop, something like AJ9, he goes all-in. He has me covered, so it's all my chips if I want to stick with my set. Based on the crazy plays he's been pulling, I strongly suspect he has a pair at best. (He did, however, later on pull the same maneuver on someone else and actually show down a flush.)

Do you call here because he's a maniac, or avoid him in case it's the time he really flopped a flush?

I folded, he showed Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].

Both times he had some babble about not wanting to let someone draw to the flush cheap. (Uhhhh, what if someone already HAS the flush?)

Through the whole thing he was making what I have to say were idiot bets, putting in all his chips with hands he couldn't possibly think were best, repeatedly leaving himself open to being busted by people who didn't just have him beaten, but people who had him badly beaten. Unfortunately, whatever cards he needed seemed to come, no matter how far behind he was when the money went in.

Do you play with these people and take your lumps when they bust you in spite of their idiot play, or do you avoid them?

(It came down to him and me heads-up with him in the lead about 4-1 in chips...I managed to come back to a 2-1 lead in 25 hands or so, but a miracle came his way and the 500-1000 blind level came to chomp me to bits.)