Maniac on Left... Reverse Isolation?

[BreakEvenPlayer]

The game is a live 15-30. I'm in seat 9. This is an extremely passive and exceptionally tight table, with the exception of seat 5 (we'll get to him later). I am the only player who has made a 3-bet PF (except for seat 5), and out of the eight other players excluding me and seat 5, there have been 3 isolated incidences of a pre-flop raise in about two hours.


Seat 5 is the king of fish. Plays 100% of hands, raises or re-raises about 33% of hands. But seeing as he is a few seats to my left, there are only a couple hands per orbit where I have a chance for textbook maniac "raise/three-bet isolation."


So there I am after two hours of this and I see A8s UTG; typically in this game a muck, but this time I raise it. Lo and behold, Seat 5 three-bets me, and instantly the 16 remaining cards on the table are flung simultaneously into the muck. I've got it heads-up with the maniac with Ace-high, albeit out of position. This hand I check call a board with two sixes on it and then bet an eight on the river. Seat 5 doesn't typically raise rivers. He doesn't fold them either. My hand is oh-so-good against Q-high.


Fast-forward eight hands, I have K9o in EMP. I raise it up, Seat 5 coldcalls, eight people over the age of 65 shake their heads collectively, but none of them have the will to do anything about it so they fold. This time the maniac decides to go bananas against my trip 9's and I take a big pot.


I try this about 4 more times throughout the session, losing 3 small pots to Seat 5 when those scare-cards (twos through sevens) hit the board. The other time an old lady smiles and cold-calls in Seat 6 and we both fold when she bets the flop.



Am I retarded or is reverse isolation a viable strategy if game conditions like the game above are present? We don't always get the nice seat to the left of the maniac, and those elderly players play long sessions. There are better games to be in, but let's assume they didn't exist for me on that night.

[TStoneMBD]

i thought your raise with A8s was a fine play, but i would have preferred a river checkraise.

your raise with K9o is terrible. youre stretching far over the -ev line. unless the maniac will put 4 bets in on the turn with bottom pair, i dont think you are going to turn this into profitable.

also, i dont see why you didnt seat change. moving to the maniacs left in this game should be at least a +1BB/hr increase.

[BreakEvenPlayer]

Like I said, the older people in this game were rocks. My name was third on the list for a seat change. Best move possible? Change games. But let's throw that aside.

[BreakEvenPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
your raise with K9o is terrible

[/ QUOTE ]

What if you won't be called by KQ-KT, not only because the maniac 3bets 33% of the time, but because these are really tight-passive players.

K-high is a profitable hand against this dude.

[TStoneMBD]

i suppose they would all have to be unimaginative rocks who have no understanding that you are raising it in with garbage, and will only play back at you with garbage. i suppose if the maniac will 3bet with 33% of his hands, and noone will call unless they have TT-AA, AQ, AK, then your hand is profitable. i could see myself playing in a game where raising with K9o from EMP would be profitable, but there needs to be more details for me to believe this than the table is TP with an ultramaniac.

[BreakEvenPlayer]

Well I made the play about 6 times in 6+ hours, and showed down quite a few good hands in between. To these players, I'm just another aggressive, young kid who raises his pocket AA instead of limping it. They think limping is the proper play and they aren't going to change after doing it for 30 years.