Who is Malaniuk on Paradise?

[TheWorstPlayer]

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As an aside, I often find it amusing when I hear some relatively inexperienced player talk about how 'bad' someone plays by pointing out a hand that is 'misplayed' but that he got lucky on. Almost always, these inexperienced players completely fail to take into account the whole 'gestalt' of another player's game.

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like this?

[catlover]

He is definitely very good.

Just a comment about dealing with this kind of player --

one thing he does really well is read hands. To throw him off, it is essential to sometimes do something wacky early in the hand.

For instance, if you are normally very tight with your preflop reraises, you might reraise his preflop raise with a hand like 45s.

If you defend your blind against his steal raise, if there is a rainbow flop of K56, it would make a lot of sense to checkraise him heads up with a hand like QJ. He will now put you on either a pair, or a straight draw hand like 78, 89, etc.

Another example: if you flop a flush draw against him heads up, you should sometimes just call. This is especially true if there are no other drawing opportunities on the flop. The reason is that now if you make your flush, he won't suspect it.

The point of all three of these actions is the same. Someone like Malaniuk thrives on his ability to read your hand. By doing stuff like this, you will throw off his reads. Now he won't consistently outplay you on the river.

[rigoletto]

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mal is great great great great shorthanded player.

-Barron

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Funny! I have the impression that he is better full table than short handed. Don't get me wrong, Malaniuk is definately a good player, but he seems to play a little to tight/predictable al though he is very good at utilizing upportunities against overly agressive players.