Best strategy against a bluffing maniac?

[WordWhiz]

Had a weird (but very profitable!) situation on crypto last night. 6 handed game with a maniac-bluffer to my left. He was definitely loose and aggressive, but not a full fledged maniac. His "specialty," if you will, was bluffing at you with nothing, and then not giving up no matter how much strength you showed. He didn't seem to get that no player is ever going to five bet the river but fold to a six bet.

Since crypto has no caps on betting when HU, this led to some interesting issues for the hands I got against him. In theory, I should be willing to go to the felt with any hand I feel is better than his. In reality, unless I'm holding the nuts, this is very dangerous, since he could hold a genuine hand (which he did, once).

Is there some strategy for maximizing my return without risking everything on one hand?

Here are a handful of the relevant hands he played, to give you some concrete idea of what I'm talking about:

1) I open-raise from SB with K7. He calls. Flop is 678, turn a K. Total of 9 bets go in on flop and turn before I get scared that he actually has a set or a straight. I C/c the river; he flips over A2 for an unimproved A high.

2) I have J7, flop is K22, turn J. He bets the turn, I raise, he reraises, I reraise, he reraises, I just call. I call the blank river. He has Q6.

3) I have AT, flop is T35, turn 6, river A. I put in a total of 14 bets with my top two pair. He shows 33 for the flopped set.

As you can see, this guy was completely insane, but I was hesitant to put in too many bets without the nuts. Obviously the goal is to wait for a nut hand and take his whole stack, but until then, is there an optimal number of bets for each hand? Or is it just a matter of how risk averse I am?