No Limit Tourney Play - The Preflop Reraise

[spoody]

I posted this on RGP and got exactly ZERO responses.....

I think Im calling too often and not reraising enough preflop.

Hands like 99-QQ and AKo, KQs seem to be just money losers for me
lately. Probably because I seem to be calling at the wrong time and
reraising at the wrong time. I know there are a lot of variables, but
in general categories of:

1. Maniac Raisers
2. Normal Raisers
3. Tight Raisers

all with the extra variables of
a. With callers
b. Without callers
c. Early - Middle - Late
d. raiser after limpers

Ok so its a lot of variables, but the one that comes up the most (at
least lately for me) is Maniac Raiser with callers...at least thats
the one that is bothering me. The maniac is raising over half the
hands, and the other maniac is raising the other hands, so every pot
is opened before I get a chance to even look at my cards. Since the
maniac is raising so many pots, people are begining to call more now
too. So since I never get AA or KK, I will have to content myself
with the other nice hands like AK, KQs, and the middle upper pairs.
What do you do with these in this situation? If its just Maniac
Raiser and no callers, I am reraising almost every time. But what
about when there are 1,2,3 other callers? Are you reraising with JJ?
TT? AKo? I know the theory of reraising the raiser, but I also know a
maniac can funnel you right into the nuts (the guy behind you or the
guy that smooth called with his AA hoping to trap the maniac) My last
couple of bust outs have been exactly that. Maniac raises, call, call,
I reraise with QQ and get maniac to call, and then caller number 2
moves all in and I'm having to decide whether QQ is worth an all in
call. Dude actually has JJ, but it came on the flop, so I may have
lost anyway to his set. Other hands like this were AKs v AA and KK v
AA, all where one of the callers had AA and the maniac got me to
overplay my strong hands.

Since live tourneys ARE different from online since you do not get to
see as many hands per time limit, I'm just not sure calling is the
best action usually. But since my short term results seem to be
creating a nasty pattern, I am wondering if other people are willing
to normally reraise with JJ-99 or AKo or KQs when there is either a:

Raise and no callers from a normal player?
Raise and callers from a Maniac?

These are the toughys for me right now.

Like I said, I usually do call more often than reraise and then try to
play on the flop, unless its the maniac. Im sure there is more than
one way to skin this cat, but thoughts would be helpful.


Spoody

[fnord_too]

Your post is hard to read. I'll give my input on the few things that jumped out at me.

Maniac raiser with callers. Reraise with AK. AK is a strong pre flop hand, but is not a hand you want to take a flop with, especially with multiple opponents. Folding here is better than calling IMO.

If it is just a maniac with no callers, you have some more options. I would reraise with hands like JJ, AK, maybe even KQ depending on the maniac. There are a lot of hands you can call with if the stacks are deep. You can often push maniacs off hands by raising them post flop, but you have to be able to make a stone bluff, which is never easy. If you have a tight image, you can usually steal from a maniac (sparingly).

99-jj maniac raiser with callers. I like playing these for set value if the stacks are deep. Another thing that works is reraising, callers are usually weak and will give up if a solid player makes a reraise, and the maniac will be squeezed between you and the callers. Also, you should be ahead of the maniac most of the time here, so even if he comes along you are probably in good shape.

Reraises should be significant. Say blinds are 100/200, stacks > 4000.
Maniac raises to 600, no callers, reraise should be to about 1800.
1 caller, I'd reraise to probably 2000 - 2400, depending on circumstance.
The increase in raise size drops off as callers go up because, even though the odds to call go up, the cost of calling becomes significant and puts players to a push or fold decision. If you are ever going to have to put most of your chips in to reraise, reraise all in. Be more inclined to push with AK if a reraise is anywhere near pot commiting.

One last thing, with a maniac raiser and callers, you can pop the pot with any two if doing so does not drop your chips too low. This is a nervy play, but +EV (for all the reasons listed for popping with 99-jj in the same situation above, except the part about probably being ahead.)

Free advice, worth what you pay for it.