Maniac Mike: how to beat a poker maniac

1. Who Maniac Mike is

His description in the app runs to six words: hyper aggressive, plays everything. Constant pressure. Mike plays half the hands he is dealt, raises almost all of them, bets the flop whether he hit it or not, and bets again on the turn. A scare card does not slow him down, because he was never reading the board. The problem is not the aggression but that it is attached to nothing: the same large bet arrives with a set, a gutshot, or nothing at all.

You have met him. He turned up two hours ago, has rebought twice, and has made the game unrecognizable: the table has tightened to nothing and the pot is $40 before the flop with nobody holding a hand. He is up at some point most evenings, which is what makes everyone else play badly. Over a full session he is the biggest loser in the room by a distance, and collecting it takes patience most people run out of around the third time he shows a bluff.

2. Maniac Mike at a glance

He hands his stack to whoever happens to hold a hand at the time, and he carries the most deliberate randomness on the roster, so identical spots do not always get identical answers. Reading him is not the job. Waiting is.

3. How Maniac Mike plays a hand

Preflop. He never open-limps. He opens, and he opens wide: any pocket pair, any two broadway cards, most suited cards and plenty of junk besides, at a size on the larger side. Position barely enters into it. He three-bets and four-bets light, and because a big bet does not frighten him, three-betting him for value will not push him out — it builds a big pot with you holding the better hand, which is the whole idea.

Flop. He bets. His betting frequency is the highest on the roster and his continuation bet is close to automatic, including into three or four players, where nearly every other seat backs off. He rarely slow-plays, so a check from Mike is usually a hand that gave up rather than a trap. Facing a raise he calls far more often than he folds, and he raises back with draws and with air at a rate no honest range matches.

Turn. This is the street that decides the money, and it is where he is most committed. Once he has started firing he keeps firing, and he does not read scare cards in either direction: the flush card neither stops his bluff nor starts one. His draw math is poor, so he takes bad prices with draws and lays bad prices with them too. A turn check-raise gets called by hands that have no business calling — an argument for making it with value rather than air.

River. He bets big and he bluffs often, so his river betting range is wide and weak for its size. Facing your river bet he calls with a great deal, ace high included, and folds only when he has missed entirely. He does own a check-raise and uses it with a genuine monster slightly more readily than a neutral player would. A checked river, though, is far more often surrender than ambush.

4. How to beat Maniac Mike

Stop bluffing him, and start calling him down. Your fold equity against Mike is close to zero, so a bluff is a bet you have no way to win. In exchange you get the other half of the trade: because his bets are barely connected to his hand, your middling made hands are good far more often than they feel. Second pair is a call on the flop and frequently on the turn. Ace high is sometimes a river call. Decide how far you are going when you make the first call, then follow through instead of re-deciding every time he fires.

Check your good hands to him. Against a normal opponent you bet top pair for value. Against Mike, betting it charges nobody — he was going to put the money in himself, with worse. He attacks checked pots at the highest rate at the table, so checking to him is not weakness; it is letting the worst hand do the betting for three streets. Bet when you need to build a big pot with a big hand, and check when all you want is to be paid.

Isolate him, in position, with a straightforward value range. When he opens, three-bet with hands you would ordinarily flat — strong aces, big pairs, good broadways — and do it from a seat that acts after him. You want him heads-up and the pot big, because the entire edge is holding the better hand more often. That also means stacking off lighter than usual: top pair with a decent kicker for 100 big blinds is a fold against a solid player and often a call against Mike. It will feel reckless and it will lose sometimes. It is still where the money is.

5. Mistakes people make against Maniac Mike

• Fighting fire with fire. Bluff-raising the maniac is the most expensive reflex in poker. He does not fold to size and he re-raises with nothing, so out-aggressing him still needs a real hand to win — which is a value bet, and cheaper.
• Waiting only for aces. The opposite error, and just as costly. Folding everything but premiums against a player who raises close to half the hands he is dealt means paying blinds all night to win two pots. Most of the profit is in ordinary hands played firmly.
• Letting one hand change the plan. He will turn up with a set after you called three streets, and he will draw out on you. Neither is evidence: the call-down that lost is the same one that wins the next four times.

6. Practice against Maniac Mike

Mike is not at the default guest table — that one, Home Game, seats calmer players. To face him, pick the Maniac on the Loose table when you start a game — anyone can, with or without an account. Seating him on your right, so that you act after him, is the most instructive way to play him; a free account lets you build your own table and choose exactly where he sits.

If you would rather look around first, try without an account — the guest session asks for nothing. When you want Mike in the game, create a free account and seat him yourself.

7. The rest of the table

Mike is one of eleven, and the adjustments that beat him lose money against most of the others — the reason for a roster at all. Calling Carl also never folds, but he never bets either, so he has to be attacked rather than trapped. Tight Tom folds to exactly the pressure Mike absorbs. Loose Lucy plays nearly as many hands and then goes quiet after the flop. Aggressive Andy is the version of Mike that knows what he is doing. Telling them apart inside twenty hands is the skill worth practicing; the full list is on the opponents index.