This is one of the most difficult situations I´ve came across at the tables. You´re playing someone who loves to make the pots huge preflop and you just can´t get a good hand/hit a flop/have a hand you want to get in pre. For example the kind of the player who will 3bet you for 4 times your raise which makes it difficult to call even with very playable hands like QJs, will call your raises OOP in the few times you get a premium but the flop just don´t hit you at at all, and he will hammer pot every street. Sometimes i try to just limp with the likes of QJs, to try and keep the pot small pre flop, but that doesn´t stop some of them to artificially bloat the pot preflop and make it as big as a 3bet pot. People at the forums keep saying be patient, but sometimes your good spot just DON`T seem to come, and after 10 raised pots that you´ve let go, he has a 2:1 chip lead. We´re always waiting for AQ to shove preflop, but magically they seem to dodge it when you have it. It would be nice some videos specifically designed to help you outplay these guys.
Hey, mom says - I'll definitely keep my eye out for a player type like this in my future matches, or if I play some I'll be sure to make a hand history replay session with it. Not sure if you are a standard or premium member, but if I can come across this situation it will be posted on the premium section. No guarantee in the short term, but I'll definitely do my best. For now, there was some recent discussion about a similar player type that you may enjoy reading up on. This more directly focused on facing abnormal opening raises preflop and how to counter it, but good info for (your situation) as well: http://www.husng.com/content/how-play-extreme-maniacsThanks,
Brent
ITRIED2WARNU
My Coaching Page
I struggled playing these types of players a lot first when I started HU SNG's and it was very frustrating. These players will give you a headache quickly if you don't adjust properly because if you don't adjust well they are always in control until we hit a strong hand or sometimes make a move/bluff. What I was doing was opening 3x from the button and then this type of player would 3bet me a lot, or call and then lead/donk-bet the flop big like potsize, meaning that if I was opening a wide range from the button..I would have to fold to a ton of his big flop leads or 3bets.If he is 3-Betting you a lot you may want to sometimes 4-bet him lighter or what I like better because I think we can own him more is to play smaller pots in general by making your raise size from the button smaller so your not being exploited as much when he 3-Bets, because we lose less chips when he does and we fold. He may 3-bet you less when you start min-raising your buttons. If he keeps 3betting you a lot then you can start limping, or you can go right from 3x opening to limping, everyone has different preferences. When you start limping we then see if he's willing to check back and play smaller pots or if he's going to be raising our limps a lot, if he does raise our limps a lot then I like to fold a lot of marginal hands and only play hands that I am willing to limp/call or limp/raise. This way we keep ourselves out of the really marginal or non-profitable situations and can now control the match so much better by playing with a stronger range against an aggressive opponent.It seems like you want to adjust a little quicker which used to be my problem..once he goes in maniac mode bloating pots all the time it's useless for you to keep raising marginal hands from the button, especially for a 3x raise. Don't be afraid to limp/call with a hand like you mentioned like QJs...it's way too strong to fold when he raises your limp because your going to be ahead of his range and when you do hit a flop he can bluff off his chips to you. Sometimes we are just not going to hit many flops but that's poker, it can be frustrating but theres only so much you can do.
Thanks for the responses everyone. Really looking foward to the video ITRIED2WARNU. Newff, yeah I get QJs is just to strong to fold but if you call and don´t hit at all as little as just 3 times, you can lose like 500-600 chips. It´s really frustrating when that happens.
Thou shalt not tilt.
Yeah but that's just the game :) You will own him very often also, folding it would be pretty bad.
one of the recent fydor vids covers this pretty well...He ran a simulation with someone playing as a maniac and covered how to make proper adjustments.