Headsup - The maniac

[Radford]

Lately, i've been playing lots and lots of $22 turbo headsup matches on stars. I'm doing really well in them. I've played against many different types of players. The TAG, the LAG, the passive players you name it. There's one type of player however, in which i usually struggle to play against, and that's the complete maniac.

I'm very very aggressive when i play HU, so i'm in the category of LAG. But these guys raise every single hand. If i'm holding complete crap all the time i have to keep folding, but they raise every single hand. It's quite difficult to play against them. I can play against a good LAG pretty well, but a maniac i struggle with because of his constant aggrression. Any tips for maniac style players in turbo headsup?

[ImBetterDude]

I can't comment on the $22 heads up play on Stars, but I can comment on the $2 heads up at FTP! I know there is probably a significant gap (and by probably I mean surely) in poker prowess, but I believe the mentality of the good player should be the same against maniacs heads up. I have played a few of these over the last 2 or 3 days, and while I lost to the same guy twice in a row, other than that my record must be around 11/12 or 11/13. The reason for this is that my opponents are either uber tight and predictable, or ultra-aggro/maniacal.

Against the opponent you describe, I just tighten up. I treat top pair like top set and slow play the flop by just calling his continuation bet, and then check the turn. If he chooses to fire again I then choose to raise, but def not on the flop. I don't think you can fight fire with fire in this scenario because two aggro's blasting away at each other will give neither player an edge IMO, and the only way to take advantage of a complete ass clown is to just TIGHTEN UP.

A way to avoid your opponent stealing blinds over and over again and to concequently have it dent your stack is to not play the turbos...just play the heads up games at normal speed instead. If you catch cold cards mid game and use this tight strategy in a turbo, the blinds will kill you. If you're playing a normal game, however, you can keep waiting the clown out and playing smart post-flop poker.

Hope that helps.

[suicide-jack]

i have played HU tourneys at these levels and i think the main thing is to play a style that your comfortable playing. a maniac is effective because he makes people do what they wouldn't normally do by getting them out of their comfort zone.

tighten up and make your counter-punches hurt more than his jabs (to equate it to a boxing match). if you want to look deeper into this, i suggest looking up dario on PS and watch how some of his opponents play him.

-jacob