Maniacs Love Draws

[blah730235]

Well I'm at lunch at a seminar so why not making a rambling post with my free time?


Keep in mind my experiences are limited to about a year of playing online texas holdem, No limit, 9-max ring games at micro stakes ranging from .01/.02 blinds to .10/.25 blinds.


Smart Micro maniacs love draws. (I do relize the irony in this statment) A maniac who at least does half an anaylsis of his hands relizes this. The implied odds they get with these hands are actually really good against average low stakes players. When they bet someone who is paying attention will not give them credit for a hand and usually the amount they bet has a much smaller impact then the amount that other players bet. The maniac can bet out with a draw, giving them the chance to push people off the pot and if they hit their draw they can bet a huge amount making it further look like they are trying to push their opponent off the pot. A pair only gives a maniac a decent hand with less chance for improvment and it is unlikely the opponent who has put them on air is not going to be pushed off without big bets. Thus I need to work on two of my leaks...

1. Calling a push from a maniac after the turn or the river connects the board.
2. Quit trying to slowplay maniacs (and even LAGs who are not as wild as maniacs) when the board is drawy.

[jeffnc]

There are 2 kinds of maniacs, relatively good and relatively bad. You'll beat the relatively bad ones with just some guts and not much further comment than that.

The relatively good maniacs don't do as bad as you'd think because they're making all their mistakes with little money, and often cleaning house when big money goes in on later streets. You beat relatively good maniacs by forcing them to put in too much money earlier in the hand than they like, preflop and on the flop. If they can see flops and turns relatively cheaply, they can act like idiots but when big money goes in they actually have something.