A maniac raises far too many hands, bets every flop and never folds to pressure. They are the biggest long-term loser in most games and the reason a lot of decent players have losing weeks.
The contradiction resolves quickly once you see it. Their edge is variance, not skill. They create enormous pots with weak holdings, and if you play those pots badly, the money goes to them before it comes back to you.
Everything below is about being the one it comes back to.
Seat selection does more than strategy
Before any adjustment, get position on them. You want the maniac on your right, so they act before you do.
With them on your right, you see their raise before you decide, you can isolate with a strong hand, and you play the whole hand knowing what they did. With them on your left, they punish every limp and every weak open, and you are guessing on every street.
This single choice is worth more than any range adjustment on this page. In club apps you can usually leave a table and rejoin, and it is worth the thirty seconds.
Widen for value, not for war
The instinct is to fight aggression with aggression. Against a maniac that is exactly backwards, because they do not fold, so bluffs have no target.
What changes is your value range, and it widens a long way. Against someone raising 60% of hands, top pair with a decent kicker is a strong holding rather than a marginal one, and second pair often has enough showdown value to call down. Hands you would routinely fold against a normal opener become calls and raises.
What does not change is your bluffing frequency, which should drop close to zero. Firing three streets at a player who calls with any pair is not aggression, it is a donation with extra steps. The same principle runs through everything against loose low-limit pools: when nobody folds, stop optimising for folds.
Let them bet your strong hands for you
Against most opponents you bet your good hands to build a pot. Against a maniac you often do better by checking and letting them do it.
They will bet. That is the one thing you can rely on. So flop a set on a dry board and checking is frequently stronger than leading, because a bet from you may finally slow them down, while a check invites two more barrels from a hand that has nothing.
The judgement call is board texture. On wet, connected boards, bet: the free cards you would be giving away cost more than the extra street you might win. On dry boards where little can improve against you, check and let them hang themselves.
Size up when you do bet
When you take the betting lead against a maniac, use larger sizes than normal. They are not folding to a half-pot bet any more than to a two-thirds one, so the smaller size only wins less.
Preflop this means isolating large. Over a maniac's raise, 4x to 5x rather than the usual 3x, both to charge them properly and to fold out the players behind who would otherwise come along and turn your strong hand into a multiway coinflip.
Isolating is the whole game against this player type. Heads-up against a maniac with position and a strong range is one of the best situations in poker. The same hand five-handed is not.
A worked hand
NL400 in Allin Zone on ClubGG, 7-max, blinds 2/4, a 25 percent VPIP floor, 100bb effective. Seven seats matter here: the floor makes everyone loose preflop, so the maniac is not the one who plays a lot of hands, it is the one who raises and re-raises with them after the flop. This one opens the cutoff to 3bb for the fourth time in six hands. We are on the button with AhTh.
3-bet to 13bb, larger than standard. ATs is well ahead of a range this wide and we want the blinds out so the pot stays heads up in position. He calls. Flop Th 8c 3d, he checks, which he rarely does, and we bet 60 percent. He check-raises to three times our bet. Call. Do not fold and do not re-raise. His check-raising range on this flop is any eight, any draw, two overcards and a lot of air. Folding top pair to that range is far too tight, and re-raising turns our hand into a bluff catcher against the only part of his range that beats us.
Turn 2c, he bets 70 percent, call again. River 5s, he shoves. We are calling roughly a pot sized bet with top pair. Against this player, who has shown down air twice already tonight, it is a call, and the reason is the frequency, not the hand. Against a tight player taking the same line it is a fold with the same cards.
What this looks like in our clubs
Maniacs are easy to mistake for the whole table in the Allin Zone union on ClubGG, because the VPIP floor makes every player loose preflop. Do not read the floor as aggression. The number that separates the maniac from the rest is how often he raises after the flop, and club apps give you no statistics for it, so it is a counting problem you solve by watching for an orbit before you commit chips.
Two settings help. The tables are 7-max and 8-max as well as 6-max, which means more seats to move into when the maniac is on your left, and moving seats is still the highest value adjustment on this page. And the run it multiple times option is on, which takes some of the variance out of the big pots you will inevitably play against him. It does not change the decision, only the swing.
Frequently asked questions
What is a maniac in poker?
A player who raises and bets far more often than their hands justify, and who rarely folds. They are usually long-term losers, but they create large pots and heavy swings for everyone at the table.
Should I play more hands against a maniac?
More value hands, yes, especially in position. Not more speculative ones out of position, since those turn into difficult decisions in bloated pots, which is precisely where a maniac makes their money.
Can I bluff a maniac?
Rarely, and only when they have shown weakness twice. Their defining trait is not folding, so bluffs need a target that is not there. Value bet more instead.
Where should I sit relative to a maniac?
With the maniac on your right, so you act after them. This is the single highest-value adjustment available and it costs nothing but a table change.
How do I handle the swings?
Expect them and size your bankroll for them. Playing correctly against a maniac means winning large pots more often than you lose them, which is not the same as winning them consistently. If the swings are affecting your decisions, the limit is too high rather than the strategy wrong.
Where to start
Next time you spot one, do the boring thing first: check where you are sitting. If they are on your left, change tables before you change your strategy.
If you want to know which of our fields runs loose and aggressive and which runs loose and passive, message @rpunion. The difference between the apps we hold unions in is larger than most players expect, and it decides which adjustments pay.
18+. Play within your means.