I was having a lot of trouble tonight at the 1/2 in finding a hand to play against a maniac and wondered what good spots really are. This guy wasn't stupid, but he'd push just about any draw he thought would be good, and he didn't need to have a lot of outs.

As for me, I couldn't catch really anything I was happy with but wondered if I might be missing some opportunities. Example: He raises, and I call with JTT9. Flop comes KQT with a flush draw that I don't have. I check (considering a check-raise). He pots, LP repots, and I fold. Ok, I would've been good here and wouldn't have real problems pushing this against known AJ with no pair at 2:1, but I definitely don't like KK or QQ here.

But I also had at least one nut flush draw with nothing else where I wonder if I should have pushed against this guy. Here's my standard line there: Usually, I'll bet the nut flush draw out, possibly check-raise, and with overpair plus nut flush draw, I'll usually go all the way. But if a tight player raises my bet, I don't view this as enough hand to go with unless I have at least a gutshot to go with it.

However, a mere nut flush draw isn't too bad against someone drawing to a straight. Admittedly, some pair helps a lot (even if it's bottom pair).

I guess what I'm driving at is this: Against a credible opponent for a lot of money, I'm looking for actual acceptable odds to proceed. And if they raise, they're often going to have a nut hand, for which I'll simply give them credit.

But a maniac is much more often just going to have some kind of draw (not an idiotic maniac but someone who will have some outs--he's just not very picky about how many). So, what I wonder is whether one should compensate cases of laying down the best hand (such as my TT for bottom set) where you risk drawing dead by being more inclined to push cases where you at least know you're not drawing dead but wouldn't have proper odds against a tighter opponent--nut flush draw with nothing is the best example I can think of, but top set on a straight board is pretty similar.

Or is this line of thought just the result of being frustrated at not finding a really legit hand to play against this guy?