I'm a calling station!!

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This was a really weird hand that is ONLY comprehensible in terms of reads. Villain is ultra-maniac. With position he alwasy raised max PF, always potted all the way through, and he would alwasy re-raise PF as well. OOP, I think he failed to raise max a few times, even maybe folding once and making a mini-raise at least once. I did see him fold on occasion, but very rarely--and he always seemed to have spiked some kind of horrible 2 pair and actually take down some pots.

When I sat down at the table, he was pretty deep at around $700. I got my read fairly quickly and ALMOST called him down with just QQ on a raggedy paired board of 2249 with a double flush draw of which I had the Q-high draw. But I chickened out to his repot on the turn after I had check-mini-raised the flop in a max-raised HU pot. So, I lost $50 with what I still think was probably the best hand, but I really didn't want to stack off finding out if he really had a 2. What I decided on was a call-down strategy of the following kind: Wait for a good solid hand and just call all the way (probably trying to shut it down on the turn). A lot of players were re-raising him PF, which was tempting, but I thought it was really more playing into his hands in PLO. In HE, you can be big favorite, but there's really nothing in PLO that's such a huge favorite, and it's aggravating to wait for your AA, only to get cracked by some junk. True, you're favorite, but not so big. I decided to just not raise myself at all but let him do the raising and decide what to do on the flop.

So, here's a VERY strangely played AA that worked, although the board got really rough:

I have just a below average AA with AhAd6h2h with $200 UTG+1. I limp. Next player folds, and maniac makes it $9 to go, as usual (he still has $600 at this point). I call. I'm really not sure how I'm going to play this hand if I don't pick up something solid against this guy. The following will show how he plays:

Flop comes AcJh9d. Sweet! I have top set, can pick up a heart draw on the turn, and there are quite a few blanks in the deck. I check, and he pots. I decide just to call here. I'm not sure whether he would have laid down to the raise, but I prefer to take the risk on the turn. If it's a blank, my plan is to CRAI.

But it's not. Turn is Ks. Objectively, I should probably have check-raised all-in anyway there, since I still have a strong hand and certainly have outs. But I decided to check-call and hope that the river pairs the board. He of course pots again for $61.

River gets even worse: Qs. Now it takes VERY little for him to have a straight here, but he's been raising hands like Q972ss and betting pretty much the same way upon spiking a 92 two pair. I check, and he pots again for more than the $113 I have left.

I figure it's still better than 50-50, though, that I'm ahead. So, I pull myself together and make the call. One other thing: This guy IS capable of making value-bets, which are typically smaller than full pot. My interpretation of this whole betting sequence is that he's hoping I'm sufficiently scared to lay down. I think he really would have been more likely to fire something like $30-$40 on the river if he really had the nut straight.

Result: He turns over Kd8h8s3h, and I win.

In a sense, this hand is almost LC, but I do think it brings up some interesting points about how to deal with maniacs. This one was actually about the most extreme I've seen. But it's also worth noting that he was the big stack at the table when I sat down. I felt like people were folding too much and playing back at him at bad times. In PLO, I really don't think PF is the time to start the playing back.

Also, with my hand, I significantly decrease my own risk if I check-raise the flop, which may be the better play. I just felt like if I was going to be pretty selective on flops that I want to pursue (basically sets or monster draws), I needed to milk it more. But, as this board development illustrates, it's very easy for things to get out of hand pretty quickly even when your hand looks really nice on the flop.

Anyhow, that's how I played this one against a pretty transparent maniac. Much more difficult are clever and selective LAGs. I do think playing very stationish/cally with the right kind of hand is a pretty good way to deal with these guys.

A few other thoughts: I almost think that big card hands, even if they're a bit disjoint, like AQ98 or such are probably better for entering raised pots against this kind of player than little wraps. TP with outs to top 2 is probably just about as good as a monster straight draw with just a little pair.

I also think it's probably better in most cases to wait to raise until the turn rather than check-raising the flop. On my own hand, I think I would have preferred that line as well, really, despite the straight being out there. I probably would have won less that way (surely he would've folded without the straight), but the river decision was tough, and I would have had to lay down if I hadn't had a very strong sense that I was ahead a LOT of the time. I'm still not sure about that one, though.

Basically, if I check-raise the turn, he lays down maybe 80% of the time, I'm behind the other 10% as 3:1 underdog against the straight, or I'm dramatically ahead maybe another 10% of the time if he has some kind of lower set (which I don't think he'd lay down there). If I call all the way, I double up again probably close to 80% of the time anyway, and the river doesn't HAVE to be so completely horrible--so as to have allowed even KTXX to catch up.

One thing I've observed in any case from NLHE is that stations often do really well against maniacs... I just find it more difficult to apply these principles in PLO, since boards can get pretty bad--like here.

Thoughts?

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