One Player's Maniac is another Player's Role Model

by tke1600

The poker "maniac" can be one of the best or worst players at any given time. A maniac that has a good strategy can beat the top players in the world. That being said there is a place and time for a poker maniac. I got the idea to explain how maniacs are ranked after reading the online poker reviews at Part Time Poker, an online poker strategy and humor website that I encourage everyone to visit. Below I will review two different types of maniacs and how they apply to poker.

1. A maniac "with" a strategy

A poker maniac is a player who plays many hands and is in a lot of big pots with any two cards. That being said, there are ways to use this to your advantage under the right circumstances. A great example is Gus Hansen, a 2 time WPT champion, and regarded as one of the best poker players today. Gus Hansen is a full blown maniac. He is known for playing huge pots with trash hands, bluffing at the wrong time, and knowingly calling big bets with marginal hands. Also you should know that every player he plays against knows exactly what he is doing, but there is nothing they can do about it.

You see Gus Hansen is playing in the WSOP and WPT tournaments. There is a lot of money at stake, poker titles, and also a great structure for a maniac. The starting chip stack is 10,000-20,000 chips, the blinds start at 25-50, and the blinds only rise every 1-2 hours. This means that a maniac like Gus Hansen can go crazy in pots and not lose too many chips when he is wrong or doesn't get lucky. He can bluff and raise like crazy and still have enough chips if he doesn’t succeed.

Do you know what happens when Gus Hansen hits the nuts? He gets paid off more than any other player in the world. 

Do you know what happens when Gus Hansen has a big chip stack?  He terrifies his opponents at the table,  which have no clue what type of hand he has, and know they will go broke if they are wrong or get unlucky.

2. A maniac “without” a strategy

Whenever you see a maniac at low-limit No Limit poker tables, they most likely do not have a strategy.  There is not enough at stake to really “scare” their opponents, and there is not enough play to make usually more than one mistake.  When a maniac at a low limit table doesn’t get really lucky or gets trapped, he will lose his entire stack.  So if he is playing a tournament he is out.  If he is in a cash game he can re-buy, but his opponents should catch onto him if they are good, and will trap him for his money again and again.

The maniac “without” a strategy could be a really great player if he was playing high-stakes poker, or was in the WSOP or WPT tournaments, but not at the low limit tables of online poker.   There is a huge difference between the WSOP Main Event and a $20 re-buy tournament online.  Know that the poker maniac will always be tough to play against, but the lower the limits the more profitable it will be to play against them.

If you go through all of the fish lists for each poker room, you will see that maniacs tend to rank the highest and therefore lose the most money. The maniacs that have made the "fish list" have been observed playing like a maniac "without" a strategy. They clearly are just playing every pot and losing tons of money by not folding. These types of players can be very profitable to play against, but you better watch out because they will also give you the most bad beats as well.