You
have been waiting patiently and thrown away cards you knew could be a
problem, and your patience has paid off, you finally look to see AA
staring at you in YOUR hand! Or, first hand of the game you are
lucky (or unlucky) enough to see the same hand. In both
circumstances you feel the tingle of excitement as you know this is
your chance to double or triple up. You are "UTG"
(Under The Gun, first to bet) and don't want to scare everyone off so
early in the game. Since the blinds are so low, so you give a
simple 3x the blind bet and figure it safe. The table folds
around and the player on the button pushes all his chips into the
pot. This is what you waited for! One on one with the
best starting hand at a shot to double. You call and the player
shows K4 suited. You wonder why he pushed in, but ignore it
since his odds are not very good anyway. You watch the flop,
K82. Fine, he hit his top card which does not give him the
hand. The turn is a K and the river is a 4. OUCH!
You
had AA, raised it up and he re-raised all in with an ugly hand.
Of course you are calling his all in pre-flop with AA. But you
sit there stunned wondering if he just happens to have some sort of
software to know what the flop, turn and river will be. You
second guess your own playing ability. You start to wonder if
you shouldn't just re-raise all in with ATC yourself. You wish
you could reach through the screen, grab them by the throat and
throttle for being so stupid as to not know your hand. You
consider attempting to explain the finer points of solid poker play,
but what ends up coming across the screen looks closer to this:
“You
@#$#$^ idiot! What the @#$# was going through your @#$@# @#%%^
(&*%* mind! You are a !@%^&R$*#!!!!! And your
mother…”
Well,
that is it. Not too much was going through his mind other than
the fact he didn't know your hand and expected that his re-raise all
in would force you to fold. He was playing his game. Yes,
he was a huge dog (way behind) in the hand pre-flop, but he has no
clue at what the flop, turn and river will bring any more than you
do. Often these player are impatient players and they do not
know how to play after the flop, so pushing in gives them the best
shot to win the hand. If they do win the hand, they double
their stack in a hurry. These players are the most
frustrating. If I had hair on my head they would make me pull
it out. They believe they are the best players out there.
They believe they can force anyone to fold. They count on luck
every hand and then believe they made the right play when they make a
horrible suck-out.
There are many
crazy aggressive players, Maniacs, that do not watch the play at the
table and will push in time and again with a weak hand to try to
force others to fold. Some do it out of planning, others due to
lack of skill. Sometimes it works for them, other times they
give a lot of chips away. This must be understood. This
is part of poker. Players that push in with weak hands are what
allow me to increase my stack in a hurry. These players can
also kill a game for me. The biggest key to playing this type
of player is to control your emotions.
We
all love to bust out a player that we cannot stand at a table.
The player constantly pushing in will prevent others from seeing a
flop after they have put in a bet and irritate the entire table.
We get mad, we send hexes through the screen, we curse them silently
and we smile big when they lose all their chips. What I see
happen quite often always amazes me. Quite sane players, go nuts!
The rest of the table will see the maniac push with j9 off suit and
they will start calling his bets with similar hands, knowing his
hands are weak. Instead of the maniac player being behind in
the odds each hand, the emotional calls by the rest of the table
allow him to continue to rake in chips with better odds hands than
would usually be the case. He will go down some and then gain
more, but remain at the table as a constant irritant. This fun
game has become a vendetta against one player. The table is now
playing into his style, doing exactly what the maniac wanted and he
starts pulling in chips every hand. The maniac gains a stack
that nobody can touch, and now is calling every hand with anything he
holds. The maniac has created an odds nightmare to the average
player.
Continue to Playing the Maniac -Part 2
Click here:
http://www.glossforum.com/2009/03/29/playing-the-maniac-part-2/page1/
