Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (53 page)

How to Play with a Maniac on Your Left

One of the toughest situations in tournament poker is when you have a super-aggressive player on your left, because he constantly forces you to either put in a lot of chips or fold. When someone re-raises every time you raise and raises every time you limp, it greatly cuts down the number of hands you can play profitably. To combat this, you will generally need to play tighter but more aggressively, making sure you put a lot of money in the pot with your premium hands.

When you are deep-stacked and the maniac is on your left, simply play a tight-aggressive game, assuming the maniac is constantly entering pots with you. In general, if he doesn’t re-raise too often pre-flop, feel free to raise and continuation-bet your normal range. On the turn and river, tend to check and call down to induce bluffs. The worst thing to do is to make a decent hand like top pair, top picker, which will be well ahead of a maniac’s range, only to bet the flop and have him fold to your turn bet. Give him a lot of rope so he can hang himself.

When you both have 50BBs or more you can raise with your good hands and go all-in for up to 70BBs or so when he re-raises to 10BBs. Fold or limp with weaker hands and call to see a flop when he raises your limp to around 5BBs. Ideally, you want to see flops with hands that have high implied odds, like small pairs and suited connectors, and you want to get a lot of money, and sometimes all of it, in pre-flop with 9-9+ and A-Q+. You will usually be well ahead of his range, but sometimes he will show up with a monster and bust you. You must accept that one of you is likely going to go broke, and be happy knowing it will be him more than you.

You lose a lot of your implied odds with less than 50BBs, so you should only play when you don’t mind going all the way with a hand. I usually just play fairly tightly and raise all the hands I don’t mind going all-in with if he re-raises. If this maniac re-raises every hand, you can raise hands like J-10s and 6-6 with the intention of going all-in over his re-raise, whereas if the maniac folds and a tight player behind you re-raises, you can make an easy fold. It is a quite mentally strenuous knowing you will have to be all-in over and over against a maniac. Just take some comfort knowing he is going to go broke much more often than you.

When a Player Will Not Back Down

You will occasionally face an opponent who simply will not let you win a hand. He will call or raise every time you bet, and will bet every time you check. This is an extreme version of what I try to do to people. When a good, aggressive player has position on you and goes out of his way to play pots with you, just play a fairly tight, solid game.

These players usually float with a wide range of hands. Value-bet thinly on the flop and turn against them, and check the river, acting as if you were bluffing and are now giving up. Most of the time, especially if they have little showdown value, they will fire a river bet that you can easily call with your made hand.

There is nothing wrong with playing a tight, aggressive game from time to time. I have advocated a semi-loose, aggressive game throughout this book, but if someone adjusts optimally to you, which is to call you more and look for spots to pick up pots when you give up, you need to adjust, too. Just wait for decent hands and play from there.

If I have one or two good aggressive opponents on my left, when deep-stacked I will usually tighten my early-position raising range to something like 2-2+, A-Q+ and decent suited connectors. From middle position I will raise hands like 2-2+, A-10+, K-J+, Q-J+ and suited connectors. From late position I will raise 2-2+, A-5+, K-9+, Q-9+, J-8+, 10-8+ and suited connectors. I pretty much stop raising all junky hands like 9-6 and K-8. Playing a more premium set of starting hands will make your post-flop decisions a bit easier.

Being the Table Bully

You will be able to run a table over from time to time, especially in tournaments filled with satellite qualifiers. Go out of your way to pick up as many pots as possible whenever you observe players folding far too often before the flop. This will give you the image of a maniac, so when you actually make a hand like top pair, you should not be too willing to fold it. Realize that at some tables your opponents will only play back at you with the nuts.

My most memorable experience as the table bully occurred at the Aussie Millions $10,000 buy-in tournament. This tournament was made up of around 90-percent online qualifiers and I was pretty sure the players at my table had all won their seats. I got to my table on day 2 and played my normal loose-aggressive game for the first 30 minutes or so before I realized no one was playing back at me at all, despite everyone having around 100BBs. Once I figured this out, I started to raise every time it was folded to me before the flop. I doubled up within an hour with no showdowns and very few flops seen.

After a while I raised with 7
-2
from middle position and a tight, older lady in the big blind called. The flop came 9
-8
-6
. She checked and I made a standard continuation bet. She thought for a while and called. I didn’t think this flop hit her range too well, so I decided to fire most turns. The turn was the 3
. She checked, I bet again and she called. I decided I was done with the hand unless a scare card came on the river. The river was the beautiful 7
. I wasn’t happy because I had a pair. I was happy because I was fairly certain a 10 or 5 wasn’t in her range, which should have let me steal the pot. She checked and I put her all-in for around 3/4 pot. She instantly called and lost with A
-K
. I was amazed at the call but in her head, I had been so loose that I couldn’t actually have a hand. Apparently she didn’t realize that on a 9-8-7-6-3 board, I am usually going to have at least a weak pair.