Where to sit
Popular wisdom is that you should sit to the left of a maniac so that you can re-raise and isolate him. That popular wisdom is an idea from limit poker, but that's not really why it's not a good idea. It's that it's based on ideas about table composition and game conditions that are seldom found any more.
If you saw the movie Rounders it has a scene that takes place in an Atlantic City cardroom with a table of 8 pros and 2 other seats that keep rotating among various tourists. Essentially the pros are taking turns bleeding chips from the tourists. In that kind of table composition the idea of isolation makes some sense becuase if you raise then the pros behind you are likely to not want to fool with it, they'll "get out of your way".
You just aren't likely to find that situation any more.
It's much better to sit on the right of that maniac so that you have as much information as possible about how the rest of the table is going to react to him before you have to make a major commitment.
If you saw the movie Rounders it has a scene that takes place in an Atlantic City cardroom with a table of 8 pros and 2 other seats that keep rotating among various tourists. Essentially the pros are taking turns bleeding chips from the tourists. In that kind of table composition the idea of isolation makes some sense becuase if you raise then the pros behind you are likely to not want to fool with it, they'll "get out of your way".
You just aren't likely to find that situation any more.
It's much better to sit on the right of that maniac so that you have as much information as possible about how the rest of the table is going to react to him before you have to make a major commitment.
posted by Gary Carson at 10:54 AM
9 Comments:
Also if you are playing a shortstack strategy, you can get all-in with as much free money as possible.
This really doesn't feel right - I thought the one and only reason is that you want the position on the maniac.
If you are sitting to his right, because of the maniac's raising range you are going to have to play a lot of big pots out of position when he raises or reraises you. Since it can't be profitable to fold all the time when he raises you (because your range is much better than his), you must be reraising or calling his preflop aggression with a worse range than normal to be playing profitably against him. Then you are playing a bloated pot out of position against an aggressive opponent.
I think you much rather sit at his left. Also, it is harder to steal blinds from a maniac.
Why do you want position? The value of position is about information. You already know what he's going to do, you don't have to wait until he does it to react to it.
By playing on his right you have position on the entire field, just not on the one player you don't need any information on.
Since you used the term aggresive it might be that you're just not clear on what I mean by the term maniac.
I just don't think stealing blinds is really all that important.
1) stealing blinds: Stealing blinds is not important, but obviously a lot easier to do when the maniac is at your right than when the maniac is at your left. Could be an extra 0.5 big blind per hour, who knows. It was not central to my argument, but one thing that I think makes a lot of sense.
2) on position: I think the value of position is more than just information. It allows you to control the last bet. Since bets in NL get exponentially big, this is more important if there is likely to be a lot more preflop raising that bloats the pot. This is a difference of many big blinds.
3) I don't understand what you mean by "position on the entire field." The act of switching with the maniac to your right does not change your relative position with the table much, except for the maniac.
Suspected miscommunication:
1) we might be disagreeing on what "maniac" means. I'm just thinking of an extremely loose and extremely aggressive player. Are you thinking of something else?
2) Of course, I'm assuming a normal deep stack game here. If you and/or the maniac is playing short then position matters less. But I think volunteering to have a maniac to your left (with my definition of maniac) is chip suicide in a deep stack game.
Position on the field means that if you're on the right of the maniac you always get to act last. All you have to do is check (or limp), he bets, you get to be last.
You should probably read my hold'em book.
If there's a maniac at the table there just isn't going to be any blind stealing, it doesn't matter where he's sitting.
I would appreciate if you respond to the points put forth in my previous comment, the most important part of which is deciding what a "maniac" means for both of us. In this reply you ignore (2) completely.
As for (1), again, I don't want to sidetrack this conversation by talking about blinds, which I have already stated in the previous comment as an aside and not the central part of my argument. But if you really want to talk about it - it is definitely easier to steal blinds if you are to his left than if you are to his right. At least if you are to his left you can actually steal the blinds if he folds preflop, a piece of information you wouldn't get if he is to your left (I think we both aknowledge that it is central to both of arguments that the blinds are not important here at all, so we don't have to talk further about it)
Your argument that you will act last is correct if the maniac is raising *every* hand. However, is he still betting/raising every flop, turn, and river? A maniac like this will bust out every 5 hands he plays (or double up really big) in No-Limit. Here is where I stress again the importance of position - you really, really want position on him postflop because of the pot that he has bloated for you. Do you seriously want to play a maniac in a huge pot for deep stacks out of position?
Or, we abstract the situation a bit: you have a tight guy on your left and a maniac on your right. You are saying it is better to switch so that the maniac is to your left. Because of the pot-bloating nature of the maniac and the fact that he will be in every pot, in the former case you will be playing most of your hands in position and in the latter case you will be playing most of your hands out of position. Do you actually prefer the latter?
By the way, I wish to make this clear: I completely agree with you that (if a maniac by definition raises all the time, basically 100%) for *preflop equity* I rather sit to his right since he will always reopen the betting. That is clear and reasoned out.
I just think when the stacks are deep, the extra losses you incur from playing out of position (frequently!) against a maniac in (big!) pots overrides the preflop information and equity gain.
And (this is implied by my previous post, but just in case): if you define a maniac as someone who will always bet/raise every street without even trying to play poker, then yes, I agree, I don't care about playing him postflop out of position either since I know what he will do on every street.
But I think these maniacs don't exist. A more "realistic" maniac may play something like this preflop, and maybe on the flop. But once the big bets come out on the turn and river, they are still going to look and see what they actually have. Against these players you really, really want position postflop.
I like that scene because it illustrates the modern views on what is considered honest poker. Matt Damon's character was unhappy with Edward Norton's cheating, but did not have a problem with the collusion or implicit collusion at the casino.
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