villian is a maniac has a preflop raise of 22%

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (8 handed)

UTG+1 ($52.35)
MP1 ($65.25)
MP2 ($49.20)
CO ($41.18)
Button ($49.25)
Hero ($62.15)
BB ($87.50)
UTG ($132.10)

Preflop: Hero is SB with , . Hero posts a blind of $0.25.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $4, 4 folds, Hero (poster) raises to $14.75, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $11.

Flop: ($30.50) , , (2 players)
Hero bets $20, UTG+1 calls $37.35 (All-In), Hero calls $17.35.

Turn: ($105.20) (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($105.20) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $105.20

Results in white below:
Hero has Ah Kc (one pair, aces).
UTG+1 has Qd Ts (one pair, queens).
Outcome: Hero wins $105.20.

The BB is ..50 cents here right? If so I would say this......

1. If the villian is such a manaic, would he really be raising a premium hand UTG+1 to 8x the BB and risk not getting any action? Probably not.

2.While I do like your aggressiveness with the AKo, I don't think this a good time for it, I think a better play would be to smooth call the PF raise, and then if you do hit the flop, let him hang himself by check raising him all in. You re-raise about 1/4 of your stack pre flop and he smooth called you, uhh ohh. By smooth calling you are putting your chips at alot less risk because you don't have to make a contination bet on the flop for almost 1/2 your stack. But the way you played it, you are committing yourself to this hand, which even though you won it, definatly worked to the villians advantage. I would much rather be playing a smaller PP in this hand then the AKo, but you had been seeing what kinds of hands he had been showing down so thats your call.


If you thought that you had the best hand pre-flop then I think raising him all in pre flop might have been another play you could have made, even thougt I don't like playing for my stack in what might be a coin flip situation, but you seemed willing gamble here, judging by your pre flop and flop play.
Pre flop you were willing to play for your stack, or so it would seem by your re-raise, so why not just put it all in there, especially if you knew you were going to make a contination bet on the flop with an unimproved hand.

I really think a smooth call of the raise or just moving all in pre flop would have been better ways of playing this hand. Also, folding pre flop and waiting for a much better spot is not out of the question either. AKo in all it's glory, is really just a drawing hand pre flop.

are you sure he's the maniac at the table?

very high variance since you decided to put your entire stack in the pot pre-flop even though the chips had not actually gone in yet

he may raise alot preflop but how much does he call preflop? he called a huge reraise, i dont think there is much fold equity on the flop and you pot-locked yourself trying to push him out, which i wouldn't do with a missed AK

Wait and make this play with a set or maybe TPTK.

So basically all are saying flat call this raise or dump it preflop?

Guys this is a cash game, not a tournament. Ok, we are only a 2-1 favorite with AK vs. those random hands, and the reason we don't want to get all our chips in pre flop there is what? If the play has a +EV it should be done, whether or not it has high variance, we have bankrolls for a reason. I like the way you played it. There can be an argument for calling or raising, but there is absolutely no way you can argue that we should wait till we have a big pair to re-raise strongly against this guy. That's throwing away boat loads of value.

I think the main point is that trying to out-maniac a maniac has very high variance. Mike Caro has two simple rules for maniacs... call more often and raise less often. You can bust a maniac with just TPTK. What you want to do in general is risk small amounts of money to hit a good flop.

And the difference between a maniac and a LAG player is that a maniac will not fold his holding once he has started to push, so coin flips are not +ev against him.