Today sucked so bad I’m not even going to show a graph 
I logged in and all the 2NL tables were full. So I opened a couple of 4NL tables, which I figured wouldn’t be much different.
The first table I ended up with a pain in the arse TAG two places to my left. His stats ran at around 18/16, and the first few times I raised from the blind he reraised me. Protecting the blinds or strong hand, who knows, but either way he was ruining my btn position. So I moved off that table.
The next two tables were pretty similar – mostly 35/5 type players, loose-ish and passive. But also on each table was a total loose maniac. VP$IP’s of about 60% with PFR of 0 or so. Yet postflop they went mad and chucked huge amounts on the flop and turn, usually making everyone cave in. On the times they were taken to showdown they did show bad starting hands, yet usually had hit a draw!
Aren’t those opponents supposed to be easy? Wait for a strong hand and take them for everything? Didn’t seem to be happening though.
My hands sucked. In the whole session I had a high pair hole cards about 3 times (a TT, JJ and a KK). The Jacks got blown away by KK, the TT lost to a straight (I played it dumb anyway though), and the KK’s were folded to
My final hands were equally dismal – the best was three 6′s, which ended up a split pot as the 6′s were on the board and we both had A kickers.
So the combination of hitting no hands, plus higher stakes, plus against players who were crap yet still didn’t play as they were supposed to (fold you bastards!), I’ve blown away everything I’ve gained in the last 1000 hands (ok, not big in monetary terms, or even number of hands compared to other people, but that’s like a whole week’s work at the rate I play).
The combination of my new starting hands chart and crap hands gave me stats of about 22/18 though. Silver lining? I’d rather have the money…
m8, I can’t tell you the trouble i’m having with the maniacs. they are nut hunting and playing LaG. I use poker office and they get thier own little symbol. but you look at how they play over the session and they are always in the green even after playing 75% of hands. They call, put out min bets, call my c-bets then tuck me up on the river. Its so damn frustrating. I play pretty TaG ABC at micro levels and they seem to have all cards when i hit my hand. grrrr. But to me this is beginning to look like the winning play at these levels (NL2,5 n 10). trouble is I cant seem to my head around it.
good luck and let me know if you find a strategy against ‘em
Yep, I reckon TAG’s the right way, not that I got a chance to try it out. I read a 2p2 post about beating calling stations, and basically if you don’t get any cards, you can’t beat them! Guess it’s the same with the maniacs, except you don’t lose as much money…
and added your blog to my blogroll too. GL on that blogger championship. I’m not on stars (yet), but it looked good (how do they know you have a blog?)