Cash game tilters

[Boba Fett]

Im sure you've all came across it before, maybe even done it yourself.  Sitting in a cash game, someone loses a buy in, reloads and loses the plot.

Whats the best way to play against players that tilt badly when theyre stuck and start playing anything and everything to try to recoup the loss.  They start leading out with a 5-8 X BB preflop raise followed by a potsized bet on the flop and a decent bet on the turn.  Although usually their range is fairly tight and theyre overall play decent they are now playing any 2 cards, betting and raising the board with bottom pair or less and is generally completely wild.

Whats the best strategy for this type of player?

Tighten up and reraise them preflop with a decent hand? 
Wide your own starting requirements and call the maniac and then try to trap him once you catch something as 9/10 he pays you off?
Call preflop and raise him on the flop with any 2 hoping he didnt catch anything and will lay it down to your show of strength?


Not sure how much of a difference this makes but the cash games are rarely deep stacked........

When a player tilts like this the whole dynamic of the table changes from something you could maybe call sensible poker to a limpathon with everyone calling into the raiser and calling the raise hoping to hit the flop and have the tilter pay them off.

This is where I start to leak chips as, with so many people in, I find it harder to put anyone on a hand, especially the maniac.  I get involved in more pots that are more expensive than they used to be and now find it harder to work out where I am in the hand, cards that used to be thought of as bricks could now have given someone 2 pair or filled an inside straight with the junk that is now being played.
Recently if this has been happening Ive just been tempted to leave as I always get sucked into changing my game and burning chips but never do as someone busts the tilter and he reloads ready to continue.

Any advice is appreciated

[GlasgowBandit]

I normally playback at them. My reason for this is when I start tilting in the cash games I hate it when people start playing back at me and re-raising me at any point.  What you'll normally find is when you stick a re-raise in your giving the tilter serious questions, a lot depends on the game as well for example, if a tilter has raised with say T8 off in NLHE they are hardly likely to call if you lump in a big raise.

If however its PLO what you tend to find is that players will pot and call a re-pot with any 4 when they are on serious tilt and hope to get lucky.  If they get lucky and hit a miracle flop the next sign i tend to find is they will check the flop hoping someone leads out with a bet and then they come over the top or even flat call if the board is not creating many draws.  Again I tend to think much of thw signs of weakness are infact signs of strength.

Moreover a lot depends on the level your playing at.

Take 25c/50c PLO its mostly a limp fest but a strong bet can take down any pot on a flop.  I like to generally play this game like an aggresive maniac hoping to tilt other players and bully them out of pots.  When I play 2/4 or even 1/2 I tighten up and only start playing like a maniac to generate pots.  It seems to me that as soon as one or two players loosen up the full table follows, the benefit for me when doing this is I am creating the action and controling the table and then when i tighten up players tend not to make much notice of this and as soon as i hit a hand i am able to get paid for it.

[AlexMartin]

You can beat this guy by waiting for a strong hand and rope a doping a strong made hand on a non-threatening board. Always be wary of the OTHER players at the table when you have maniacs present, they'll be the ones who break you.