Having a maniac on your left

[deedbr]

My main concern is not the maniac, it is the others that might have a real hand after him. If he is calling a lot, then when I have the top 5% of hands, I want my initial raise to be closer to 5 BB maybe a tad more (depends on blind level and starting chips). I don't want to be creating a juicy multi pot.

If he is coming in over the top each time you raise, then a 3-4 BB bet is fine. However, when he does reraise you pop it up again when it comes back to you (be careful of others in the pot). If it is just the two of you then reraise it to 40-50 % of his stack. Let him know that he will be playing for his stack on that hand. If he does call you, then you have to push on the flop, no matter what flops. In this case you have first in vig.

You can't be afraid. He might bust you. He might have a better starting hand. He might out flop you. You got to get all that crap out of your mind. He wants you to be afraid. He wants someone who knows how to make a good lay down. He is going to eat all their chips.

What he doesn't want is someone who will play back at him. Unless he is running hot you know he is playing a very wide range. So if you play a tighter range, you know the majority of the time you will be ahead of him.

Now if you are a LAG player and he knows it, then he is going to keep on punishing you. You either go HLAG like azreal1 said or you go rock tight but either way you need to be willing to fight and put in all your chips. Any sign of fear and he will own you. Heck, he will probably be owning all those chips at the table unless he gets trapped or someone stands up to him.

There is one player here that I can think of that is HLAG and I respect certain parts of his game. He can accumulate a huge amount of chips in very short time. However, he keeps on showing his bluffs with garbage. That's great if he tightens up but instead he keeps playing the same way.