Dealing with Aggression (LAG-type)

Hey Gang -

I just typed out a very long post about dealing with the LAG player who sits directly on your left - and what I realized when I finished the post was I had no idea how to deal with the player.

Setting - Online Cash Game - 1/2 NL, 6-handed.
Villain is directly to my left, and has on countless times flat-called my raise pre, and raised me post-flop. I have a pretty high C-Bet %, and I'm pretty sure by this point in time I have a pretty high 'fold C-Bet to raise %'. On a couple occaisons I have 3-bet his raise, and he has shown no hesitation in 4-betting it.

Now, to the hand!

Dealt to me in CO - QQ. Couple limpers - raise to 5 BBs, villain (BTN) calls, one limper calls. ~17 BBs in pot.

Flop comes Q95r. I C-Bet ~10 BBs, Villain raises (~30 BBs), prev limper folds, I reraise (~75 BBs), villain shoves, putting me at risk for my $300 stack. I of course, call.

Villain shows over J9. Fails to catch running 9s, of course.

No, here is where I get confused. Obv I was best with any Q here, but the bottom of my raising spectrum at this table would probably be about QJs, maybe QTs if I was trying to make a play on the blinds, and merely betting for my hand's drawing value. Had I had a hand like KQ, on this board I would have had to fold to his shove. If I call his flop raise, then he most likely shoves on the turn (or bets a lot). And Tp Weak Kicker isn't a hand I like taking to showdowns in weak pots.

So it's obvious I need to adjust a combination of a few possible factors in my game. I can think of the following -
1. C-Bet less. This is probably the easiest one to do. However in doing this, when I do C-Bet I'm more likely to have a hand. If, for instance, over the first hour of my session I raise 30 hands pre, and c-bet 22 of them, then over the next hour of my session I raise 30 hands pre, and c-bet 6 of them, obv it becomes a lot more clear when i have a strong hand.
2. Play fewer hands. While there are plenty of players who will say their favorite playstyle is to play fewer hands, with a much narrower range than I play, it's not a playstyle I like playing. That's not to say that it wouldn't work in this situation. I believe our villain was punishing me for playing a lot of hands. And had he not paid me off with the nuts I would have continued letting him.
3. Play looser against our villain? Here is where it gets dangerous. If I start 3-betting him post in hopes of him remembering the sour taste I left in his mouth when he was drawing all but dead to my top set, he may start giving me credit for a hand (ussually I'd have TpTk or so when I'd c-bet). However, I run the risk of falling into the same trap I laid for him.

Eventually I was perplexed by the villain and decided I couldn't beat such a loose aggressive player on my left, had a discussion with my friend a bout it, who admitted he had the same trouble, and stored it away into t he annals of poker history until I decided to bring it up here.

I think the easy way out is to change tables. In a tournament, I think you have to tighten up. But in a cash game were you can net X BBs/hour by stealing blinds, especially 6 handed, I'm not sure that's the correct answer.

So this is my cry for help. I would consider it the weakest point of my game (having not played for about a week, most of my poker interaction has been studying and discussion and hand review).

What do you do against a very aggressive villain on your left?

WG

TBH villians play makes no sense.

JT gives him a straight draw.

55 and 99 give him sets

QQ is a set but probably 3-bet preflop

AA and KK are also likely 3-bet pre

That is all that he could represent on this board.

As its monotone sets are unlikely to get agressive as the push lesser hands out.

AQ is not usually played this way and would often be 3-bet pre.

So basically he made a play thinking that you would fold, but its a play that makes little sense.

Once you re-raise you represent 55 99 QQ AQ you would never fold any of those hands to a shove (maybe AQ but not often).

Its just such a dry board that any real big hand wouldn't play this aggressively, even JT would be happy to call because the straight is somewhat concealed.

So TBH with weakish hands you need to get your stack in before he does. His bluff could only work by being the one to shove, so if you wanted to 4-bet light preflop, 4-bet shove to prevent him comming over the top. If you held AQ, and felt uncomfortable should he shove, just be the first one to do it.

You also just need to think about boards where he really cant represent much (like this one) and be prepared to call light on boards where most of his range misses.

If this were a two tone board then he could shoving to protect a set, but as its monotone, he is shoving to induce a fold... its pretty obvious if you think about what he could hold and then ask yourself, if he had such a big hand, why make a bet that is likely to cause folds in this spot.

You can see this quite often on K57 boards where someone desperately tries to represent AK / 55 /77 when in reality if they held AK/55/77 they would calm down and try and get people to keep calling (at least until an obvious scare card to those type of hands comes)

Stu says it perfectly. Especially his sentence: "its pretty obvious if you think about what he could hold and then ask yourself, if he had such a big hand, why make a bet that is likely to cause folds in this spot." If you can stop for a second and think why a person would make such a huge bet, you can usually see the bluff. Not easy to do when the pressure is on you, but LAG people love to make this move.

All of the following could be really wrong. I'm nowhere near good enough to play $200nl online and would probably be the fish at those tables.

Still, I do very well against LAGs so I'll respond anyway.

Yeah, you become very readable and his range is still very wide. Make your range stronger, cbet less and in better spots and keep your bluffing frequency low enough that he can't proffitably play back at you without a decent hand. Be aware that you may have to barrel a lot if he develops a tendency to float, when you're doing this you want to avoid barrelling cards that complete draws and bet blanks and overcards.

You're right, if he knows you're raising a wide range OOP to him, you're screwed. You've got to tighten up. If he is any good then you can seriously narrow his range (making him more readable than you) by building the pot pre-flop which is going to mean 3betting from position a lot, or increasing your raise size (playing tighter and raising say 5bb+1 per limper will help), if he's not very good then still play tighter and build bigger pots and let him hang himself pre-flop.

Light 3betting/4betting. Play tight but mix in a lot of hands that can barrel a lot, SCers are good if you're playing very tight against a thinking LAG because you essentially own the high card flops and can bluff them whilst having sneaky draws that let you fire multiple barrels regularly and give you a decent chance of stacking him when he does have a good enough hand to get to the river.

Run away to another table as fast as I can. Even live I'll leave the table unless the LAG is really bad and I've got some decent reads.

With him there your CO range has to be very tight because any half decent lag is going to punish a wide openning range, he has position and there's a very wide range of hands that's at least flipping with a wide CO raising range. You also can't call bets from the rest of the table with hands that can't take the heat of a 3bet because it's too easy to exploit.

Playing back at a LAG who has position on you isn't going to go well very often.

Thanks for all the posts guys.

I agree with the points Stu made. I guess I was chalking it up to confusion and trying to find the method to his madness. I know some players like this one play a lot of hands like this so when they DO have a set, or a very strong hand, they get action, and their opponents just think "Oh, he does this every hand, he doesn't have anything."

And Pokerkid, thanks for your post also. I think in a cash game it is proper to switch tables. If that's not the case, tighten up considerably. At least when he's in the hand and has position on you (= most hands).

Thanks again guys.

If he does this a lot, then most of the time its with air. Occasionally he will stack you with a set, but most of the time its air so you win overall by not believing him.

Agreed, Stu. I think the main problem I had was that this guy made no sense to me. No amount of logic could figure out his play. Ugh.

I'm pretty sure the best way to handle him would be start looking him up.

Ya. Generally, when bets don't make sense, it's a bluff. I find this to be case most times regardless of the player.

Those people are horrible because it takes so long for them to fold their hands

Not trying to be smart but the best way to handle a lag player on your left is to take the first available seat on his left and switch. Obviously in a tourney this is not possible.Then just wait for a hand and let him hang himself.