Dominating a table

From what I can tell, most of my winnings come from sessions where I seem to dominate the rest of the table. The rest of the time it's just grinding for pocket change.

For the purposes of this discussion, by dominating a table I'm referring to creating the circumstances where you're playing a lot of hands and a lot of people are folding to you (even on later streets). Basically when you seem to be in control of the table. Not just sitting there waiting for cards.

There are two things that seem to allow me to dominate a table:
1: A very good run of cards. Doesn't happen often, maybe for an hour or two I catch enough cards to play and win a lot of hands but then I go card dead and have to settle back into playing tighter again.
2: Another good player (equal to or better than me) sits at the table with me. Few good players are going to want to play a big pot with the only other strong player at the table, most stay out of my way. The combined effect of two good players seems to be enough to dominate the table. Some of my biggest sessions have been under these circumstances.

Yet I frequently see the same players playing LAG poker and winning, everyone else starts playing passive, affraid to get in a hand with them or starts calling them down with weak hands and paying them off.
I watch better aggressive players than myself play and the amount of pots they get into you keep thinking that this must be a bluff, they can't possibly get this many strong hands. They get called and turn over a monster.
The thing is that it's the same players, every day. I sit down and before we've played a hand I know the style they're going to be playing, they're going to be raising it up from the start but they'll still turn over good cards most of the time when they get called. I might have to sit there for an hour just for one strong hand, they'll usually win a big pot before the dealer button makes a full round. What are these guys, the luckiest guys in the casino or do they know something that I don't?


There's a lot of stuff in most poker books about being the dominating player at the poker table, always betting and raising to make people start playing passively but with me, other than in the two circumstances I already described, people just start looking for a hand to make a stand against me or I go card dead.

So how do you dominate a table, how do you simulate that "lucky" appearance to get away with staying so aggressive?

Youre post proves why LAG player's win the money the MAJORITY of the time.

They prey on nits that are simply afraid of them, they're the bullies in school that take your proverbial lunch money lol

This is due to the fact that if you are playing with a good LAG player, it's all calculated aggression, and not LAG donk play

Idk, just my opinion

OK, i'm far from the expert here, but here is what I have picked up on through my own experiences and have been able to put to use in my own game.

How many times have you folded a hand preflop because it held no apparent value at that time? And how many times have you watched a pot grow only to see the hand you threw away turn into a monster hand, and wonder what if?

Well, solid LAG players play preflop hands agressively that most people wouldn't consider. The hands that we think are garbage, are golden to solid LAG players, because in their mind all hands hold equal value preflop for 3 reasons.
1) Their post flop ability to outplay their opponent: The key to post flop play is not holding the best hand, it's telling a story that convinces others that you are holding the best hand. This story can best be told once the table has seen a couple of show downs where you have actually held the best hand, and then you open your game up from there to where the table respects your holdings in the future.
2) Most people OVERVALUE their strong preflop hands after the flop. A hand like 93off is golded against KK with a flopped board of 937 rainbow. So while KK thinks they are trapping you, you are actually trapping them because they don't understand relative value after the flop.
3) Intimidation. Most people will be timid to enter a pot against a LAG, and when they do they try to hold the nuts at show down, or they get out of the pot at any sign of resistence.

Really, loose PF play is a good thing so long as you are the one raising instead of being raised. Because then you are the one who tells the story, not the other way around. And releasing a hand against resistence is also key. Betting top pair on a ragged board with a weak kicker against a TAG who called a PF raise and then calling a raise from the TAG is typically a bad play for a LAG player. Bullies like to bully, not be bullied. Making sure you are always in control is the key here.

I've been experimenting with this style of play lately and, although still relatively early (3k hands), have had some pretty positive results so far. What I've found is that, to some degree, it really doesn't matter what your cards are. It's more what your opponent doesn't have. You can steal all kinds of pots when you play your position and sense weakness. Also, when you start raising all kinds of speculative hands, you get to choose the big pots you play when people start to play back at you. They'll be risking many more chips than your initial raise. Over the course of the session they'll play back at you with weaker holdings than they normally would as they adjust.

Another benefit is once you to show down the monsters and stack someone, the dynamic of the table will change and people start giving you credit for all kinds of hands/draws on scary boards. You'll actually be able to steal even more pots and it becomes easier to read people when they play back at you. You'll get a lot of better hands to fold and weaker hands to call you down.

The downside to this style is it does take a lot of consentration and your mistakes are magnified. It's much harder to multi-table. But, overall, I think I'm sold on the merits of this style of play. One of the ways to practice LAG play is to play heads-up matches. This really opened my eyes to it in the first place. Anyway, that has been my experience at the 10nl and 25nl tables. It's probably worth what you paid for it .

this is classic small ball play, raising frequently in all sorts of position and getting involved in many pots. you need to really know your game to be abel to play loose agg, otherwise, you will get yourself into trouble, you need to know when to avoid traps and when to run people over... its more difficult but all the best players play this way..


if your planning to play tight agg against these guys, id say you should 3 bet these guys more, see how they react to that, make sure your in position, and if they are a half decent player they wont make the call most of the time.. if they are really bad lag players, then just wait and let them hang themselves, solid poker will win against these guys... if they are maniacs, oh and when you sit down, make sure you place yourslef with position on these players last thing you want is to be out of possy