THE LAG STYLE

i find that most online poker teaching sites now use the lag (loose aggresive style) style of play, this can be very affective but i have not! I recently found some old card runner videos online and i have watched them through (before SBRUGBY joined) and the well know TAYLOR CABY has videos of when he used to play UB alot and his style makes no sense to me! he opens hands like Q 2 os and tries to explain the reasons behind his play and looses alot of BUY INS.

Also I have found stoxpoker.com | Collection of poker blogs and poker strategy from online poker pros which also has a player called "BRYCE PARADIS" who play limit and no limit. Aparently he started playing when he was 18 and now has retired at the age of 19 LOL. You can find a free sample video of him playing limit HU and he plays hands like 3 10 os and just looses money.

So can ask all of you WHO HAS FOUND A POKER TRAINING WEBSITE WHERE THE PLAYING STYLES MAKE SENSE AND IT ACTUALLY WORKS WHEN YOU USE THEM?

Thanks for listening

I dunno about the rest of the post, but in a heads up match you've gotta play hands like T3o (and worse) occasionally. You simply can't afford to wait for premium hands.

Bryce is a HU master, period! Dude has won millions for a reason. Have studied a ton of his teachings, and he really knows what he's talking about.

Online is especially aggressive today, due to all the available info out there. Players are much better than they used to be, which requires totally different strategies than "the book" suggests. ABC will allow you to win up to certain limits, but when players begin to adjust and "lag-it-up" a bit, you must adjust back, or you don't have a chance.

LAG is difficult, and should be used after you've mastered the basics, and understand all fundamentals. Your variance will be higher, but much tougher to peg.

i suppose I cannot judge THE BRYCE as i have only seen one sample video of his. But on the old GREEN PLASTIC videos hes playing a cash game where you do not have to make a play to survive like a tourney. I suppose I am into the TAG style and of course that is still extremley affective for players like PEARLJAMMER who have made milions playing MTTS but i suppose they would get pwned in cash games.

green plastic is a great player, a winning player at that, he moved up the ranks from micros to high stakes, (same with bryce) i think they know what they are doing
pearljammer might have won millions but i doubt he is in profit for 1 mill plus

LAG is the most profitable way to play poker.

It's also the hardest. For every 30 guys who try to play LAG, there are two profitable ones and 28 donkspewers.

^ kinda exagerated imo

Well I do agree in general that playing lag will net you more than tag, IF you are good at it. You have to be really good post-flop, willing to fold top pair without a kicker, and just in general be great at hand-reading. But if everyone at the table is also playing loose (not lag, just loose-passive or even attempting to play lag but they're just bad), then the answer it to tighten up and turn yourself into a tag. Poker's all about adjusting. If players are playing tight take advantage of it and pick up a few pots. If they're loose and calling too much then you just do it the easy way and play premiums and make money off it. That's why it's more profitable at the lower limits. When villain will call all the way down with his A high it's pointless to play a bunch of crap and try to outplay the villain, just wait for a hand and value bet it to death.

The higher up in limits you go though, and the tougher the opponents are, you need to loosen up a bit. No good thinking player will pay you off if your VP$IP is 5% unless they've got a monster as well. But as you go up in limits players won't think their mid pairs are the nuts, and you can often bet them off it. So if you can play well, imo the lag style in general is the most profitable. But when you run into some fish who don't fold, lag is a way to spew money. Know your villain and adjust to the game. If they're good they'll be trying to adjust to you as well. You've got to stay a step ahead of them.

If I could write a script to post "I agree with Zachvac." after every one of his posts, I could save myself a lot of time spent on this forum

Agree w/ everything, but I'll nit-pick one thing: If they're "calling down w/ A-high," then it'll also be profitable to play some "crap," and value bet that too. If they're playing Q7o, you can profitably play Q8o.

I don't always agree with "if they play tight, you play loose... if they play loose, you play tight." If they play loose, I play one notch tighter (Q8 vs. Q7). I DO like, "If they play tight/bad, I play much looser." If they're re-raising my AJ raise with AQ... my AJ is no longer good!

Yes, adjust... yes, stay ahead of them... but, one notch ahead is good enough. If we're on level 4, and they're on level 1, we just wasted 3 levels!

While I'm a bigger advocate than most of thin value betting, the line becomes very murky with hands like Q8.

Say the flop comes Q3T - for all intents and purposes, it's going to be impossible to tell if you're ahead against Q7 / JT or behind against Q9+.

I think the major point to take away from this though is that you don't need to subject yourself to hard decisions like that against an opponent who'll call you down with ace-high or just one pair - you'll be making more than enough from your good hands to bust them, so why risk your stack on middling hands in the meantime?

Indeed! Exploiting your opponent's tendencies is the #1 way to make money in poker. If they're in the habit of making a mistake, find a way to exploit that habit to death!

So if you're playing LAG, do it to exploit an opponent's tendency. Not because you just want to be loose and aggressive.

NL absolutely! If we're playing limit cash, I'm getting in there w/ marginals, and punishing their "worse-marginals."

Agreed. The problem is though that we have to be playing hands that are better than 50% of their range. So if you value bet Q8 when they might have Q7 they also have to have other worse hands, because you KNOW they'll do it with AA and other monsters. So while I disagree with the ONE notch higher, I do agree that we don't have to play super-tight and we can definitely value bet thin and stack lighter (ie if there's a villain who will stack any pocket pair, stacking with JJ becomes a no brainer where against a good player it would be a good way to hand out money).

While I don't play a lot of limit, I'd like to think I'm OK at the game. And I'm failing to see the difference.

Yes, we stand to lose less in a single hand the times the turn out to have Q9 over our Q8, but we win less the times they call us down with Q7 as well, and long term the trend is the same.

very good thread imo, although I never really tried to play the LAG style and have always been TAG and LAG lol its confusing but its just the way I switch gears......but still I think Zach and Dayne should keep talking, def making this thread worth reading imo

The fact that I can't lose my stack on one misread allows me to get in there and find ways to outplay these Q,7o limpers. I'm not advocating blindly playing trash against these weakies, but picking your spots, depending on your post-flop play, can increase edges.

If I feel that I have a significant edge over him, post-flop, I'm splashing around w/ hands I never would against stronger guy.

Sitting around and waiting for premium, "book play," is huge mistake in these games.