Playing loose

I played a few SnG's like a LAG player bordering on hyperaggro. Playing that way:
1) Need to learn to minimize your loses when you are beat
2) Get all the money in the pot when you have the nuts
3) Being able to read who is going to fold and who is going to chase
4) Need you catch cards.

I pretended like my call button didn't work and everytime everyone folded to me I raised. On the button regardless of who limped in, I raised. In the SB I raised. Early, middle, late position I raised. I was catching a few cards and trying to figure out how not to get bluffed or minimize losing chips when I didn't have it. It was raise, re-raise or all-in; didn't fold once. I forced everyone on the table to call my bets. I kept raising until they did. I punched out the whole table.

Some pretty wild swings in $. Felt like a rollercoaster. The good thing was I don't think you can get a read on someone who plays hyperaggro. I mean if they raise every pot and bet 1/2 pot to pot size cbets. How can you put them on a hand?

On the other hand, if any called on of my bets, they probaby had a face card or an A. So if one hit the board, I knew I was in trouble.

Any other players like this?

C'mon all you LAG, maniac's, hyperaggro's. Lemme hear from ya!!!

Congrats on playing this tyle...if it's working for you.

I've experimented with this at the micros. It's a ton of fun but it's definitely easy to bust out lol

I can't play like that. Either I don't know how to, or I suck at it, but probably both. LOL... All I do when I'm faced with this style is play tight and call em down if I catch anything on the flop. If I have a big hand, just smooth call them and set the trap!!!

If you continue with your loose style, you will end up broke and very depressed. Sure you get lucky for a lil bit at one tourney, hey you might even double your bankroll for a week or so. But playing dumb, cuz loose with anything in late position is borderline retarded, you will go broke. Unless you're accustomed to having no money, you really should think about tightening up. Or at least establish, "I'm not retarded and I know how to play this game," table image before you decide to let the idiocy roam wild.

High risk, high reward, but in the end, you need to be great at it for it to work. It can work, don't get me wrong, but you have to have an insane ability to make reads. Gus Hanson is a great example of this. He is great at this strategy. Watch him if you want to see how it's done.

I think this playing style only works in online ring games if you buy-in for the max because any sng, you don't really have enough chips to gamble with. Once you double up your stack, then you have some room to play loose aggressive, but still, if you get caught, could hurt your chances greatly in making the money. I definitely do envy those who can play like this and still profit in online poker. I don't have the raw ability to have that much focus on reading people.

I disagree. You can play hyper-laggy and profit from it.

The following is a pretty general explanation of lagginess at 2nl as I perceive it.

I play 2nl very laggy, and while I'm on the bad end of some variance, I find this style very profitable for the lower stakes. At some times I run at 70/65/5 or somewhere around that range. It's usually not that high, though.

Just because a person plays a LAG style doesn't necessarily mean they do not know how to play this game. In fact, In order for me to profitable/do well at these limits playing this style, I have to play better than my opponents. It's not exactly about 'lets see what we can get lucky with'. I agree if you're playing that way-its pretty dumb.

Hyper-laggy can be very profitible if you know how to maximize your gains and minimize your losses.

You can profit from:
-Tight tables/players: You can constantly pick up lots of unwanted pots. There has been an occasion where I picked up 33 pots in a row. Ranging from just a few blinds to $1+

-Players who chase flushes without proper odds: They might win a few times but, even with your laggy play, if they don't have the right odds you profit in the long run.

-You're bound to get more action with your strong hands.

You must know your opponents in order to minimize losses, though. Its not just constantly raising and reraising. I play hyper-laggy because I can play my opponent. I don't let become a 'who has the bigger balls' shove war. Play opponents more than your cards with this style. If I'm raised by a NIT, I'm not raising back for example. I'm not playing off opponents who are value betting/raising nut hands. Etc.

I'm not saying it's the best style. It's the style that works for me and that's why I'm backing it.

...Also, playing LAG is more fun. :-)

With that said...OP's post is not and example of playing loose.

Normally I play TAG, the biggest reason I played like this is because I had a really good read on the other players. Two players always folded, one player chased all the way to river if he had anything at all. I had top pair bet strong on every street and was paid off. I did that twice. This is a style that is definately not for the faint of heart. Profitably playing LAG/maniac is about made correct reads and minimizing the losses and maximizing the gains. I am not even close to that level. Doing it once doesn't make it a career. It was fun tho.

Back to the grind.

Focusing on reads as a LAG won't always work either. I'm generally a TAG, but if you're using this style of play, say several seats in front of me, there is a point where my 'focus' turns into making the LAG a primary target.

Once a LAG 'thinks' they have their reads on me, and I get tired of their HyperLAG play, I change my strategy. I've seen it happen many times on tables and I'm not alone in this. A Laggy will do it a few rounds and a number of players at the table get tired of it and without any 'chat' about it, you can tell they too have targetted the LAG.

Lizzy wrote: "I forced everyone on the table to call my bets. I kept raising until they did. I punched out the whole table."

Sounds like a 9 player SnG. You got lucky, once. It is not a long term profitable strategy, imo.

i believe it to be a good strategy, at least the loose part of it. i don't think raising every single hand is smart though, because the good players will pick up on this and reraise you quite often (and if you're smart, you will fold because you know you are beat). but playing maybe about 40-50% of your hands can be profitable. this style is more difficult than a TAG style though, and you will need more skills to make up for it, if you want to make a profit.

Hyper LAG is great if you play hit and go. You don't want to stay too long at one table for too long to get players to adjust to you. It works great to double up and leave. Then pick another table to wreck your havoc. Just be aware of multi tabling players. You catch someone who is in a few of your tables may spell problems for you.

Im with bubba on that, hit and go but this is not a long run winning strategy.

But hang the jewels as u like, I prefer boxers to shorts.

i like to play like this from time to time.i once won 22 of 44 hands that were dealt....to have this kind of run you need a table with a lot of limpers and of course you need to catch some cards .if you keep up the raising and showdown a few big hands eventually(hopefully)you will get the whole table thinking..." I know this guy is just stealing left and right,i'm gonna wait for a big hand and get him good,hahaha..."...so with the people calling to see the flop and maybe a flop bet you can rack up some chip as most people will give up on hands that aren't monsters because they want to get a good pot off you to show them you can't keep raising like this.you have to be careful to stop though after you drop a few pots back 'cause you don't want to lose all your stolen gains.It helps to have the right mind-set to do this because if you don't when people start to play back at you ,you 'll just get p'd off or scared or something and won't be able to keep the pressure on and you'll drop a bunch.Don't know if anyone read gus hansen's book but it will give you the right state of mind to attempt to play this way.....try it..you'll like it but be careful.