what are the most important theoretical concepts to get your head wrapped around in order to dive into playing a more loose preflop style.

Being that you're making "mistakes" preflop by calling and raising w/ a wider range you have to make up for this later in the hand or it turns into a losing strategy.

what concepts are most important to learn i order to get a sound enough theoretical approach to becoming looser and being profitable in more spots?

I'm assuming most of it comes from identifying opponent's tendencies and learning how to expoit those tendencies?

People don't have strong hands for showdown the majority of the time and you exploit this. You triple barrel and they are scared to call down as the pot size gets bigger. The ones that adjust by loosening up range can be value towned more widely, the others donate you money by folding turn / river often are donating you MORE money than the money you lose when they have the top of their range by the river. Also it lets you get paid off with draws easily.

I assume.

LAGs outplay making good use of their reads and folding equity and making up for their weaker holdings this way.

When betting you are often risking about the size of the pot to win it (preflop you often risk a bit more). If your opponents fold more than half the time you can just bet and give up on the hand if they don't fold, and show an automatic profit.

TAG's and nits often like to fold more than that, so by playing a lot of hands trying to steal the pot later on a LAG can profit from a lot of hands and seemingly wreckless agression. Plus, when a LAG does have a hand he's more likely to get action.

Most LAGs have a problem though. They are often in a pot without much of a hand. TAGs can start bluffing and raising more (becomming more laggy). They don't have to do this all that often for a LAG not to be able to win all these uncontested pots often enough anymore. Also a lot of LAGs overestimate how light they will get called down or played back at and pay off with marginal holdings in big pots where they really shouldn't. For example they steal 3 small pots and lose one that's more than 3 times as big, losing overall.

So if you want to play a lot of hands to outplay your opponents later on, make sure they are either too tight or predictable. If they give you action, be prepared to give up on those bluffs and marginal holdings. This time they have it, but all the other times they didn't and lost more than enough to you to fold now and still be up overall.

POSITION POSITION POSITION.

Position, Stack Depth, Ranges, Implied odds, Reverse Implied odds


Position does not allow us to play crummy cards when we dont have deep effective stacks, nor does it allow us to play dominated high cards vs a tight range.

4Card

You have to get over the idea that it's a "mistake" tactically or theoretically to play a LAG style.

there are hands in my range when i play this way that if all 5 community cards were just laid out against villian's range of hands that it would be a mistake for me to put money into the pot.

i'm wondering what concepts are most important to overcome this preflop mistake in order to outplay opponents postflop and make money.

Perhaps the single greatest concept is the mistakes the opponent will make postflop. We need to know what these mistakes are and have a plan to exploit them. Do they fold too quickly to pressure, do they play their cards essentially face up, do they stack off recklessly with hands that have poor relative hand strength (Like QQ on 6h5h4c2h), do they have an inability to turn a made hand into a bluff, do they have an inability to excersize pot control, do they play far too passively and allow us to play small pots when we are behind but bulid big ones when we overtake... All of these mistakes are far easier to exploit when we have position, but many are bad enough that we can even play oop with crummy cards and still have a positive expectation if the mistake is large enough.
Imagine a 4/3 nit who raises from utg at a full ring, who has 200bb in front of him, and a known tendancy to play for stacks with just one pair. I would probably call on my button with just a card, like a 5 of spades. Certainly I would call with T9o or 65s. We could also call fairly broadly from the blinds and play oop heads up against this type of player, if their postflop play is bad enough. If we know he will defend his AA-QQ range here when he flops an overpair with his entire stack, then I would call on my BB if no one else did with almost any two cards.

4Card

Close your eyes and press random buttons, thats what I do.

I hear yah. Allday...maybe even the 4
Always enjoy your post 4card.
Peace

What everyone has said already.

Also, you need a full arsenal of weapons to play effective lag, and you will certainly benefit by playing against players that you know you can exploit (as you mentioned).

If you are in fact playing against weak players, that allow you to play lag, most of your profits will come from implied odds and fold equity. In other words, you will get paid off big on your hands, and you will frequently get others to fold.

Of course position is highly important, you want to be playing mostly in position, or you are in trouble.

Beware of trap hands, and hands with reverse implied odds. Bad and mediocre players can't play profitable LAG because of these two things. They end up playing loose, and paying off their opponent big with hands that are trap hands and hands that inevitably have reverse implied odds. They lose in big pots with second best hands, because they don't have a strong enough read on their opponent, and end up calling, betting, raising, when they should be folding.

You also need to be able to play every street with precision. If out of position, you need to be cautious, aggressive, and frequently make blocking/defensive bets on the river.

When you have position, you need to control the size of the pot, bluff effectively and sporadically, and make sure you keep your opponent's guessing.

Playing loose is very tough against better opponents, but if you find a table where you can identify their weaknesses and exploit, you can make much more money by playing LAG then typical solid TAG play.

4card is the man...

i actually enjoy being in this situation more than other so called "better" positions... it is almost like being a puppeteer(sp?)

Yes, one way of thinking of it, effective LAG encompasses balancing implied odds with fold equity, while making sure you don't give your opponent's the same.

Which is probably what you tend to think of when you play exploitatively.

Or more simply, exploiting the opponent, while avoiding the trap of being exploited by your opponents.

That's why effective LAG usually requires you to be stronger than your opponents.

Sorry, one last tidbit. I remember coming across this on Phil Ivey's website, www.philivey.com, but this tip doesn't seem to be there anymore, his site just got redesigned. (I just found it elsewhere).

http://www.pokerlistings.com/blog/pr...-read-this-tip

Anyways, Phil, of course, is the best loose aggressive player in the world.

"It's been said before, but it bears repeating. Poker isn't about the cards; it's about the players and the situations. Winning players understand that sometimes you have to take chances. Sometimes they work and other times they don't. Whether you win the hand or not, you have to make the play that you believe is best."

When you play loose, you have to really try to get a feel for the situation, and dictate what is going on around you. Tight players have the tendency to let the situation, and their hand/hole cards dictate them.

Anyways, good luck!

This is a mistake I make way too much. Sometimes because I'm not playing well but sometimes because some nit gets a run of hands and it really seems like they are just playing back.

I think Doyle said it best in SS when he mentions that all the small pots won make the big pots freerolls. Thats pretty much what keeps LAG players in the game. Plus the fact that it's a lot harder to put LAG player on a hand than it is for a nit. You have to pay off a LAG player sometimes or you'll get run over waiting for the nuts. Whereas if you are playing against nit you should almost never pay off in big pot and you don't need to to beat them.