In position is floating flop often std? I think I might do this too much against a table full of slow players.

Is lag best approach against table full of limp/callers pre who don't bet their own hand when they crush the flop? Small flop bets to find the trappers/control pot?

i'm a firm believer if you can have your play broken down to a three letter acronym at a table, you're doomed.

you'd better be able to adjust from TAG, LAG, maniac, calling station, etc. all within a single session in order to profit long term imo.

poker is people and adjustments. other factors like position, pre-flop hand selection ,etc. are secondary concerns to me, albeit very important and never to be ignored. read the people and adjust your play and you can lay KK down against a rock who 3 bets, limp with it UTG against a maniac and call a raised pot from a LAG with 7 high in the big blind.

i play a LAG style more often than not in cash NL and for me, the most profitable play i make is when i buy a free card by betting/raising the flop (i don't always take the free card, but it's nice to have that table equity to cash in if need be). you get a decent amount of people who fold, another group who is scared to call again, and a small percentage of people who will either repop you or call you down. the straight "flop-call, turn-call" is the most effective weapon against me, personally. at that point i begin to lose my accuracy of where the other person is in the hand.

of course, i'll still usually fire at the river and won't shy away from a 3-bet

[QUOTE=LazyAce;31340716]It is a mistake to play LAG against a table full of TAGS that are better than you.

LAG is just a way of describing a player that is loose/aggressive preflop. There is no other theory that would apply to playing a good LAG game that would not apply to playing a good TAG game postflop. LAG ranges are just going to be wider. That is all.

Exactly. Everyone seems to assume LAGs are this unique blend of maniac/soul reader or that there is one precise way to exploit them...It pretty much just reflects on their pre flop play.

It's also not necessary to hyper-switch from maniac to nit in one session to profit, as some are suggesting. Yes, we want to exploit opponents when we have a chance, but there aren't many cases so extreme where we turn out game upside down.

Usually, the best players turn into LAGs of sort, cause they can play more hands profitably due to their post flop skills. A GTO approach, like dwan or galfond's, is often misconceived as maniacal, cause an optimal strat includes way more bluffs than people realize, especially pre flop.

I'm not sure if you really took in everything I was saying. Of course a good LAG or good TAG will adjust. But the adjustments they make, like the one you mentioned "a LAG not bluffing into a calling station" is exactly what I was getting at. If a LAG plays aggressively into a calling station and fails to adjust then the station will profit from the LAGs aggression. I understand that the best players adapt to the players they're up against. The way to adjust is this;
If your opponent is too aggressive; call more raise less
If your opponent is too tight; Raise more call less
If your opponent is too loose; bluff less value bet more

In other words, if your opponent is too tight play loose aggressive if he's too loose play TAG if he's too aggressive call him more and raise him less.

Or;
Tight>Station>Loose Aggressive, etc. Of course you will be able to play more hands if your opponents play worse than you. If your opponents are weak tight you can play more profitably by raising with more hands. If your opponent is loose weak you can play more hands by calling more with medium strong hands. I don't think we disagree on anything at all. It's just semantics.

I'm sure we'd agree you want to steal from tight players, run the nuts into loose passive players, and trap aggressive players. That's the essence of what I call the RPS effect of poker.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on why the best players now days are LAGs when the TAGs used to win everything years back. I am confident that my explanation is at least mostly correct, but I don't have any way to prove it.

This is how I see it as well. Not only do I adjust and play players accordingly to how they play, but I find it also disguises my hands as well.

I often get miscategorized by weaker players when they see me play a starting hand that fits into a box they are looking for. I then use this perceived image against them. (if they're good enough to even be looking at this stuff). So if all they see me play is strong starting hands, I can bluff them more easily. Or if they see me play Q6s, now they think I always play ATC, and they pay me off when I bet for value. They don't realize I was only playing a certain hand because I was isolating a donk, or maybe it was a multiway pot and my value went up, etc...

You know it frustrates a TAG when I always show up with the nuts against his 2nd nuts, but then he sees me win with a marginal hand but better than the LAG donk I isolated, etc... He can't figure out why I always have the goods against him, and gives me further action later.

Lately, I'm doing better against strict LAGs who don't change gears, by calling down more, giving them rope to be aggressive. But I do get confused at how many of these guys just don't adjust. Just today, I'm playing with a LAG who had fearless agression, good reads, not a maniac. But he was playing a very high VPIP and PFR. But even as a few players such as myself caught on to him and became selective in how we played against him, he didn't adjust to us. He continued his aggressions, cbetting missed flops etc... (I define "not a maniac", in this case to be the fact that his bet sizing was intimidating, but not rediculous, he wasn't instashoving all the time, etc...)

So my question regarding that is, is there a certain mathematical formula or reason why he continues to do so? I mean, he seemed good enough to read when he was getting resistance, yet he would still keep firing, and playing many many hands.

For me it was exploitable to the point that I would give up the marginal hands with him early on if I didn't smash the flop. Because I knew he would pay me when I did. (which he did).

In my recent observations, I've found that a true LAG, even bordering on maniacal, will do the best in the first hour of play. People give them more credit for hands, because they don't have info yet. The big raises are super intimidating when you haven't seen them showdown yet. And I've seen many a LAG get their stack inflated 2x to 5x in the first hour. Only to lose it as people start to adjust. Wouldn't Optimal LAG play be to only play that first hour, or until players start adjusting then? I'd think you could just be a LAG hit and run artist in a room with 10 tables or so, which in my area, there are a few to choose from. (not to say I'm considering this, I don't like to stay stuck in LAG gear, although I do use it at times)

Bumping this

Important factor about playing LAG that has already been mentioned by others is DONT OVERESTIMATE PEOPLE's ability to play back at you. When they shove they still almost always have it & top pair king kicker just doesnt cut it.
I've been at tables myself playing loose like this, showing bluffs & doing really well. But have often paid people off when I otherwise wouldnt because I gave them credit for playing back at me when in fact they'd just hit the nuts.

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