So I played in a live game last night and got crushed. it's totally my fault, I played like a complete donkey and I deserved my losses.

I was playing against two super LAGs, one of which was open-shoving every 3rd hand post flop. It backfired on him a couple of times and ppl got paid off calling his complete air... but for the most part it picked up enough pots to make up for it and he was way ahead for the evening.

I was thinking to myself: how do I insulate myself from LAGs? They rub off on me in a bad way, being around them make me loosen up waaaay too much and since those LAGs are often have a very strong post flop game, I get crushed.

I thought to myself: HUDs. Why don't I apply a semi-objective stat adherence when I play live? When I play online, I try my hardest to keep my stats at around:
20-25 VPIP
15-25 PFR
>2 AGG
5-10 3bet

Last night, the primary LAG was playing, in my guess-timation:
85/40/10/5

The 2ndary lag was playing:
70/10/5/2

The 2ndary LAG was sort of an "apprentice" of the primary LAG.

I, being unduly influenced by them was horribly playing:
70/5/0.5/1

So as you can see, I was easily crushed.

I'm thinking that if I stayed closer to, perhaps 30/10/2/5
, I may have done a little better? Is it the right approach in this case (assuming I have other leaks but have marked this as my primary leak to work on right this moment) to just try go tighten up, play a little more ABC and concentrated on playing only when I have position against these LAGs?

thanks

Are you trying to win money from the LAGs or just go home with a profit? It's easier to win from passive players than aggressive ones, and loose players (aggressive or passive) help you to win from other players. In most games, you want to encourage the LAGs, and take your profits from the other players.

LAGs tend to make other players tight-passive. A bad player doesn't want to get in a hand against a LAG without great cards, but once he gets in, he doesn't want to be bluffed out. Even if his hand doesn't improve, he remembers hands where the LAG had nothing, or in which he imagines the LAG had nothing, and hands that the LAG threw away after betting like he had the nuts.

One situation that can be very profitable is a multiway pot with the LAG and a tight-passive player. Another one is when the LAGs fold, but you know a lot about the remaining hands, because you know the passive players won't risk betting ahead of the LAGs without premium cards.

Of course, you have to at least break even when you're playing the LAGs, you can't be afraid of them. Since as I say you generally want to encourage them, playing non-exploitable strategies without trying to maximize EV often makes sense. If they're better than you, it's probably the best you can do. If they're worse than you, you'll let them shake the money from everyone else into your stack, then you'll take their money. If they're about equally good, you get a free ride on their risk-taking.

You played 70/5? You were playing loose passive and rightly got crushed. The first LAG you should have been 3 betting light quite a bit since obviously his cards were weak a lot of the time when he open raised. Standard TAG stuff I would imagine. As for his open shoving a lot of flops you simply need to wait for a hand to call him down with. It doesn't mean you limp in with 70% of your hands though. Play a little looser and throw in some spec hands that can flop well but still play close to your natural style.

It is ridiculous to expect to go from playing 20-15 to 70-5 and still win. Playing with solid values is your style so you should stick with it if it works for you even against super loose LAGs. LAGs, even meh ones are used to playing post flop with weak hands and most are reasonable at punishing weakness. You probably aren't. If you really want to get practice playing loose then play some HU online.

Also 85/40 is not LAG. Its spewey. He is limping /calling more than half his range. He is getting to the flop with horrible equity all the time. easy game.

I guess that's why he shoves so often?

...those are maniacs not LAGS. Just NIT it up when your OOP like raise TT+ AJs+ and then IP just start 3betting a large portion of your range that give you good implied odds. Like SC's AJs+ 99+ stay away from 3betting hands like KTo but I would probably try to play them IP against (one) maniac

I understand where OP is coming from. When you're in a game where you like to control the action, and these styles get in the game, they definitely change the dynamic. Tending to then play more hands in hopes of "catching the lag" overstepping his bounds seems reasonable. But then what tends to happen is their aggressiveness is rewarded, and your passiveness is not, usually in the form of missing your flops or facing pressure you don't want with a mediocre holding. You just don't "catch them enough" to pay for all the misses, or times you fold to the post flop pressure.

So then, you think, nit it up. But now you've really changed your style and they're controlling the table. Again, you don't catch them enough.

So then, you think, take the LAGS on and 3 bet and post flop play them back with pressure. But now you've started a war, are fighting a tough style at a table where like a few have said, you want to be playing against the passive fish instead.

So what do you really do when someone is playing 70 or 85 VPIP aggressively? I can't see where you can only wait for the 15% of the time they don't play, cuz guess what? Even though there are fish at the table, there's usually a few other TAG's or solids at the table who have been waiting, and now everyone vies for the pots that the LAGs give up on. So now the quality of play/aggressiveness of the rest of the table goes up too. The LAG has indirectly made the rest of the table better in skill!

I think you have to be willing to put the LAG/Maniac in their place with some strong return aggression early, or more than likely, table select a better game. It sucks, but sometimes its best to just move on.

I'm glad this subject came up, as this is something I face occasionally and I like hearing ways to combat it.

Thanks guys, your advice is greatly appreciated. I've been trying to build a poker "playbook" of slightly different styles to fit the various games I play in. I just never created one against loose, hyper aggros.

My feeling is, I will probably never be "done" with modifying my styles. This is just one more adjustment I have to make of many more to come.

You don't really have to adjust your preflop ranges that you are already using very much. Your original ranges already dominate their huge range. Also, if they are just going to be super aggressive posflop, you can think in your head, "how often does he have a hand here? How often does he bet air here?"
if he has air more often than a hand (which if he is betting 100%, then he is) then you can shove over his bets postflop with any draw and any monster. With your 2nd pair+ type hands call him down all the way even all-in. Just don't call his all-in shoves with draws because then even a pair is ahead of you (unless you have a combo draw). If he bet/folds then you can also shove your air over his bets. If he bet/shoves|calls, then you just check/fold air.

As fate would have it, I had the chance to put some of these concepts to work in a session today. I sat at a table with a LAG maniac, playing 80 VPIP, with a 40 PFR, and cbet near 100%. He would 2nd and 3rd barrel fairly consistently as well.

As soon as I sat down, a few people grumbled to me their displeasure with this LAG. It was clear he was running the table, and they all nitted up to try to passively beat him somehow.

The guy next to me kept mucking to his cbets, and grumbled some more. So I said to him, so whatcha gonna do about it? His answer was astonishingly true, and COMMON. He said "nuthin". ie He's gonna sit there and just take it.

So I decided to get involved with this maniac, in select spots. I tried to keep it in position, but if I got a hand OOP that was even medium strength I didn't mind mixing it up with the LAG maniac. I felt like if I could stand up to him and not let him run over me, not only would I fare better against him, but I would also gain the respect and FEAR of the rest of the table.

Well, that's exactly what ended up happening. I picked up a few hands, not monsters, but enough to be ahead, and gave the maniac room to hang himself and called him down. Then I lucked out and picked up AA in sb, after he raised to 20 pre flop on a 1/2 nl game. I 3 bet to 87, hoping to trigger his shove response, but he only obliged with a loose call. Flop came 663, 2 to a suit, and I fired out 102, which he folded to. This wasn't a hand I wanted to let him fire again, as he would take a free card at times, and I didn't want to offer that.

After taking about 4 pots from him, he started to get more passive, at least with me. This allowed me to bluff a river against him when the board counterfeited my low pocket pair, with two higer pair on board.

All of a sudden I became the table hero, and other players stood up to the LAG maniac a bit more too, and soon enough he was busted. The cool thing was, they were now really scared of me. Not so much so that they wouldn't give me any action, but enough that they let me control the pots and the action on hands I was in. Just what I want!

After the LAG left, I picked up many pots on steals and cbets (lagging it up a bit at times myself). Showing down a strong hand with enough frequency to keep my image going.

So today was a positive experience in battling a LAG maniac successfully. So much so, that I was able to take his place after he busted, and no one even figured out that I had done so.