I hate to say it, but it's hard to teach "feel." It's especially hard to teach online refugees that are so dependent on stats. Sure, give us stats and we can make the proper adjustments. But, take away our stats and we are likely just as new as we were in '03. I, for one, never thought it would be this hard. And, I have a newfound respect for those that prefer live play over online for these very reasons.

I suppose it works in reverse to some degree, too. Take away the facial expressions, the ability to actually look at someone, and the ability to watch their mannerisms, and suddenly the experienced "live" player is out of his element while the statisticians are dicing him apart as he tries to adjust. (I'm not being diced up, just having trouble recognizing my spots to apply pressure w/o solid holdings) I feel I'm too weak/tight post flop and would like to recognize more common places to take shots at people that appear weak.

Riverman, great post, and good insight. You have me rethinking my game, and actually posted a profit yesterday using your theory. Good stuff, glad you posted this.

I had a break even session yesterday thanks to a donk calling my jam on the turn with a flush draw for all his $$$ on a 2/1 draw, but anyway, I had to mention this hand....

I had just sat down at the table and I was in the SB, 4 limpers, I had 3/5 offsuit, I made it $15.00 to go...

I got 2 callers, flop came down Q/4/8 two hearts, I fired $20.00 at it.

I got called by one person.

Then it went check/check on the turn/river. (I had no hard information on the guy I was heads up with, I didn't want to keep barreling at it.)

So, I proudly turned over my 3/5 off and said "5 high."

So, I have $165.00 in front of me, 3 hands later I get A/Q, I raise to $15.00, I get 4 callers.

Around $60.00 in the pot.

Flop Q/Q/10 rainbow, checked to me, I bet $20.00 just begging for a "this moron just had 5/3 off raise." Sure enough I get one caller, then a guy tanks and fires all in for his last $125.00. Gets back to me, I call. Other guy folds.

Dude who shoved has A/10, I have A/Q, hands over.

When this happened I thought of the Q/Q/5 or Q/Q/4 hand mentioned here and laughed.

I'm not good enough to play LAG frequently/every session, but I clearly see how it could be most profitable when you get to pick up easy scores like this....

Next time just fold the 53o, you arent being LAG by raising oop against a field of four people you know nothing about. That is just called bloating the pot oop with a weak hand for no reason.

You're overdoing it, but that is a perfect example of what I am talking about with bad players being so easy to manipulate. I think I gave a very similar example in the OP.

You'll get better the more you try it, which is one of the benefits.

hahhaah lotgrinder thats awesome. Thanks for the inspiration

ya, lighting money on fire is very profitable.
a good investment.

i think a thing ppl often miss, is that a good lag isnt trying to profit w/ his/her lagged up plays;
if he/she even is a small loser with them, or breaks even, it's gonna be profitable if the villians are capable of making the adjustments the lag would like, and other factors. (the adjustment>>>they start paying off w/ anything).
when you see a good lag raise the 64dd and flop the joint vs. a slowplayer it looks impressive, but don't be fooled. thats just an occasional by-product of an unsuccessful attempt at lighting money on fire, not part of the overall plan.

It's certainly not advisable to go overboard w/ it. (lagging it up). Mitigating exposure to too much spewwing is a must to make it profitable overall. (every dollar you spew doubles as a loss when you double up.)
>>>lets say you buy in for 100bb, and spew off 20bb lagging it up, establishing a hyper active image.
then table sheriff doubles you up, and now you have @170bb, so its not as wildly profitable as it may seem, even when executed well, but it should be obv that it crushes nut peddling in profitability. It's easy to go too far with it, where its not worth it; when you are investing too much.
As has been correctly hammered home ITT, imo, is that picking up on the present table conditions; how they are playing NOW, properly, is crucial to succeeding with this style.
If you don't have a good sense of whats a good spot to open light, and what's not, and why, then treat lag style like a stick of dynamite.
the more conservative posters ITT are essentially right; if one lacks the post flop skills 'lagging' is flirting with disaster; but another point, that has also been mentioned, is that you need to get involved to develop those skills at some point. skills dont happen by themselves without taking risk. you have to pay tuition at some point. the game is'nt played on paper, so if you look at it too theoretically, like it's on paper, and not in the real world, then sometimes thats all you wind up with, paper...as in, napkins.

Whe I make a 'LAG' play in late position, it's not for image concerns and to get paid off later. I don't think enough people at 1/2 are really paying enough attention anyway. It's because I think the advantage of position is sooooo profitable, playing big pots in position even with marginal holdings is worth the investment.

like i said, its something that ppl often miss the point of.

I'm sure you'll get at least some extra action, but I think a lot of the people who notice your lag style won't change their play at all. Even the nits who think you play like an idiot are going to do the same thing they always do, which is wait for a monster hand. That's what they always do. That won't change because they think you're an idiot. On the other hand, I guess one extra edge you'll have over the nits is they're more likely to go on tilt, especially if you beat them when they finally get that monster hand.

And here's where the fallacy begins. Do you think this player was ever going to fold ATo vs you anyway? You're making false connections, and this is why playing fancy vs fish is unnecessary. Now if he called you with A7 high then maybe we could establish that our bluff worked towards our image.

Getting a fish to call with 2nd pair on a dry board is not manipulative. It's called value betting 101. You do not need to set the stage for this to occur. You could fold for 5 straight hours, raise preflop, get louded out at the table as "omg this guy is so tight he must have AA... I call" and still get ATo to pay you off.

Good point actually. As I said, I had no hard information on any player at the table. I can't argue with you.

I think a solid LAG player could get A LOT of the poker goobers that have read 2 books and think they are poker gods to go on tilt\pay them off often. There is an increasing number of those type guys at the table.
Also, gambler guy is going to "put this little punk to a test" often on turn with top pair/top kick and lag player will be able to stack him easily. The nits and rocks play won't change much, but even if it does a little...its an advantage playing against people you have out of their comfort zone.

That's fine, but don't overdo it. In this case, it's usually wrong to make a play like that early. Stick around long enough to get a feel for how the players are playing, your image, their image.

Getting a fishy call like that probably had nothing to do with the earlier raise with 53-o. I do that myself: raise UTG with highly speculative hands. However, I make sure the situation warrants it. If there's another observant player there, and I believe he's catching on to the fact that I play the premium hands up front, I might keep 'em guessing. Sometimes I might go ahead and pop it with any hand I'd call with from the CO or button. An observant player might remember that when I pick up (A,A) or (K,K) near the button.

It's one of the biggest leaks I see from fairly decent players: they get so used to playing ABC against pure fish that they basically stop paying attention and simply don't notice that they've got real competition for a change. They give away too much information, and lose too much to me when I can put 'em on (A,A) (K,K) (A,K) when they raise UTG.

In most cases with the usual fit or fold, marginally knowledgeable rec players, it just isn't necessary to mislead them because in all likelihood they're not paying attention.

Great thread

I agree with the thinking of Riverman and Sabr for sure. I play a similar style

Riverman/Chopper: The best person to teach you 'feel' is yourself. You have to get in there...play and practice and pay attention

Something I find helps that nobody has mentioned:

If you're trying to develop hand reading and post flop skills, try putting some time in at limit poker. Often times other forms of poker improve your current game. I find playing some limit now and then helps develop those post flop skills because I see so many turns, rivers and showdowns and I see them cheap

I believe both Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu attributed coming up in 3-6 limit as their foundation for being good LAG players in NL Hold em

It's certainly helped me

My 2 cents

Good point about playing LHE for these reasons. I have done that, and it has helped a ton. I don't play anymore, though I love it, because the blinds and rake really eat away at you during the days when the old men just don't pay off often enough to get past the cap. However, it does help your ranging if you pay attention throughout the hand.

It's just a little different in NL when you are used to the way a hand goes 90% of the time, and suddenly a substandard line pops in there and tosses your reads like a salad. It's those spots where a underexperienced player makes some seemingly random move that throws me. I can't get in their head and see their thinking because I wouldn't play a hand that way.

As usual, my answer is "play more and run better." Seems to be what we are all wishing for all the time...lol.

Limit holdem sucks. Tom tried to play lag in limit it doesn't work out to well for him. In limit you use good cards because you see so many rivers. Terrible game imo.

I agree 7card stud has helped my patience and the game is so slow you have to hand read well, their is nothing else to do in limit. The game is too slow.

7card stud>limit holdem.

If you want to be a good hand reader,LAG and real TAG.

The best game to play is HU holdem. HU is the best form of holdem imo. The game is light years ahead of fullring.

Since when has Phil Ivey been a lag?

Ask any highstakes pro. That uses huds. They have phil ivey labeled as a TAG. He just uses balance so it seems that he is lag. But in actuality he plays a standard tag game. Not that abc crap.

You vastly underestimate the ability of bad players to adjust. The thing is that they adjust badly, and making them adjust usually means making them play worse. Yes, nits still wait for monsters, but the definition of a monster quickly drops from set to tptk and then you're stacking them with 2 pair.

+1 to the point about 7-card stud.

I dabbled in it a little cause i thought there was tons of money in it because of the much older crowd who plays it. To play optimal, you need to have a really good 3rd street selection. It taught me patience and discipline for pre-flop in HE. It changed my HE game for the better without me even knowong it at first. Highly recommended to anyone looking to improve their HE game. Study stud before you play it though....if you're unaware of standard situations and play too many hands, you'll leak tons of money and get crushed.

I can barely understand this post...but I'll give it a shot : )

1) Limit Hold em doesn't suck. Sounds like you don't play it properly

2) I never said you should practice LAG style in limit. Read the post. I said when you play limit you see many more flops, turns and rivers. You see many showdowns so you can see if your read was on. It improves post flop and hand reading skills and it does it CHEAP

3) I agree 7card stud helps reading ability...but it doesn't help flop, turn and river situations. So in terms of someone trying to become a better LAG at NL Holdem? Limit > Stud

4) Patience is a part of poker

5) HU is totally different game than FR and if you play too much HU you lose out on the multi-person situations that are essential to a LAG in FR...so again I agree HU is awesome for developing those skills...but FR limit is still > HU to the developing FR NL LAG

6) Since when is Phil Ivey a LAG? Whenever he wants/needs to be

7) Ask any hi stakes pro? etc etc....I'm curious...over how many hands do they have stats on Ivey? I bet Ivey plays just a solid TAG as he does LAG. It's good to have a bunch of gears

8) You shouldn't start posts with "Blah blah sucks". It's not constructive and you come off as brash and uneducated

My 2 cents

Its cool, I just hate limit holdem. I have not played high limit or anything over 3 hours of 2/4 limit.

I'm a new age player, no limit holdem, plo and 7-card stud is all I play.

Main game no limit holdem, where all the fish are.

FYP

Limit isn't bad. It's just different. Yes, showdowns happen all the time, and you just have to adjust accordingly. You can't expect to bet anyone off a pot. You have to make a hand and get it paid. Many times you are both playing the hand +EV, it's just one of you has the bigger edge. The switch from NL to LHE can be frustrating, but assuming it sucks and doesn't teach hand reading skills is just not correct. But, I understand your point about it being boring. Heck, O8 is like watching paint dry when you are sitting with 70 year olds. I would debate that game is even worse than LHE.

I don't like these absolute statements. Limit Hold 'Em does not "suck". You will find limit games that suck due to larcenous rakes. That's a different issue completely, and you need to reconsider venues if you run into this situation. Don't reward a lousy venue by giving it your business.

As for the contention that limit HE is a good place to develop hand reading skills without costing yourself too much, this is good advice. That's how I started out: $1 -- 3; 0.50 blind, $1 -- 4; 0.50 blind, $1 & $1 3 -- 6 limit. I found some pretty rich small limit HE in North Las Vegas and won pretty good. You not only develop reading skills, but also get a feel for flop textures that you won't get from book learning. It definitely helps, and who knows? If the rake isn't too brutal, you just might be able to build up that roll for when you're ready to give no-limit a go.

As for myself, my venue has a very poor 3/6 limit Hold 'Em game since they rake it to the same extent as their no-limit games. I don't play it.

As for LAGG-ing it up at limit, you can do that too, but you'll need to tone it down a notch or two, as it's much harder to drive off players when you can bet a fixed amount. Sometimes, your opposition will keep on a'comin', and they will be right to do so given the pot odds, whether they know it or not.

If you can still find one, that is.

i have recently switched from online to live and have been brainstorming what adjustments i need to make. this post is a good articulation of the ideas that were rolling around in my head. thanks