I never said I was TAG, I was talking about my image at the table to show just how nitty I am. I am a freakin' nitty nit. I will occasionally overlimp speculative hands, and I will shove all in with overcards and oesfd or overcards and nut flush draw in the right situation. However overall, I play very nitty because I am short rolled and I buy in for half stacks. I wait for someone to raise 12-15, when I have KK, AA or AK, and however many callers, and then I pop it for my buyin and either take it all down for free, or get all in preflop very +EV against opponents who will call with pocket pairs and KQ, AQ+. I will of course raise if it comes around to me and I have TT+, AQs+, AK, in late position, but I'll often overlimp 22-99 even in late position to set up against a table of donks with a half stack not too hard to get all in OTF.

At least, that is how I have played in the past. I'm opening up a bit more, but I still would not classify myself as aggressive.

To be honest, most players don't adjust so you can be profitable just with value betting. However your winrate will be much higher if you can take away pots even when you miss via barelling or other aggression.

One of the things that I feel like this thread is missing is that your opening range should always be ahead of the limping range of the other players. Opening A7o on the button to end up value owning yourself on an A high board because someone limped AT and just ends up check/calling you down.

Raidion, this is tough because there is an old lady at my regular game who is decently selective of her starting hands but who never raises preflop, never 3-bets either. I mean 0%, she cold-calls with up through AA 100% of the time. And she plays passive on the flop as well, so if she's in the hand you absolutely don't know what she has. It's frustrating to have her at the table sometimes, with a collection of other people who play more normally.

Figure out her limping range and adjust accordingly. She is making a huge mistake by giving u a chance to take free cards and making her hand face up if she does raise. It's actually not hard to play against her, wait for a hand ahead of her range post flop and bet fold bet fold

I would just like to thank ikestoys for making this excellent post.

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I couldn't find the answer to this, but why raise KQ EP but not AQ???

Why not raise QJ if you're going to raise KQ?
Why not raise JT if you're going to raise QJ?
Why not raise T9 if you're going to raise JT?
Why not raise 98 if you're going to raise JT?


and so on and so on

but AQ is better than KQ

"This is by no means exact, just a guide"

i guess by what has been said in this thread i am a "tag", though i had thought i was more lag before reading this.

anyway my general approach to 3! is aq+ and tt+ until reads indicate otherwise

Last night at my local casino I played using this starting hand range and was pretty aggressive post flop with the right board texture and I have to say it was my best poker ever. I played for about 8 hours.

I noticed I was the most frequent raiser at the table, which is weird, because it made me seem like I was loose. Towards the latter half my shift, almost no one was respecting my raises, and almost everyone would call my $10-$12 raises, where in the first half I would get a few people to everyone to fold.

I also noticed out how I was the only person raising more in LP which makes me think that no one really paid attention to position. Kind of crazy in this supposed modern age right?

It was fantastic poker and a lot of fun, because before I tried this style out, I was nit, which is so ****ing boring.

The only ****ty thing that happened was completely my fault, as I played until I was exhausted and I was so hopped up on caffeine I didn't realize I was tired, and finally towards my last hand, I made a horrendous mistake and got too aggressive in a bad spot and I got felted. I went from level 2 to level 0 poker in that last hand.

I'm going to start using a timer on my phone and after x hours, have it buzz off every 30 minutes so i can ask my self the question, "Am I playing my best poker?", and if not I'll go home.

As to this style, I really like all of the raising/opening, especially in position, as people can't put you on a hand, we have more information and it opens us up to some fantastic play which can only be done in position.

On my reflections on the 80 or so $1/$2 regs at my casino, I notice there are very few players that play TAG at my casino, and several of the young guys who grind are just nits, they aren't playing TAG. I wonder why that is? I can guess when we have a lot of loose spazzers, nit is the way to go, just wait for a good hand and crush gamblers. The loose spazzers aren't giving us any fold equity which is important to a TAG( at least I believe ).

But when the table is fairly nitty and or passive, that's when being a TAG shines, against these passive players.

*edit*

Also on the OP's point:
This is really great, because if we do get 3 bet, there's a narrow range we're up against, generally JJ-AA, I don't see villians 3-betting AK too much, but it does happen. But the point is, we can generally fold and wait for better spots to combat villians.

**

I do have one question, I play in 9 handed FR games.

I was dividing the table into groups of 3 for EP, MP and LP, maybe I was doing this wrong, and thus raising too much; but I assumed,
SB, BB and UTG where EP.
UTG+1, MP, MP+1 were MP.
And HJ, CO and Button were LP.
Is this right?

I've been using this guide for almost 3 months now, and it's working out great preflop. The only thing I've changed is that I really don't like betting A2o+ from LP. It's so damn weak, and it's really hard to play post flop most of the time. Some people call down with their A/x+, or others will notice my aggressive LP raising, and will 3bet me, or in general my image will go to ****. I don't feel comfortable putting $10-20 with A2o-A8o in LP.

Maybe I still need to learn to play post flop better, when to CB when to check, etc.. Simply dropping A2o-A8o shouldn't make me a nit right?

Never?

I realize this is an old post, but wow, IMO it is a great one.

I assume this applies to games 200bb+ deep. Can you really raise so light in EP in a 100bb deep game?

First off...great post. But I do want to comment on your opening line here. I know what you are saying, but it is possible to have that TAG image and still raise 78 from MP. The table may view Hero as TAG. While the Hero may be shifting into a sLAG mode. AGain, good topic but I just wanted to make that point as when reading a post like the one you quoted, it is not necessarily "laugh-able" but rather, makes good sense.

learn2read, he's not talking about opening, he said CALLS

Edit: I just wanted to make that point that you should comprehend what you're replying to before making a long s***post, it is not laughable but makes good sense to do so.

Hes talking about calling a MP open with 87o. Not opening with 87o from MP.

Whoops. Someone else beat me to it.

7) TAGs have the last laugh against LAGs who think they're nits that can be bluffed at every opportunity, but then you pick off every single bluff to throw them in for a loop.