In my last 1/2 session I had a bit of trouble with a LAG. He had position on me most hands as he was a few seats to my left.

One hand I open JJ in MP. He calls out of the sb and we go heads up. Flop is A55. I bet $20 into $30 pot he c/r to $45 I fold. Seems standard enough on my part since it was early and I didn't realize how aggressive he was.

A few hands later I see him call a pf raise with 44 and raise a cbet on a board like 982 and take it down.

Later I call his pf raise from EP with KQo otb. Flop K44. He cbets 2/3 pot I call. He fires another 2/3 pot turn bet i fold. By now I think he's just going to run me over and maybe he's right.

Finally I flop top two with AJ and end up winning 150 bbs from his ragged two pair.

This guy is a regular as I see him almost every time I play. My question is should I start gritting my teeth and calling him down with marginal made hands or should I let him have a few small pots and wait till I have the near nuts to try to double through him?

I suspect he is a winner and he loves to sit 300 bbs deep. Any general advice for countering LAGs appreciated !

Start ck calling more oop or cking back med str hands ip (to prevent getting cr)... And dont usually fold tp (the kq on k44 ex.. Nvr folding there) He will eventually stop lagging u and focus on easier targets..

Yeah the way to counter LAGs is to station them off until they adjust. Folding TP2K is unthinkable vs this kind of player, and I'd be willing to call off even worse hands until he adjusts.

Somewhere between those two extremes. If he is that aggressive, you probably shouldn't give up TPGK or better unless the board is ugly but that doesn't mean calling him down with every marginal made hands. Don't c-bet every flop, just check/fold some situations where you have no equity. Don't let him scare you into playing passive though, that is just giving him the money slower.

In any case, pay attention to his betting patterns and learn to exploit them. How does he react when people play back at him? If he gives up his bluffs when raised then make some semi-bluff and a few bluff raises. If he calls or comes over the top, then raise with your big hands. When he bluffs does he always bet/bet/bet or can he back off? If he never stops betting then play tighter and trap more, if he can back off then you can call with more marginal hands and see if he keeps going. How does he bet his actual value hands? If he likes to trap with his actual value hands then a lot of his bets/raises have to be bluffs and you can call wider. If he bets all of his value and some bluffs, then anytime he doesn't bet he has air and you can bluff him off. How often does he bluff? The more he bluffs the wider you have to call down and the more often you should raise top pair for value.

Generally make sure you're actively trying to get position on him.

C-bet with less frequency against him and you should feel comfortable calling him down much lighter than other players at the table. Playing back at LAG's with marginal hands (or getting into raising wars) is a good way to get stacked...simply let them level themselves....give them rope. Make sure that you are very well aware of your own image as well against these type of players.

OP, I would broadly think about the following when you're playing against this opponent in the future.

In situations where you typically "auto-bet" think about checking back more. Not necessarily for deception or to induce, but, simply because you don't want to get blown off your hand. I've found when battling aggressive players the biggest mistake I've been making is inflating the pot size and then not seeing a showdown. A good example would be, I whiff the flop but have some equity (say an over and a backdoor draw) against most players my default is to just barrel off and hope to bink or put too much pressure on them. However, against a player who can "play back at me" I'm more likely to try and ensure that I don't get blown off my hand. I want a chance to realize my equity in the hand so I'll check back a flop or a turn that I usually would continuation bet against other players. Sometimes a hand is strong enough to see another card, but not strong enough to call a raise. Aggressive players can make playing those types of hands difficult if you're trying to fight aggression with aggression.

+1

I was going to write a long response, but a few of the posts above mine are the nuts. Only thing I'd add is that no matter what you do, good LAGs are just simply not easy to play against. They have wider ranges and force you to make more difficult decisions, but rarely spew themselves. If this guy really is a good LAG, it's never a serious mistake to fold a marginal hand pf. If you adjust to a good LAG's play and become difficult to exploit, they won't isolate you as frequently; they want to play 2 or 3 way pots against fish.

Based on the few hands you've posted, I have a possibly different take on this.

My take is that V might just be a really good player. From that perspective, you might need to play level 3 against him.

For the most part, at LLSNL our play will be level 2 as most of our villains are Level 1 or quasi level 2 or bad level 2 or predictable level 2 players.

However, on rare occasion we will happen across a really good level 2 or competent level 3 player.

The consequence of beating/crushing LLSNL is that for the most part, our play ends up being fairly exploitable. I would argue that if our play isn't exploitable at this level then we are likely both leaving money on the table and lighting money on fire. So, our play should be fairly exploitable as seen from the POV of a very competent player. And as such, when we run up against a very competent villain at LLSNL he should be able to exploit the hell out of us since our play is mainly geared to crushing the donks and terribad rec fish.

The counter to this is that when we are in a hand against said villain, we have to ascend to Level 3 and play specifically vs this villain. This will include asking the question "What is villain trying to get me to do?"

What I'm trying to say is best articulated using one of your hand examples and comparing that hand to two separate situations. Situation 1, typical rec-fish villain. Situation 2, our Level 3 villain.

Situation 1

Hero raises from $15 from MP with JJ, V calls from SB, heads up.

Flop($30) A 5 5
V chks, Hero c-bets $20, V c/r to $45, Hero???

Vs the typical rec fish, this is a super easy fold. Rec fish has a 5 most of the time. Now, the mistake a typical thinking player would make would be, "Well, he can't have the five because he should want to get value and c/r'ing with a 5 when I have an Ace in my range is stupid..." Be that as it may, that is how rec-fish play their super strong hands, they c/r. In this spot, I'd expect most rec fish to c/r with a 5 and on rare occasion a AJ kinda hand to "see where they are at..."

Situation 2, vs level 3 villain who is exploiting us.

Flop($30) A 5 5
V chks, Hero bets $20, V c/r to $45, Hero???

In this case I expect V to have air or underpairs the vast majority of the time. He knows our range is Ace heavy and he knows that we know that at this level a c/r by typical villains is super strong. So since he knows that we know a c/r is super strong he expects us to fold. Since he's not trying to extract value out of us by taking a line that he knows we will fold to, we can deduce he is bluffing most the time here. Only way he would c/r here with a 5 is if we have been a calling station. But if we have been a competent thinking player then he knows a c/r here will fold us out majority of the time, and if he is trying to fold us out he is bluffing and not extracting value.

The natural tendency when playing against an opponent who may seem to be owning us is to "tighten up" and "wait for a big hand" and then get stacks in. However, you just aren't going to be able to do that against a thinking player who has a read on you unless you colddeck him with a cooler. To be clear, tightening up and waiting for a big hand isn't -EV and is an adjustment that will stop the bleeding, however you end up sacrificing a lot of EV as well as your ability to run the table. I honestly think a better adjustment is to table change. Otherwise, you become a 8/4 nit that is nut peddling and that is losing all sorts of opportunities to play pots with terribad players.

The better adjustment is that you adjust to his adjustment. When we raise he is going to expect us to c-bet right? So, he should be raising our c-bets fairly often because he knows we are c-betting. So we adjust to this by either lowering our c-betting frequency or increasing our double barrel frequency.

When we are raising from EP or MP he is going to assign us a range of TT+, AK, AQs and if he calls our range he is likely going to call it with 22+, SCs, S1Gs trying to flop gin. When the board is lowball garbage it favors him because our range is top heavy. So we adjust to this by adding SCs and S1Gs to our EP/MP raising range (10% of our EP raising range should have some SCs and S1Gs in it). Thus, a small percentage of our range will be completely invisible to this villain and when we whiff but the flop is top heavy (and we are heads up) we can still rep and outplay villain post flop, however when the board is middling/low ball and we connect we can stack villain with a hand he doesn't put us on.

Basically, we have to adjust to villain's adjustment against us. We should be thinking about most of our engagements against this villain and looking for trends that we can exploit or looking at how villain has been exploiting us. Has he been floating us and then shoving river against us 75% of the time? If so, odds are we need to station him on rivers no matter how scary the river is. Has he been c/r us on turn and we've been folding 95% of the time? Has he been betting 2/3 pot with his strong hands that beat us at showdown?

The last thing to caution you against is that memory bias and selective recall is probably influencing how you see the Villain. It could be that he isn't splashing around as much as you think and that against you he just happens to always have a good hand (this is true if you've only had a few engagements in a short period of time). The 44 hand he had makes me think he is fairly aggressive and splashy, however, that may not be the case if he was up against a fit-n-fold scared money rec fish. I think this is probably the hardest aspect of Level 3 play imo, and that is really being able to dial in your villain's tendencies, thought processes, and competency level. It's more than just whipping at your brass balls and dropping them on the table and channeling your inner Ivey and Durrr. It requires you to accurately assess your villain and see the hands from his standpoints.

Sorry to write a meandering book. Just my quick thoughts on the subject.

GL...

Great post dgi thanks for that! Everyone else too!

Whether or not he's a great player I don't know but he's certainly a pain in the ass so I WENT GET SOME SUPPER AND TABLE CHANGED. New table was delightfully soft.

This post is just full of gold. Good stuff.