I’m primarily a tournament player, but I play this ½ game that gets crazy and sometimes people open to $15/$20. Max buy in is $400.

I do pretty well, and have an okay win rate, haven’t crunched the stats.

My question is how do I play against a super agro, smart player. If he sees weakness he will pounce. Once heads up he applies pressure betting three streets on ace/rag high. Rarely do I see him not c-bet. He is a winning player (I’m guessing) because he will drop three buyins and keep going until he hits hands and gets paid off by the entire table.

Yesterday I sat to his left and was able to call down with 2 pair or better and was able to profit by just being very snug. But once he stacked me for 1K when I had 2p and he made the nuts. So I feel quite intimidated when our stacks reach 1.5K or higher and I am vulnerable to his aggression. I did notice as we continue to play yesterday and I was able to gain a few hundred from him, he pulled back his aggression against me especially multiway, knowing that I’ve shown the goods. So bluffing him is a possibility but its possible he check raises with air.

I know this post is rather vague, but do you have any tips on how to approach playing him in or out of position when we get 200 to 300big deep? I have no problem stacking off 100bigs, but when we get deep I just want to get off the table.

Any thoughts appreciated.

His range is wide open when he opens. Rarely does he limp monsters, as he will get paid by the table when he is nutted or “has it”

Pay attention to his bet sizing. There is no mentioning of his bet sizing, only his aggression, which I assume is correlated to his betting tendency.

By observing tendency, bet sizing, board texture, and position, you can tell a lot about a player.

With the right adjustment to above observation, it turns into printing money if that player is always in the pot.

If he will see lots of flops for even very high prices then play tight and raise/3bet big. This kind of player will tell themselves they can outplay you after a flop and walk into 4 or 5 spr flops with super weak hands, meaning he doesn't have the room to outplay you.

e.g. if you see a player regularly raising 8x+ pre widely. It will be very profitable to wait for a big hand then 3-bet big setting up a tight spr flop you are happy shoving most of your range into. Yes you'll have high variance, but these villains are leaking EV big time in the hopes of bullying people around.

When you're deep this gets more difficult. It gets harder to play small SPR against his loose range. You can then take it to the other extreme. Sneak into flops cheaply in position against him with nut seeking missiles (pocket pairs, suited aces, good suited connectors). If he's very aggro post you mostly want pocket pairs because they hit or whiff flop hard so was easy to play correctly (just don't fold when you hit). suited aces and connectors flop draws and need turns and rivers to develop so they like fold equity or passive play. Only play these if you can barrel and semi-bluff him.

When he did stack you, did he have the implied odds early in the hand to get those nuts? That's an important question to ask yourself. If you want to make money off of the hyper lag you got to be ok with running into the nuts sometimes. You'll run into air much more often.

Also, if he has a fold button at all and cbets 100% then you can raise the flop with any decent draw and call with most showdown value. This is how to adjust his exploitable tendency so you'll be exploitable doing this, therefore you'll need to watch carefully to see if anyone adjusts to you (by shutting down when you call and reraising/calling down when you raise).

This. Really start studying him. Learn his betting patterns (he does have them, I promise).

The rest of what you are doing is great. Stay to his left, play snug but be prepared to bluff a few times and 3bet him a little more often when you are very late position.

However, if you have enough in front of you, just go home. Seriously. There is no reason to risk a three or four buy-in win unless there are deep whales at the table and it's worth staying. Just rack up and come back another day.

Thanks all, very helpful. One thing I have going based on your feedback he is on a live stream which I can analyze to examine his play and betting tells. Great tips.

Ha I love this idea.

People tend to play a bit more LAG on Livestreams but it should give you a really good picture.

Yes, excellent advice about bet sizing, the hardcore aggro guys i know bet huge with little, when it's smaller its nutted at least against me

So 3bet a lot.

I play very aggro and the reason I do so is because in the games I play in, nobody ever 3bets pf without the nuts, and I rarely make postflop mistakes. The absolute key to shutting down an aggro player is the pf 3bet. It's uncomfortable, which aggro players exploit, but it's the solution.

A game where nobody 3bets light is an aggro player's best dream. If the field is just going to let me open every single playable hand for a raise and see three I'm going to run the table over. I play in games where I'm regularly opening and showing down hands like 76s from middle position and still never get 3bet by anything besides KK+.

Also, consider your body language. Aggro players are often better than average at reading body language. You mention he will pounce if he "sees weakness". So you're probably giving off a lot of tells. Practice remaining calm at the table, a good way to do this is to focus on your breathing. Also consider giving off reverse tells. The best way to give off reverse tells is subtlety, obvious hollywood will just lose you money because it looks fake.

Also consider HIS body language as well. At least 2 or 3 times a session I'll get someone to fold when they're about to call just by looking at them as they're cutting out chips and appearing happy about it. This is a really subtle art and difficult to explain in text but confidence is always key. If you're lacking in confidence mentally, you're going to display it physically, and a good aggro player will eat you alive for it.

Agreed. Expand the value 3bet range. Big LAGs hate being 3bet and often adjust poorly like overcalling pre and under calling post.

If you don't feel comfortable making eye contact and trying to exude confidence just pick a spot on the felt to stare at every time villain tanks.

Let's assume that to be the case, then how would it benefit OP to 3bet a lot?

Again, how is creating a more uncomfortable situation for yourself a solution?

If the frequency of 3bet goes up, it simply becomes another raise. Fighting fire with fire is a solution only if you are better with fire.

Why would anyone ever stop an aggro from opening and showing down hands with 76s?

Not sure if serious. I am guessing this post is more less about how awesome you are as a LAG rather than how to actually beat a LAG.

Take a solid value range into low spr pots against a junky wide range.





If good strategic adjustment is uncomfortable it does not mean it is not a good adjustment. Plus, do you think a player is asking for advice on how to make a good adjustment with the caveat "unless it makes me uncomfortable, then nevermind".





When your fire is stronger than his fire, then it will work. Loosen up some, but still bring better hands to the flop.





We're not trying to stop it, we're trying to exploit it. If you let a player take hands like that to the flop with initiative and high SPR so he has room to make plays and control pot size the way he wants you are giving him a lot of edge over you.



Eh. Kind of agree with not staring into the LAGs soul to get him to fold. But I don't think the recommended adjustment is ego driven.

Overall, what's your recommendation then if you don't want to play a wider value range for more money? Just c/c with a broad range? We make money by making the pot bigger when ahead and keeping it small when behind. Against a LAG opening and barreling wide you can make pot bigger with a much wider range. Also, be on this guy's left when possible and you will hoover his chips up when 3-betting for value.

Right...except that you can't just choose to have more cards that fit in this "solid value range" dealt to you when facing an aggro.

His suggestion was to increase 3bet frequency, but I am not sure if you understood what happens when you increase the 3bet frequency.

Perhaps we have a different understanding of what "uncomfortable" means. Typically when someone is uncomfortable with something, they are not very familiar with it, hence the lack of comfort.

Taking yourself out of comfort zone to battle someone for bigger stake with wider range is a recipe to fail, not succeed.

Now I think you are trolling me. If OP is capable of battling with stronger fire, this thread wouldn't exist.


How exactly do you propose one to control another from showing down with 76s? And how is allowing someone to showdown with 76s a bad thing in the first place?

It is an incomplete picture to start and you're making it more fuzzy.

FWIW, I already gave my recommendation.

When someone is playing an unbalanced style such as opening too wide or playing too many hands, the correct adjustment is to exploit the unbalance.

What that means can depend quite a bit, hence why the best discussions are using actual HH's.

I agree, this does deserve a hand or two from op. But in the hands we should make sure to talk about ranges, not just the hand op has and see if we really disagree on how much to loosen up. I sense that you think I'm advising going super wide with the 3 bets.

Also, pushing comfort zone is how people get better at anything. Period. I'm making the assumption that op can get out of his comfort zone and then think deeply about what happened in those hands and learn even more.

I believe my general advice fits with Ed Miller's advice about playing LAGs in "playing the player", which is you got to be willing to gamble and put more money in the middle when you are ahead of their range.

I don't know how wide you are proposing. Suppose it is not super wide, how do you recommend someone to expand his 3bet range when facing aggressive opponent?

Responses such as "you need to 3bet more often" is making it sound like you can actually manipulate the range of cards dealt to you. FWIW, there are 1,326 combos of starting hands, and assuming one is to start with a 3bet range of QQ+, AQs+, and AKo, that's a mere 2.87% of the total combos or 38 combinations.

Even if we are to double that, it would still be under 6%. In a typical LLSNL game, that could mean almost zero increase in 3bet frequency. So if you are advocating someone to "3bet more often," you are indirectly advocating to do so with a rather wide range.


This is perhaps another underlying fundamental issue I have with your advice. Getting out of comfort zone is not as simple as throwing yourself in the most uncomfortable situation. It could be and many choose to do so, but how is forcing yourself to play with looser range for more money WITHOUT the proper knowledge "getting better"?

Such knowledge is earned and requires work. Just throwing yourself out there is exactly what the loose aggro want you to do. You don't beat someone at their own game by being less familiar and less comfortable with it.

The big idea is correct, but your advice is not fitting.

"Responses such as "you need to 3bet more often" is making it sound like you can actually manipulate the range of cards dealt to you"

Stopped reading here. That's the most ridiculous interpretation possible.