Im curious. All the live regs, which style to do you believe to be optimal for 1/2 and 2/5 B&M NL? How tight do you play pre flop?

Also, do you believe things like the baluga theorem hold to be true at these levels live?

I'm not the greatest in the world, so my two cents is probably not even worth that.

However, I think solid ABC TAG poker is your best bet at 1/2 for sure, and you can use some LAG moves to profit more at 2/5.

At least from my experience (not much) 1/2 is pretty easily beatable just waiting for good cards and value betting. Some of these clowns in FL don't know when to release bottom pair.

However, 2/5 plays a little different. There are more of the gambling style LAGs, crazy maniacs, and geniunely good thinking players. I think the LAG approach works best in a 2/5 setting. If you can get good reads, LAG it up and you could ship some serious money for the night. I have done it and it works, but I find you actually have to be up against a better player, who is more likely to fold a medium strentgh hand like TPGK. LAG works best when people can make bigger folds.

Again though, I could be way way off base here, just my opinion.

It's hard to generalize, but that doesn't mean I can't try.

1/2 is generally devoid of thinking players, and players are more likely to stack off with top pair/good kicker type of hands. At 2/5, it's very rare to see players with 100+bb stacks getting felted with top pair/good kicker type hands unless they're making a move.

At 1/2, I agree with the poster above that TAG is a better strategy, especially in the looser/crazier games. However, TAG doesn't mean weak-tight - remember to be aggressive. In particular, value bet the heck out of your big hands. If you are trying to decide between a medium sized value bet and a large one, make the bigger bet. For the same reason that big value bets work at most 1/2 tables, big bluffs are -EV. Don't try fancy higher-level thinking when your opponents are on level 1 - you will lose.

At 2/5, there are generally (but not always - depending on location and whether it's the weekend) more thinking players, and more weak-tight players, so you can get more creative with higher level thinking (higher % of c-bet bluffs, double barrels, floating, stuff like that), but don't go overboard - make sure you are exploiting a particular villain's specific tendencies.

The important thing about any strategy is to pay attention and play the specific player(s) you're up against. Don't just say "this is a bad table, I'll do X," or "this is a loose table, I'll do Y" or "this is a tight table, I'll do Z" - that's bad poker. You might have a table of 7 maniacs and 2 nits, and if you don't pay attention and identify those nits, you'll treat them like maniacs and you will suffer the consequences.

Edit - Also, what the heck is the baluga theorem?

Its that thing that makes check/raising the turn with air/draws a very profitable play against "decent" internet type players. by decent all i mean is that these guy will fold top pair hands in that spot.

2-5 Lag.....very Lag pre-flop.

Somewhere between f*cking insane and mind numbingly bored, it depends...

TAGs make money at LLSNL. LAGs make money at LLSNL.

Pigs lose money.

Not bad

How tight do you guys generally play at any given table? I would say I play about 15% of my hands live. Would this be considered too tight in your opinion?

I'll play 100% the hands if table allows me to run it over. Bad question.

TAG with a loose image if you can pull it off.

I think max-buyin has to do with it alot. At the casino i frequent, $1/$2 has a max $200 buyin. This means alot of moves are removed from the playbook (3-bet squeeze preflop with a lot of dead money out there, c/r turn with air, double-barrelling) as if ur move gets picked off once u lose half ur stack.

Best to play ABC TAG but once u double-up and have established a solid image you can pick spots and appropriate villains to LAG it up abit

FYP

I like this post. Honestly this is my thought process, stack size limits what you can do post flop against the opponents you know are terrible.

I also think that your Bankroll has a lot to do with it. I strongly believe if you are on a limited bankroll and fairly new to live poker, playing TAG and limiting variance is important...

That being said, if you are one of those luck-box-louies who has a 15k bankroll from the start, then play LAG and get value wherever you can, BUT ONLY IF YOU KNOW YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH TO DO SO! I am not implying you aren't, but the first step towards being a soul reader, is to accept who you are as a poker player and limit yourself based on your knowledge and skill.

Most importantly adjust your game as necessary, if you are up against an opponent who never folds middle pair, get it in when you have the goods including somewhat marginal hands; if you are up against an opponent who is on the next level of thinking, use your tight image to exploit that.

Great post, you have the right thinking. I learned that tactic your talking about from ivey. Play tight get all your reads. When a few and and 1 big pot. Boom, you switch gears, ivey would say "now I can start playing some pots" basically saying he is about to play everyhand in position and defend his blinds light. Aka LAG style.

Really, what else did you learn from Ivey lol?

I learn a lot he has all the advanced poker theory's you can't find in book. I remember when donk betting was considered terrible. Then people caught on to what ivey does. Lol you want to be a good player you have to learn from the best players. Its a copy cat league.

Where did Ivey say any of this?