It's the truth. Sorry mayne. 99% of players aren't good enough either if that makes you feel better.

That's ridiculous, it's such an easy hand to get away from that it's not even close to difficult.

Hmm, so you just called preflop and folded later, you won money!

Sometimes I wish there was a live HEM and I could show people exactly how much money they are losing with this type of call, but then I remember that'd probably cost me a ton of money.

You need to read the implied odds post in the SSNL sticky. Not much else to really say.

Why would you assume 400 deep when most of the time you're 200 deep?

Ike, one thing I may have just realized is that you're talking "Short Stack" NL, I apologize if that's the nature of your argument as I would totally agree in a SS situation. I said that in a previous post when I said that the poster presented the worst possible scenario but still didn't realize you were talking specifically SS. Again sorry if that's what you meant.

SSNL Is most likely small stakes :-p.

SSNL is small stakes, not short stack.

Anyway, ace-rag suited is tough to play when raised OOP. You have to throw it away if you hit pretty much anything other than a flush. And then if you hit a flush you won't really be able to maximize its value since you are OOP and people tread real lightly when flushes are possible.

I have no problem limping in with it in passive games EP (even though ike probably doesn't like that either) but calling a raise with it is probably throwing away money.

I am starting to think that against a decent raiser, cold calling any big broadways just about turns my hand face up. They can value me to death with better kicker/overpair, and it is tough to win a big pot without a huge flop. I hate being oop without initiative, and don't really like it too much then.

Though tighter than OP recomends pf, I play 99% tag according to op's definition. Then I have a hand every session where I try to steal blinds in CO with some non-sense like J9o and spew a continuation bet. FML.

I don't agree with calling A5s from the blinds in most scenarios, but small raise, many callers, I would prefer this to an A7 or A8. The percentages on pokerstove are not completely relevant because that assumes you are all-in preflop. The ace-wheel suited is being played for straight and flush possibilities (though it's always a gut-shot, so any straight value is half that of a higher 3-gap, and much lower than medium SCs). The odds against a straight are so long, I would need great expressed and implied odds to call. The reason the higher value of the 7 or 8 kicker is basically irrelevant is that I'm going to need to fold the flop anyway if I pair my ace and the pf raiser comes out swinging - it's unlikely that his kicker is between 9 and 2, so I would say both of these hands suck equally. I will hit 2-pair or better slightly more w the suited wheel ace, and I'm likely not proceeding past the flop w/o 2-pair or better or a draw to better than 2p.

I am going to present a self-brag in my post. Your raising range descriptions are exactly identical with mine, except my UTG range is 88+ and KQss+ and AJss++ LP I am not opening Q9 off or J8suited, but any higher and I am (I raise j9suited).

OOP I am dumping anything except for small ppairs (if>100bb), 77++ AQ++
Dumping all else, and this is used 99% of the time. The nits that never raise AQ, I am folding aq oop everytime though

So yeah, looks perfect to me.

Ps. I bet posting this made you feel much better, like something you wanted to get off ur chest, a rant.

You should make a post of calling and 3bet default ranges in another post.

Love the post, wouldnt mind you making threads like this more often.

I understand TAG enough to know that I can say that I don't play TAG. I most often play loose and aggressive to the point of arrogance. This is almost certainly a leak of mine.

I will say that I pay attention, specifically I pay attention to the players with whom I am about to get involved in a pot. If I choose to enter a pot, I'll be able to give you a reason as to why I did it. Position, strength of hand, weak opponent, etc.

I agree that most people who say that they're TAG are mistaken. Instead of trying to summarize one's own style with one word, I think most people's biggest leak is lack of honest self-assessment. Followed by #2 of putting chips in the pot without thinking about why they are doing it.


I'd actually enjoy seeing someone post a HH where they wrote something honest about their own self that might sound like this: "Played 3 hours, down $80. Lost a big pot because I triple barreled a station, IDK why. Raised top 50% when it was unopened to me in LP, limp / calling other spots with suited aces, connectors or pairs, 100% c-bet %, never once folded to a 3-bet."

If you're honest with everyone here, you'll get better advice and get better faster.

What you got against 44???? unlucky hand? Most likely to get set over set?

Most likely to get quads over quads? Doesn't qualify for BBJ?

lol must have missed it :P

Overall, I really like this thread - I agree that many people don't know what TAG is, or don't have the discipline to actually play it. Just as an exercise, I played hyper-TAG a couple months ago at 1/2 for 14 hours: AA-JJ + AK + AQs in EP, Any PP+ AK, AQ, KQ in LP. I basically lost almost no pots (barely even got people to call me on the flop), usually stole the blinds, and I won $50-$60 whenever I woke up w big pairs in the blinds or late position and several players had already committed $10-12. After $14 hours, I was +$25, so it's an almost unbeatable system for loose 1/2 games, but people are scared ****less whenever you enter a pot, so over time you barely make more than your blinds.

As for range, I know you said this was not an exact list, but would anyone else care to discuss some of the details. This does not seem very TAG to me - I like to play PP from any position, but textbook TAG would fold the 22-44 UTG, right? Also, why KQ and not AQ? What about only AQs and KQs?

MP seems even more un-TAGgy. Raising w/ KTo from MP? I'm not in love w/ raising from MP even w/ ATo.

Finally, in late position, I just can't see playing J8s as TAG under almost any circumstances. As Doyle says, "In my day, we didn't play king nine" (I think he meant to add 'in cash games.'). I feel I often play much tighter than this range preflop, but when I am looking to open up, I'm more likely to add 67+ SCs than to add J8. When you play a non-ace broadway w/ medium kickers, aren't you just asking for trouble? Isn't being TAG about avoiding situations where you have to commit significant portions of your stack w/o a fair amount of certainty that you're best? The high-card power the J8 adds is negligible, but the two-gappedness reduces the straight possibility significantly compared to connected cards.

i had asked about a post like this before basically looking for advice on opening up my range ... i had been playing NIT not knowingly and getting exploited by LAGS and TAGs but still i was good enough in betting style to get paid pretty good on hands i hit ...

from ur range it sounds like theres tons of opputunities to open with that in mind what do you do when the open range requires bet sizing that makes 100BB not big enough ? tighten youre opening range ?

ex. open to 12 $ at a limpy table from late middle with A10s or maybe KQs one caller button makes it 25$

above is a live 1/2 with eff stack size 100bb


ad in straddles which means you now have 50bb what do you do with that same middle open range

He just posted a generalization that you need to tweak a little based on lots of variables. Your situation also depends on lots of variables. How many callers before action is back to us? How does villain play? How does villain view us?

In a vacuum with no information it's probably a fold since 1:3 pot odds don't justify the 10%ish chance we even hit a draw. But there's so much more to think about that you shouldn't ever be asking questions like that.

And with straddles your speculative hands go down in value so tighten up on the PP and SC.

Wow the MP and LP ranges sound really wide to me. I guess I'm closer to a nit not TAG. Also, why KQ in EP and not AQ?? I understand this is just an estimate and in practice is more elastic, but if a TAG raises 33% of buttons/COs what does a LAG raise? 50%? 75%? Any two?

Are these all meant to represent raising hands in unopened pots, or with limpers too?

ok I am totally on board w/ opening a wide range in LP when its an unopened pot, but are you all raising like JTo and Q9s in LP when there is 4 limps in front of you? It seems like this sort of should be ok, but I find so many passive villains @ 1/2 that are limp/calling pre with a stronger range than I am willing to raise with in LP.

thoughts on which (if any) hands are ok to limp in LP after several limpers.
Assuming 100bb or more stacks.


actual interesting thread for a change

Good post ikestoys.

The interesting question is why do people deviate from playing TAG. I think about 75% of people on this forum understand with and agree with most of your post. There might be slight disagreements (e.g. I think it's totally fine to fold QTo/KTo in MP, I think it's fine to fold AJo utg or limp/fold with it. But I don't play 1/2 and at 1/2 raising with it is probably fine as people will call with a lot of Ax while as at 2/5 and 5/10 people understand RIO better and won't do that as much). So if it's not well-though out disagreement about strategy, it has to be behavioral. I think top reasons why people deviate from TAG are:

- boredom. A full-ring TAG will play ~15% of hands. At 30 hand/hour, that is 5 hands an hour. That is one hand every 12 minutes.

- overconfidence. Thinking that they can out play people, etc.

- tilt. Being stuck and wanting to get even. Can't do that not playing, and hands don't come any better just because we are stuck

- not being a good enough poker player. I actually think this is a minority reason. So calling in the BB vs. A tight UTG open with KQo, or an average MP open with 100bbs with Axs might come under this heading. Most people don't plan their hands, they just play them. So they don't think through what calling OOP with KQo vs. a 8% UTG means in terms of how they will play on various flops/turns/rivers. They just see a hand they know is pretty good and default to a call. Then they post a hand where they do this, board runs out K72rJr, and villain bets 1/2 pot into them on the flop and turn and they want to know what they should do. (By the way - what *do* you do? I have no idea against a tight relatively unknown player. Probably fold. Ok, so same flop, but now they check turn back. River bricks. You check, they bet you do what? Whats their bluffing frequency? Are they betting worse hands? Instead of checking that river, you block-bet. What's their calling range? Are you over 50% against it? So hence I stopped calling preflop in most 2/5 and always in 5/10).

People also don't play TAG postflop because they are fundamentally afraid of losing the pot. They subconsciously maximize winning pots over EV. That's why people who know better don't bet/fold enough against straightforward, loosish players. They are afraid of getting raised and losing a pot with a hand they want to see the showdown with.

You combine all these 'drifts' and now you have a creature that is 40% TAG, 30% station and 30% nit. That's what too many of us end up actually playing like.


Next 10 sessions, give yourself one point per session for each session you have played TAG for at least 80% of the time. Be honest. See what score you get. If you played 70% TAG in a session, you get 0 points for that session.

Good post ikestoys.

The interesting question is why do people deviate from playing TAG. I think about 75% of people on this forum understand with and agree with most of your post. There might be slight disagreements (e.g. I think it's totally fine to fold QTo/KTo in MP, I think it's fine to fold AJo utg or limp/fold with it. But I don't play 1/2 and at 1/2 raising with it is probably fine as people will call with a lot of Ax while as at 2/5 and 5/10 people understand RIO better and won't do that as much). So if it's not well-though out disagreement about strategy, it has to be behavioral. I think top reasons why people deviate from TAG are:

- boredom. A full-ring TAG will play ~15% of hands. At 30 hand/hour, that is 5 hands an hour. That is one hand every 12 minutes.

- overconfidence. Thinking that they can out play people, etc.

- tilt. Being stuck and wanting to get even. Can't do that not playing, and hands don't come any better just because we are stuck

- not being a good enough poker player. I actually think this is a minority reason. So calling in the BB vs. A tight UTG open with KQo, or an average MP open with 100bbs with Axs might come under this heading. Most people don't plan their hands, they just play them. So they don't think through what calling OOP with KQo vs. a 8% UTG means in terms of how they will play on various flops/turns/rivers. They just see a hand they know is pretty good and default to a call. Then they post a hand where they do this, board runs out K72rJr, and villain bets 1/2 pot into them on the flop and turn and they want to know what they should do. (By the way - what *do* you do? I have no idea against a tight relatively unknown player. Probably fold. Ok, so same flop, but now they check turn back. River bricks. You check, they bet you do what? Whats their bluffing frequency? Are they betting worse hands? Instead of checking that river, you block-bet. What's their calling range? Are you over 50% against it? So hence I stopped calling preflop in most 2/5 and always in 5/10).

People also don't play TAG postflop because they are fundamentally afraid of losing the pot. They subconsciously maximize winning pots over EV. That's why people who know better don't bet/fold enough against straightforward, loosish players. They are afraid of getting raised and losing a pot with a hand they want to see the showdown with.

You combine all these 'drifts' and now you have a creature that is 40% TAG, 30% station and 30% nit. That's what too many of us end up actually playing like.


Next 10 sessions, give yourself one point per session for each session you have played TAG for at least 80% of the time. Be honest. See what score you get. If you played 70% TAG in a session, you get 0 points for that session.

Great post ike, the chart seems fine if the pot is unopened(no limpers/raisers). But in LLS the table is generally loose passive table, so your ep/mp and lp is too loose for a tag. In general the op is a spinoff of venice rant, which is spot on for the forum. Too many hh with no pf range and faulty image. You cant be a tag limping but you can be a lag limping, lol.

Good post op...also this forum needs better info in hhs and pawhm. Not villain is lag, villain is tag etc.

Too much to give a decent guide for a range. You must have a significant edge postflop to have wider oop calling range. Most players would benefit from raising or folding oop at low stakes. As I get deeper I widen my calling range oop as I am more than confident vs 95%+ of the players I play with on a regular basis.

What I've found is that in a typical LL live game, if you're playing standard TAG (like 20/18/3), people don't view you as a "TAG", because they have no idea what that is. They view you as a NIT. What they think is a "tight" player is is something like a 32/7, "normal" player is something like 45/5, and a "loose" player something like 75/20.

If you're not viewed as a nit at a live table, chances are you're not actually tight. It's ok to be viewed as a nit. It gives you the fold equity to make the aggressive moves that constitute the "AG" part of "TAG."

I find the opposite, if I play TAG yeah I'm not playing many hands but I am raising prob more than almost anyone at the table preflop because I don't limp often at all. Seems most LL players hate preflop raising in general it screws up their plans. and causes them to call me down fairly light. Though my image can swing to nit if I am just card dead for sure.

YMMV though