Naturally. It's generally a once per session type of move. But I feel like you'll also run into plenty of resistance from other types of players, and the variance is going to hurt your overall win rate. I can't prove it, but I'm almost certain of it.

I like OP's post but I have to disagree with isoing with low-middle SC. You are approaching spewtard territory.
Good players will notice how wide you are isoing, and bad players never folding pairs which you are drawing slim to.

Would really depend on turn card (and whether fish could fold an underpair to a scary A/K turn) whether I decide to turn this into a 3barrel bluff, but in most cases as soon as a calling station fish calls our cbet, we should be done with the hand, IMO.

Very interesting thread and I am really enjoying the various points of view.

I made the transition to live poker on a consistent basis a couple of months ago and these issues have been a constant pendulum as I am settling into a more consistent and less swingy style of profitable play.

It took me a couple of weeks to figure out that live low limit players don't really keep invisible HUDs in their heads. I felt like I had to forget (or at least tuck away for later use) 2/3 of what I learned in order to adapt and survive online in order to beat 2/3 live. Along the way I had to realize, that if I am playing a standard ABC/TAG style at a given table, most of the villains are making their decisions based upon their cards and the board and are not thinking that I am 15/12/6 and I cbet 68%, etc.

Loosening up a bit has definitely been helpful, but IN position. I still have a difficult time playing a true LAG style. Part of it is because I haven't developed the skill set completely, but part of it too is that opening ranges from all positions are so dramatically wide for many live low limit games, and the players are so passive, check/calling multiple streets with air and weird 2p hands of like 96, that it gets either spewy for me or I miss a ton of value. Making larger bets and post flop aggression are a couple leaks that I plugged and it is becoming much more clear where I stand in a hand based upon villain's response.

Ironically, what has been making more money, for me at least, is to be looser, but more passive pre (seeing as many flops IP as possible), and turning up the aggression on later streets. I agree with OP and the others that position has a premium influence on the hand and that LAG/TAG/Passive really has to be player/situation specific and not just a general theme.

My standard raise is anywhere from 3-7bb pre and it doesn't really isolate that well at low levels. It seems like the best way to see a flop HU is to 3B in position. For some reason, these 60/10/2 players really seem to respect and fear 3 bets and fold 80+% of the time....their definition of playing back is to call and only 4B shove KK/AA.

Poker seems a lot like music in the sense that you can be an expert at reading sheet music and very skilled with a given instrument, but if you are playing the wrong kind of music at the wrong venue, you are getting booed off the stage.

this is a great post. especially points 2 and 4. i went through a period after I started playing for 2-3 years where i started lagging it up, and all of a sudden i was a losing player at limits I had a established a steady win-rate at. took a long time to re-correct and re-balance myself to be a little more of that perfect mix. now 1-2 is a breeze, and my 2-5 win rate is improving every year.

ya, i dont find myself doing it as much at all, and not being as aggro at all.
the games have changed, for one thing,
ive realized that its an easy thing to over-do, and its also unnessisary to do it to a extreme extent. you get the same effect either way, in your opponents eyes, and you invest less, and you find ways to use your post flop skill more. it requires getting pickier about the spots you choose.
spotting tells also helps a lot if you can see when the table isnt interested, and its an easy ISO. you just get more selective, and try to avoid blowups more strongly as you gain experience.

My bankroll does not allow me to play lag. But I feel everynight I'm leaving money on the table. I won't ever play lag until I reach 200bbs I'm such a bankroll nit.

Same. I can't tell you how many times I've been at a 1-2 table and thought "this table is ripe for someone to just start running over it", but for some reason I can't do it myself. I know what I should be doing, but I just don't think I'm ready for such a high variance style. It's like Morpheus said, "There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path"

OP is doing it right.

4 limpers to me and I'm raising 76s on the button every time, unless I have a read that some of the limpers habitually limp-re-raise. Vast majority of the time they just call because they want to make a hand and "trap the maniac" for all his money!

I'm overlimping stuff like K3s though. That hand plays "poorly" postflop but for 1 BB you're hoping to make 3-3-x or overflush someone.

What about the Nit, Donk, or Fish who calls you down with top pair/weak kicker or a pocket pair because... "I HAD YOU ON ACE KING." ????

Triple barreling every time or even 25% of the time in a situation like this is a spew in my opinion....

Also, quick question...

What are we doing in situations like this.....

You're on the button with 10/8 suited, 3 limpers, you pop it to $35.00.

2 callers, both are just the average "there to gamble guy."

Flop comes 10 4 6, checked to you.

You bet $50.00, one guy calls, turn card is a 2.....

Checked to you again....

What now?

You firing again with top pair/8 kicker or checking?

Lets say you check, queen hits river, the guy bets out $100.00 at you...

You folding?

This was an old thread. Are you playing differently yet?
It works when you correctly have only the fish call.. What do you do when the callers is a competent player? What do you do when all the fish are tight-nits? Tight-nits aren't folding that river, they will have a big enough hand


Note: my favorite 2/5 lineup is a bunch of young, unknown LAGs. I switch to playing like a super-nit preflop (under 15% of hands, and making sure to fold plenty of limped buttons and CO for show). I then get to watch poker for free while developing a nit image. I then play back at one of these awful lines, or under-rep my hand and induce a bluff or two.
I am not the only one in the world who does this, and does it well.

The standard response to your playstyle OP, should be 1st developing a tight image, then:
Limp/Call your pre-flop over-raise, c/c flop, c/r BOMB on the turn. w/ ATC
It will force you to fold all but the very top of your range. It represents a set very well, it prices out most draws, and I will do this with pretty much anything I'm willing to see a flop with to resteal a pot. The LAG rarely knows better, just chalking it up to running into a monster. Once every other hour, and I crush the game. The key to this setup is having the patience to actually fold like a nit for a long time. This kindof play makes tight styles more profitable than lag styles at a table where the opponents are all trying to be BALLERs (one or two may actually be awesome), but none of them is a complete fish.

In conclusion, as I've said in many many threads previously. There is a time and place for every style; just know when it is the right time to be a Lagtard, and when its the right time to batten down the hatches. Also, some opponents will stop folding any equity to you altogether, and so you basically will have to shut down after any callers postflop, without actually hitting a hand. If you get to this point of villain adjustment, I suggest limping far more, to get to the postflop edge.

Notably the other players matter alot here. I am, personally, the nightmare player for an inexperienced LAG to run into, as I can blend into the donks for a full BI, and even if I'm playing loose, I call supremely light regularly and rebluff some.

The other problem with this style is running into nit-donks with 70-100BB. They basically have a limp-call range that smashes OPs range, and if they call they turn, you need a better hand to beat them on the river. Their constant checking is perfect for draws, but awful if a LAG bets for them in spots where a free card is warranted. Alot of profitable LAG play requires hitting a hand and then getting value out of it (this is why I, like so many others, enjoy limping the button with Offsuit-1-offs or any other trash hand I feel like. When you smash a flop, you can inspire your donkey friends to hand you $$$). You will find LONG stretches where you don't make **** and your image gets infi calls.

The problem with your thinking is any decent LAG has noticed that you are playing like a nit. So we just play you differently. If you are only continuing from the flop with strong hands we cbet and give up. Sure you win more from us that hand then you would from most players. But all the other times when you are calling raises OOP and c/f the flop more than make up for it.

Being a "LAG" doesn't mean I raise PF and then close my eyes and 3barrel no matter what (though I decide to do so and light money on fire sometimes).

If you bluff me once an hour when I double barrel, fine. But 1. I actually do make hands sometimes (and I'm a station which costs me stupid amounts of money) and 2. I'm not double barreling against you all that often because I perceive your flop calling range to be pretty strong.

You may even individually profit against me using that strategy. But there are 8 other players at the table and by being active and exlploiting my skill and positional advantage I am making a lot more money than you are in the game overall.

The "nit-donks" are even easier. They c/f too often waiting to hit the flop. And they get no value from me when they hit top pair and c/r because I just fold. Unless I "cooler" them.

And the last sentence assumes LAG players can't figure out to tone down postflop aggression when we have bad images. You don't even need to tighten up PF because live players overadjust so awfully to aggression that we can continue raising our speculative hands because they just giftwrap their stack to us if we hit a strong flop.

That depends on the table. And my goal is to make a LAG think that I am a nit, and play me like a nit; I then use that nit image to exploit the crap out of LAG adjustments (b/c deep inside, I'm a LAG, not a sweater-maker). Now if the table is full of dumb, passives, than I agree, I'll jump in and play like 40/15 (personal loose style), stay out of the way of the other competent player or two, and go donkey crushing. But that takes specific types of donkey opponents.

It could just be my 2/5 sample (500+hours, but prob under 1K), but much of my competition at these exact stakes have been young LAGs, most of them mediocre. So I'm used to showing up to a 2/5 table full of: 1 Good LAG, 2 Meh LAG, 2 Bad LAG, and a couple old nits. Against that field it is much more profitable to batten down the hatches and exploit the poor adjustments of the LAGs (esp the mediocre and bad LAGs). As you noted in your longer post, LAGs play pretty straightforward against nits postflop (if you consider b/f straightforward)... If all my opponents are playing straightforward, my job gets very very easy.

But.. the only way to convince me you are a nit is to play like a nit. Its not like you can play like a nit for 25 minutes and then start playing like a psycho and ill just keep being like lol this guys a nit I better fold. So really all you are doing is folding a bunch of hands for a while and then starting to play more hands OOP against people.

This may work against bad players. But its not going to work so well against a competent postflop player

I play straightforward against people that are playing poorly (the nits that fit or fold 100%).

The trick is in the word 'hands' plural. In a game with people I knew would fold to a tight player, I can fold for 1 hours to make one big play, and go back to folding until I have a hand worth playing (77- in LP for a limp, raise AK anywhere, raise 88+ anywhere, raise AQ late position). Its all about having the discipline to do that. And against a top caliber LAG, they will STILL start to notice that you win a bit too much postflop and when you go to war with that guy, be prepared for a total war. But my preferred targets are everyone but the good LAG; mediocre and bad LAGs can be placed on a marionette to induce payoffs to big hands and then fold when they are ahead.

So its more like: Nit it up for 45 minutes. Make one play. Nit it up for the next hour. Wash rinse repeat.
And as a faux-nit, you actually get a hand with significant equity (it does happen), so you get to play that, too.

One 100 dollar steal every other hour would make a monster winrate by itself (50 an hour at 2/5). If it will make that happen, I will fold for the rest of the time to pull it off.
Its all about Image Abuse.

Can't wait to read the rest of this thread.

So in your first 100 hours of $2/$5 you became a decent LAG... OK. I suggest you put in 1000 more and report updated revelations and epiphanies.

Maskk ~ Level 4
jack ~ Level 2.5

LAGGY FTW

I PMed OP asking for Epic Update with new-and-improved revelations and epiphanies. Apparently he's not interested. My guess is he's crushing $100/$200 now and no longer cares about us "simple folks"...