Something gelled recently and it would be nice to get some confirmation. I play microstakes online and live 1/2. In a few weeks I'll be back at a casino with reasonable rake for 1/2 games and that's awesome because I like live so much better than online. Let the season begin!

Anyway, I found playing against loose aggressive players (not LAGs but in the fishy sense) to be difficult because I found it hard to range them, especially when the action doesn't seem to "make sense".

Common advice here is to exploit these players by raising as much as they'll call preflop. I've followed that advice to some degree, but the why never really sank in until now. There was a great thread not so long back in the LLSNL forum about the difference between shoveling the money in with AA deepstacked pre vs postflop. Pre we're ahead, I think that was the main point.

Good postflop skills are required to know when to get away from the hand if we're beat, but in general these villains call too much pre and fold too much post. So we want to get the money in BEFORE the flop when they are most likely to call way behind (although live a lot of players will call too much, which is great, too). Then the flop comes and often they just don't know where they are in the hand.

Even better, 3 bet them wider! The key I think is to stay well ahead of their range. Weaker rec players tend to react badly when I do this. So when they get mad and 4bet me light, I've stopped being afraid. In fact, I'm happy! I call (or even 5bet depending on the holdings) and punish them. If I'm OOP and get a piece of the flop, I've found checking often induces a bluff bet since they think I'm as full of it as they are. It's great! Sure, sometimes you lose, but that's poker.

Does this make sense?

At 1/2 I'd rather not get into pointless dick waving contests and just wait for a decent hand

I had to laugh. I assume you're referring to 3betting light at 1/2.

The core of playing bad LAGs is

A) strengthen your calling range because see per point B you want to play for stacks.
B) to get a hand which is good against their bet/bet/shove range and call down except on terrible runouts

3betting depends, if your LAG raises way too much and then calls way too much, expand your value range, remove bluffs (which you should exploitatively have few of anyway at 1/2) and raise away. I would avoid hands like 88 and ATo, you want hands which can play for stacks.

Depends on your LAG though, it’s not as simple as just bombing away preflop because they are bad at poker.

Great response, thanks. I posted thinking of myself as the preflop aggressor. Calling is a different story, and I appreciate the advice because being on a defensive footing against an agrodonk isn't always pleasant. Against these guys, I play the BB like the SB (raise or fold), although IP I would consider calling.

I see what you mean about being prepared to play for stacks. In a way, I think that's always the case in poker. I have no concept of how a good LAG plays because from what I understand they are all at higher stakes. When I see someone at my stakes raise preflop too much and then bet/raise flop and turn too much, I'm thinking the best thing to do is try and get more than I usually would in pre and then be willing to call down with hands I normally wouldn't, like 2nd pair good kicker. It gets uncomfortable doing that for my whole stack though, which is why if I'm going to call these guys my range is loaded with AXs, SCs, or a PP.