Learning a more aggressive style

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you everyone for the responses. A couple follow-up questions...

1) Lindgren's book looks interesting, but I'm not sure how useful I would find it. I see it's gotten mixed reviews, and I'm not exactly playing deep-stacked, expensive poker, which seems to be its focus. Is it worth the read, or is my time better spent elsewhere?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not as information filled as some and been some time since I read it, but definitely worth a read to understand one player's approach to laggier play.

[ QUOTE ]
2) At first I was excited as I read the amazon reviews all singing Poker Tournament Formula's praises, thinking I had found a great book, but after reading the 2p2 threads, I'm not so sure. The general consensus here seems to be that it is misleading, and even when it is correct it is through faulty reasoning. Am I wrong in this perception?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's fair to say that the PTF is controversial. There is no general concensus. As I'm sure you saw in reviewing the threads Mason gave it 8 out of 10 stars (IIRC) in his review in spite of taking exception with it. Regardless it gives you a framework for a laggier approach. Some of his recommendations (calling with any two on the button) might not be a good idea in most games. However, IMO, I can't believe, given your goals, that you won't come away from reading this book with a lot of good and usable ideas. Just apply a little scepticism if something seems too far out or doesn't seem to work.

[ QUOTE ]
3) Pardon my noobishness, but why is Harrington not a "tight" player?

[/ QUOTE ]

Action Dan is tight, some (most?) of the time I think. However when shortstacked and desperate everybody loosens up and Dan is no different.

[ QUOTE ]
4) Gonso, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't there more to be aggressive/super-aggressive than simply starting hand requirements? Sure, back when I didn't know anything about poker I would pay to see just about every flop, but I didn't have much success doing that...as Splossy said, you have to a great post-flop player to do well as an aggressive player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Think back to Harrington's description of the "super aggressive" style. I think the line was "they don't have starting hand requirements."

I think Splossy is right about needing to be better post-flop to make a more aggressive style work. Again, paraphrasing Harrington, he recommended the conservative style for most players when starting out because you don't have to make as many tough post-flop decisions.

I think of a loose aggressive style as caring more about situations than cards. That's one reason why I recommend the PTF, because it looks at the tools you have other than cards (position and chips). Breaking these apart and discussing them seperately helped me understand how they fit together and how to identify situations where I might take down a pot without cards better.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
My recommendation as a new player is to play tighter than everyone else at the table, but add in a less quality hand every round (button orbit) and see if you can get lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are going to increase your VP$IP by 10% and still play tighter than anyone else at the table??

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
It's fair to say that the PTF is controversial. There is no general concensus. As I'm sure you saw in reviewing the threads Mason gave it 8 out of 10 stars (IIRC) in his review in spite of taking exception with it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason's review is nonsensical. You can't disagree with the fundamental premise and strategy of the book, and then give the book a very high rating.

[Splossy]

FWIW, when I LAG it up I do the following:

* Loosen up my starting hands, especially in late position including connectors, 2 a-3 gappers, odd suited cards etc.
* Reraise in position light, especially against light raisers
* Raise / reraise people's CBs
* Raise at almost any sign of weakness
* Flop flop bets and bet or CR turn scare cards
* think a lot about implied odds to justify calling with draws
* Try NOT to spend a lot of money doing the above which often means folding on the turn. I.e. it's preflop and flop and a bit of turn shennanigans.

The goal is to goad the opponents (esp the 2 guys to my left) with relentless steal attempts pre-flop and on the flop and somewhat on the turn, until they start to push back and over commit at the wrong time. The 1st time or so they push back I will call often with a crumby hand to see how much balls they have and also to make it harder for them to counter my agression with reraises and shools people into trying to price you out of the hand.

People will push back. They have to. If it's working then they will reraise me when I have a set or something and are much more likely to pay me off.

It tends to involve putting more faith in my reads that normal.

It kind of gears your luck. if you get lucky early you can win a massive pot and get a great stack which helps the strategy anyway since it funds your looseness. If you get a bad run of cards where you have to fold to a lot of push-back then you have to rebuy a lot and it gets expensive. However losing the odd biggish pot works in your favour if you get to showdown as it reinforces the manic image.

I don't play like this as default. I start off TAGish. If I'm getting paid off value betting then cool. But if the table is tight and I'm not then it's LAG time. This means you benefit also from the sudden change in gear as you make steal money whilst they adjust.

That is pretty much all I know about it and I've no idea if it's what pro LAGs do.

[dyinginabubble]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, when I LAG it up I do the following:

* Loosen up my starting hands, especially in late position including connectors, 2 a-3 gappers, odd suited cards etc.
* Reraise in position light, especially against light raisers
* Raise / reraise people's CBs
* Raise at almost any sign of weakness
* Flop flop bets and bet or CR turn scare cards
* think a lot about implied odds to justify calling with draws
* Try NOT to spend a lot of money doing the above which often means folding on the turn. I.e. it's preflop and flop and a bit of turn shennanigans.

The goal is to goad the opponents (esp the 2 guys to my left) with relentless steal attempts pre-flop and on the flop and somewhat on the turn, until they start to push back and over commit at the wrong time. The 1st time or so they push back I will call often with a crumby hand to see how much balls they have and also to make it harder for them to counter my agression with reraises and shools people into trying to price you out of the hand.

People will push back. They have to. If it's working then they will reraise me when I have a set or something and are much more likely to pay me off.

It tends to involve putting more faith in my reads that normal.

It kind of gears your luck. if you get lucky early you can win a massive pot and get a great stack which helps the strategy anyway since it funds your looseness. If you get a bad run of cards where you have to fold to a lot of push-back then you have to rebuy a lot and it gets expensive. However losing the odd biggish pot works in your favour if you get to showdown as it reinforces the manic image.

I don't play like this as default. I start off TAGish. If I'm getting paid off value betting then cool. But if the table is tight and I'm not then it's LAG time. This means you benefit also from the sudden change in gear as you make steal money whilst they adjust.

That is pretty much all I know about it and I've no idea if it's what pro LAGs do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very good post

[Dima2000123]

Don't make the same mistake I did. If you're a relatively new player who reads the books and plays conservatively, then you're probably weak tight rather than tight aggressive. I thought that the problem was that I was too tight, when in reality the problem was that I wasn't aggressive nearly enough.

To get the full return from being a conservative player in the mold of Action Dan, you have to concentrate on extracting the full value out of marginal hands that you do wind up playing (not every monster pre-flop hand is still a monster hand post-flop, but it doesn't mean that you're beat), and to also run a complete bluff at the right time once in a while to cash in on your image.

You may still find that LAG style is more to your liking, but you should adopt that style for the right reasons. On the other hand, it never hurts to try lots of different styles if it doesn't cost you too many buyins, because sometimes you'll have to adapt to the table and play the opposite of your natural game. Even Action Dan will LAG it up like a maniac if he's lucky enough to be seated with nine weak players.

[Gonso]

[ QUOTE ]
4) Gonso, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't there more to be aggressive/super-aggressive than simply starting hand requirements? Sure, back when I didn't know anything about poker I would pay to see just about every flop, but I didn't have much success doing that...as Splossy said, you have to a great post-flop player to do well as an aggressive player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry I missed this when you asked.

Yes, of course there is a lot more, but let me claify your meaning. Simply being more aggressive just means you push the hands you already play harder.

You are talking about tight vs. aggressive as if they are mutually exclusive, they're not. I took you to mean you were interested in developing a LAG style. What I was suggesting in that case was just to open up your starting hands a little bit more to start and experiment rather than a drastic style change. A lot of people want to suddenly change identities... they're playing a Harrington-esque game one day and trying to be Gus Hansen the next.

Also, you don't need to be a "great" post-flop player to win playing LAG, you just need to be better than your opponents + a little extra to compensate for the little bit of equity you're giving up before the flop or for positional disadvantages. I play a TAG game generally, but against certain players it's worthwhile to be much more LAG, even maniacal to a certain extent. Good tournament players are especially adept at this.

If you meant that you're a tight-passive type player trying to become a TAG, well, that's something else entirely. That's the more clear meaning of aggressive I'm referring to.