TAG vs LAG

[Hyperrrprank]

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In live play unless you're in a bigger game, I just don't think LAgg is viable between the rake and the epic levels of redardation from other players that you would need to match to get any attention.


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I'd respectfully disagree here. I play in these games two or three times a week, and while you're absolutely right that it's hard to match the true loose maniacs, even some of the worst players notice incredibly tight play enough to shut you out ocassionally.

LAG play isn't about an ocassional extra call here and there at all. It's about mixing up your raising range enough that good observant players aren't always sure what you're coming in with, and loose bad players assume that you're one of them. It's the ability to escape from a sinking ship that makes the difference between a TAG player employing loose aggressive tendencies from the true loose maniacs.

[MitchL]

I play very lag in 6max and have been a decent winner in the long run. I dont consider a 22 vpip to be lag even in fr, but to each his own. I am convinced that tag is the best style, for a number reasons, number 1, even great postflop players dont play well enough to make up for lack of equity that characterizes marginal holdings. If you are playing 22-25 in fr live then I think you are probably alot closer to the mark than I am though I have tightened up considerably over the last 4 months or so. Also, I think that if you play primarily lag then when you run bad you will become even more loose and aggressive magnifying your losses much more than if you were out of line by Tag standards.

Of course just changing styles isnt as easy as it is on paper and takes some getting used to, especially tag to lag, but I honestly dont see any debate about whether tag is profitable, while there is at least some if not considerable debate (obviously subjective criteria) as to whether lag is profitable in the long run. This grossly oversimplifies the debate, but you get the jist.

[Fnord]

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LAG play isn't about an ocassional extra call here and there at all. It's about mixing up your raising range enough that good observant players aren't always sure what you're coming in with, and loose bad players assume that you're one of them.

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When the "good" players are making well thought out laydowns against me, I'll widen my ranges and throw some loose raises on every street until a healthy level of distrust has been re-established.

For the most part, I like it when the thinking players tend to play me straight-forward and not come in with loose hands behind me after I raise up the fish.

[Fnord]

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I play very lag in 6max

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We're not talking about hyper-aggro short-handed online games. Different beast that requires a different approach.

[MitchL]

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I play very lag in 6max

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We're not talking about hyper-aggro short-handed online games. Different beast that requires a different approach.

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I understand and should have qualified. I play lag to slag fr, used to play very lag. I still play very lag in 6 max. Talking like 35/23. Which is way looser than most on this site.

[Frond]

I too have been discussing win amounts with several 2+2ers that I play with. Except for just one of them my swings up and down are a lot more stable like was said by Scarm. I do have some 2 rack losses but usually if I do lose it is on the smaller side. And as Scarm said, when I win it is usually a good amount but never a 4-8 racker like some of them have had. I am okay with that right now cause I am maximizing the hands I do play to the best of my abilities. I am on the road to tagdom with side trips to lagdom right now.

I have looked at my records of sessions in the past 3-4 months and most of my sessions I haven't had a ton of great hands to play. Have had some rushes here and there but Hyperrrprank can testify to some of my card deadness at some of the sessions he has played in with me. One thing that I have noticed in the past few sessions playing 8/16 when I have been really card dead is that I can come in with hands on the button with a raise and and with a favorable flop can at times take the pot uncontested or by the turn. So I am taking advantage of my perceived rock image when I am card dead cause the idiots at the table always comment on how I "must have AA" when I raise "cause I haven't played a hand in 2 hours". So even the idiots do pay attention at times. Which has been working to my benefit on stealing some pots with the right flops against the right players that I can fold out with aggression(none sometimes obv).

I think my win rates are possibly a bit closer to the longer run BB per hr reality according to those who have played live for many hours. Hard to really say since I play only about 2-3 times a week for about 4-5 hrs at a stretch. A tiny sampling to be sure.

Oh, and when I do play pots they are usually big cause I am more often than not coming in for a PF raise so they are multi way for 2-3 bets to start with. So I can play less pots when dead and show a decent profit cause the pots that I build (and win) are normally bigger when I play in them. That and at the 4/8 and 8/16 limits it is not usually any problem to get players to call your UTG raise with AKs even though it is the first hand you have played in over an hour.

I am expanding my PreFlop raising range all the time as well when I can. That is a very important concept that I learned from Bernie here: If you are just raising PF with big pairs etc. then you are giving away way too much info. So I have expanded that but lately haven't had the chance to throw them in cause haven't got much to play with.

Overall I am happy right now with how it is going.

But as the Zen thing goes, I know that I don't know

[gobbledygeek]

(hijack)

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I have looked at my records of sessions in the past 3-4 months and most of my sessions I haven't had a ton of great hands to play.

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Do you record all the live hands you play and their results? If so, how?

[fishyak]

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Question #1 - Would you even consider 22-25% VPIP to be a LAG? Or am I only Slightly LAGgy

Question #2 - Are these numbers pretty typical? Do other TAGs out there have mostly small wins and smaller losses? Do other loose players have similar results to mine?

Question #3 - I can see a lot of room for improvement in my game, and yet still have a good winrate this year - Is it more profitable to play a LAG game or am I just running really well?

Question #4 - Will Frond realistically have a day where he gets hit by the deck or by playing fewer hands are you limiting the luck factor too much?"


1) I don't know how to translate VIP into LAG. But since we play in the same game, I am going to question that our VIP's are that low. 9 seat table, usually filled. Take out the blinds. Are you (we) really only playing ONE hand per orbit followed by an orbit with just two hands? That's 3/14 which is still slightly over 20%. I've played with Frond. Even though we are usually by far the tightest PF at the table, I feel that if we kept real PF VIP score, it would run closer to 30%, that's just 2 hands per 7 every orbit. That's are hard stat to track, but if we decided to just track that one stat, we could.

2) My wins and losses run somewhat in between you and Frond.

3) LLHE @ Commerce has high variance. I'd like to think I play the same game but, my 2/4 win rate is higher than my 3/6 win rate which is higher than my 4/8 winrate.

4) I think the odds of ANY 2+2'er getting hit by the deck is significantly lower than maniac/LAG's simply because if they run good, they are in 2X or 3X as many hands as we are and, they can run up (or lose) their stacks with with that much greater velocity. Sure, we can get hot, too. But we are less likely to do so because of our narrowed PF hand requirements. I also, have 1 100+BB session this year. I've made a spreadsheet of my session results and guess what, it looks like a bell curve centered around the mean.

[Frond]

GGeek-As far as keeping records, no I don't keep track of every hand or every hand I am dealt, just a lot of basics like how the session went, mistakes, how long, limit.......etc. Too tedious to list them all here. If I have down that I played 5 hands in 2 hours than I kind of know where I stood as far as if I was getting playable hands or not.

How do you do it?

[Scarmiglio]

Frond - good to see you posting again. I take it your power is still on?

I hope the OP is fairly accurate. I didn't want to take too many liberties when I don't know that much about your records other than that you're a winning player.

I've found that I play too loose when card dead (my second biggest leak), as T7s starts to look pretty good from any position after a string of 92o to J4o etc... type hands. Frond stays disciplined and keeps folding. I don't...

I think one of the critical elements of playing good poker is to not change your hand standards whether you've been gettting a string of good cards or a string of bad cards. It can be tempting to play 76o when you've won 3 hands in a row just because you're 'on a rush', much the same as it can be tempting to play 8Ts UTG after folding every hand for an hour. Playing like this is a waste of money and can actually tilt you when you lose chips and get irritated at yourself for playing the hand in the first place.