Playing marginal hands OOP against LAGs.

[SlowHabit]

I’m coaching a student and there arises occasions where I would play on “feel” and just go with my gut but that’s not going to help my student much. Moreover, my regular opponents usually respect my play so I don’t have them constantly making moves on me and try to run me over. Unfortunately, this is not the same for my student, which is why he’s getting coached.

Let’s assume Hero opens pot 22-AA, AJ+, KQ and get re-raised by LAG. This LAG always try to be table captain and is really aggressive in position. His range includes marginal hands such as A9o, KJo, small pairs, and obviously the premium hands. We won’t have a problem playing with premium hands and folding small pairs 22-66, which leaves us with holdings such as AJ, KQ, 77-99. AJ and KQ are a little easier to play out of position because I can tell him to check-raise all-in some of the time on low flops, sometimes gutshots, and obviously when we flop pairs. But for hands such as 77-99, how do we play it assuming we don’t flop a set or a straight draw? Check-raise on any non-A or non-K flop? Folding seems a bit weak and Hero will just get run over.

Besides check-raise, what other lines do you find effective against these overaggro-crazy LAGs? I find that tightening my pre-flop open range often help; or the occasional 4bet. And perhaps after showing him a few hands, Villain will slow down.

This is a personal question for myself and I never know what is the correct answer. I’ve seen BldSwtTrs done it a few times but I’m not quite sure if it’s a good play. He’s obviously a great player so I want to understand why he does it. I’ve seen him 3bet and call a 4bet shove against really aggressive opponents with small pairs from 55-88. Your image has to be to really crazy for this to mathematically work since we usually coin-flipping or is a dog. I don’t think you play like this but I might be wrong.

I noticed in the videos you don’t bluff-raise the flop often. You always say you would but never do. Why does your 5-10 opponents get the crazy idea that you’re bluff-raising every flop with draws?

[MDMA]

This seems like it was supposed to be a PM.

[greg nice]

cant give this info out its too valuable LDO

[Jason Strasser (strassa2)]

If you put yourself in any lags shoes, you will probably see that the most effective strat against yourself is to reduce just calling the 3-bets, and to play fairly tight but 4-bet a lot. So many people call 3-bets preflop these days, so the lag will often fire out on any flop when checked to.

So, I'd tell my student (against lags that are good but not that smart):

- 4bet and get it in ugly occasionally with these tweener hands, otherwise fold...

- trap a little more often preflop with big hands

its not a very balanced strategy but if the lag doesnt adjust to his blind aggression he will find himself losing money preflop (because when you 4-bet he calls not so often) and losing money on the flop because a lot of the times he will fire with nothing and you will have trapped him.

[D.L.M.]

You mean 4bet with like 99-jj as a tweener hand (assume 100bbs) or 4bet with sc's and call shoves since you have odds? whats your calling range oop, and does it change if they raise you to 4x instead of 3x?

[JackAll]

I never understood why people would say to 4-bet (and get 1/3rd of their stack in) with sc's.

You have the odds to call an all in there if you have an ace. But sc's? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[plzbenice]

"I noticed in the videos you don’t bluff-raise the flop often. You always say you would but never do. Why does your 5-10 opponents get the crazy idea that you’re bluff-raising every flop with draws? "

what videos?

is he oncardrunners? which name then?

[ahnuld]

I do what strasser does, it works remarkably well. Except you feel like a tard when you push 33 into AA

[SlowHabit]

This is obviously a PM. Please delete.

Edit: I feel so embarrassed now.

[FiSheYe]

the PM went to ??