Asking LAGs for help....

[Peleus]

Reading Doyle's Super System I'm interested in his style of play. Especially how much value he puts on small suited connector's and drawing hands.

I'm curious though as to how generally to play these type of hands in the full ring environment. Is it better to be the aggressor pre-flop and raise it up or do you try and limp seeing a lot of flops. On one hand you've got more credit with c-bets and can take down more smaller pots easier, a good thing for lags. On the flip side I imagine the flop hits you hard rarely enough that it will give you the strength to continue with the hand.

Advice from any LAG's on some good ways to play would be appreciated. How do you handle the (I imagine) high variance???

[mvdgaag]

I'm don't consider myself a lag, but according to pokerEV I lose a little on the big pots and make up for it with small pots. Plus I play 25/15 at fullring, so I think I'm laggy enough to answer this. It's only how I play and it works for me...

I only play suited connectors when there was a raise before me, so I'm likely to have position, or when I am in LP I raise them myself and try to win the pot with a cbet or catch a nice flop.

Sometimes I 3bet them to disguise my big pairs. This is quite profitable if you don't overdo it. It's a matter of finding the correct frequencies.

I'm more carefull with suited one or two gappers and like to play them only with position and deep stacks and against opponents that will let me take the lead so I also have a chance to steal. Without this stealing you often cannot play them for profit, because drawing is often more expensive and implied odds are never as good as you think.

In general I prefer to win the pot on early streets with a semibluff and have my draw as a backup when I'm called. This goes for all drawing hands... Check/calling is almost never profitable, for you have RIO and are too transparant to get proper implied odds.

About the amount of flops you hit....
- 11% of the time you hit a FD.
- about 10% of the time you hit a straightdraw
- about 5% of the time you hit twopair/trips/straight/flush/fullhouse/quads

So over 1 in 4 flops is one you can continue on. Many of the others you can still take a stab at with a cbet.

Hope this helps. I'd like to hear from other people how they play them as well. I'm quite certain there are so many more subtle things I forgot to mention and a lot of these things I don't even know.

[Ctrl.Dominate]

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I'm curious though as to how generally to play these type of hands in the full ring environment.

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Just do what Brunson says. You also better like to gamble with these hands because if you are waiting to hit 2 pair or better you are going to bleed hard. 10 buy-in downswings are pretty common.

[Peleus]

Yeah I'm thinking about doing what brunson said, but I can see it as a very high variance route. Don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid enough to suggest one of the best players of all time is wrong, and I KNOW his system works for him.

I'm just trying to look into what attributes you need as a successful lag to try and make sure I don't burn through my stack playing aggressive / gambling in the wrong spots.

I can see hand reading being massively important, knowing when you're opponents are on a draw / willing to lay down to shoves / sensing weakness.

I'm just trying to get some tips on successful lag play. I'm trying to understand how you don't get snapped by a tag player selectively raising you with stronger hands. Can you really pick up enough small pots to offset these times?

[mvdgaag]

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I'm curious though as to how generally to play these type of hands in the full ring environment.

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Just do what Brunson says. You also better like to gamble with these hands because if you are waiting to hit 2 pair or better you are going to bleed hard. 10 buy-in downswings are pretty common.

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That's no help to OP. I can recommend never to 'just do' what anyone says, Brunson or not. Instead try to study the game, learn from better players (like Brunson) and try to figure out why and when something is the best play or not.

[Mike Kelley]

Doyle's game seems more TAG to me. Raising, CBetting and taking down small pots so he can play a big one.

[Peleus]

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Doyle's game seems more TAG to me. Raising, CBetting and taking down small pots so he can play a big one.

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Reading Super System (my understanding of it) is LAG, gambling etc. For argument's sake however, do you think that Tight (TAG) player would pick up enough pots to outweigh the cost of getting in as a dog in the big hands.

My understanding of the TAG concept, the answer would be no, but then again I'm the one in here asking questions so I'm open to what everyone says.

[mvdgaag]

You may not understand correctly... A pot can be big without showdown. Think of it like this:

When we are stabbing at small pots with inferior hands and keep winning them, we're making a profit.

Sometimes someone finds a hand good enough to fight back and we have to release the pot unless we have a good hand ourselves or get the odds to get allin from this point.

If you now filter for all the big pots (with or without showdown) we won't show a profit. But your opponents will find themselves with a hand that they'll show down with infrequently enough. So you'll have the best of it in the long run by picking up all those small pots.

[Peleus]

I believe I'm understanding the concept ok.

His principle is although you occasionally get the worst of it with some of the big hands, and you get paid off enough on you're big hands being loose that the situation is break even / maybe a little loosing.

You make you're money by picking up the smaller pots that it gives you you're profit still. Or as Brunson say's it, you pick up enough of the small pots that by the time that you get all in on the big one you're 'free rolling' with your profit yet still have a chance to break him.

To me, this is almost the definition of laggish play, or I think you would need to play that way to enable you to pick up enough small pots to create the 'buffer'. A TAG almost by definition of playing tight most likely couldn't pick up enough pots to create this buffer. Most online games (which I know is different to what Doyle is talking about) are 100bb deep, but the time the pot becomes big, its rare you're opponent will fold, rather then push all in (ala the commitment threshold in professional no limit poker).

If I'm wrong about this please correct me.

My asking though is how to best play this laggish starting hands, such as SC and focusing a lot on draws as Doyle seems to do, do you show aggression from the outset and risk bleeding heavier for each stab and pot you're building, or be passive limping with a lot of hands and playing them fast as you hit hard or get you're flush / straight draws.

[Mike Kelley]

I'm a tag. I play suited connectors.

Lags just call preflop and then get aggressive when they hit.

I don't remember Doyle advocating calling a lot when I read the book but it's been awhile. I seem to remember him saying he put in a raise and then CB.

Suited connectors are not that large of a percentage of hands.