How to get to lagville?

Yep, you've guessed it, i play a tag game, understand it, like it, pretty decent at it, however I am fed up of flopping the nuts and winning small pots when some lag flops 2 pair and goes on to win a mahooosive pot as his table image warrants a call from some fish holding TPTK who's prepared to reraise and get called.

So I am on a journey from tagville to lagville, can someone point me in the right direction?

Looking for some input advice from anyone who has gone from a solid tag game and never wanted to playing lag, to now living and dying by the lag sword.

you're going to abandon an overall winning strategy of playing fewer pots with better hands because lags flop 2 pair and win big pots?

what stakes?

first crush 100NL as a tag, and then try loosening up?

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

you're going to abandon an overall winning strategy of playing fewer pots with better hands because lags flop 2 pair and win big pots?

Yep.

Originally Posted by iopq

first crush 100NL as a tag, and then try loosening up?

who says i'm not crushing this already?

With hindsight maybe shouldn't have posted this within the beginners section!

Originally Posted by 3betsLighter

who says i'm not crushing this already?

Ummm. You did.
On Nov 1st from your 6-max question:

Originally Posted by 3betsLighter

I am finding the play pretty erratic in comparison to playing 6 max NL .10/.25 on sites like Party Poker, Poker Stars or Full Tilt.

And now are you saying that in 6 days you've already moved up to $100NL and are crushing it already? Care to share a graph?

Don't let your ego and dreams of BIG $$$ cloud your judgement. You seem to be getting way ahead of yourself here, and are looking at a small sample of hands to try and shape your future. If you are playing solidly right now, and have the stats/#-of-hands to prove it, I'll eat my words. But it really sounds like you are still learning this game and don't have enough experience to profitably start introducing an "advanced" LAGG play style.

Originally Posted by 3betsLighter

Originally Posted by iopq

first crush 100NL as a tag, and then try loosening up?

who says i'm not crushing this already?

The fact that you're asking the original question and this question as well are both really telling.

Just try it at a lower level.

I think most of you guys beat the micro levels when it was still a loose game. You can pick up so many blinds, and so many pots with c-bets, it's ridiculous. Once you have shown a lot of aggression, some players will start playing back at you - at least the ones that are not 12-tabling - and will do so very badly.

Just understand when it's right to play like a monkey on crack, and when it isn't. Realize when to give up, and when to lay down a good hand when TAGfish finally decides to come along. Don't expect most players to start playing back. They stick to their tournament hand selection and are happy to make 1bb/100 because they don't want to waste any time thinking about a counter strategy... after all: TAG is da way to go.

Folding a good hand when facing aggression is generally the right play against mostly TAG opponents, but it's not the right strategy against a LAGG player. Neither is overshoving - probably the most common and most 'lol' thing they'll do. You want players to make as many bad decisions as possible, so I think LAGG is the way to go if you are able to adjust quickly to different situations. If the table loosens up, you need to be able to adjust, or you're busto.
Start sitting down at FR tables with only 3-or 4 players. - Another thing players are very bad at is adjusting their hand selection to odd-handed games.
I think it's much better to figure these things out when you're still at a low level. Learn to maximize by exploiting other players tendencies.

Hint: PL 5-draw. A spewmonkeys wet dream.
If you want to play TAG micro-stakes, play PLO8.

i often feel like original poster. I just got felted in a ring game by some lagg. it upsets me because it seems like i make the good folds time and again, but by some miracle (for him) when I get my big hand, he has a slightly better one. Time and again. I've read the term "set up" used alot here and it often seems like it. Sometimes it seems like lagg is the way to go.

I'm a winning player (not enough to live on, micro stakes) but that gets so annoying.

Thank (poker) god for those single table double or nothing sng on pokerstars. i use that to pad my roll. even when i run bad. that's where tag rules.

Originally Posted by 3betsLighter

With hindsight maybe shouldn't have posted this within the beginners section!

where would you like it moved to?

lagging it at microstakes 10c and smaller its absurd to beat it. Sensible ABC should be enough. Any player with over 10% pfr at that level is usually bad because if they were any good they would be moving up pretty quick.

Someone else (who knows what they are talking about) said the best low stakes players are 10/8 or something around that. Doesnt sound lag to me.

Well I recently played a few thousand hands at 5nl and 10nl. I was working on some heavy multi-tabling. I was pIaying 12 tables, ran at 25 bb/100 playing 30/26...

Originally Posted by oskar

Just try it at a lower level.

I think most of you guys beat the micro levels when it was still a loose game. You can pick up so many blinds, and so many pots with c-bets, it's ridiculous. Once you have shown a lot of aggression, some players will start playing back at you - at least the ones that are not 12-tabling - and will do so very badly.

Just understand when it's right to play like a monkey on crack, and when it isn't. Realize when to give up, and when to lay down a good hand when TAGfish finally decides to come along. Don't expect most players to start playing back. They stick to their tournament hand selection and are happy to make 1bb/100 because they don't want to waste any time thinking about a counter strategy... after all: TAG is da way to go.

Folding a good hand when facing aggression is generally the right play against mostly TAG opponents, but it's not the right strategy against a LAGG player. Neither is overshoving - probably the most common and most 'lol' thing they'll do. You want players to make as many bad decisions as possible, so I think LAGG is the way to go if you are able to adjust quickly to different situations. If the table loosens up, you need to be able to adjust, or you're busto.
Start sitting down at FR tables with only 3-or 4 players. - Another thing players are very bad at is adjusting their hand selection to odd-handed games.
I think it's much better to figure these things out when you're still at a low level. Learn to maximize by exploiting other players tendencies.

Hint: PL 5-draw. A spewmonkeys wet dream.
If you want to play TAG micro-stakes, play PLO8.

Hint: it is still a loose game. Just because the leak is not that apparent, doesn't mean your fold equity justifies monkeying around. You WILL have a negative won without showdown line. I GUARANTEE IT.

Gotta hate those rock gardens now-a-days, amirite?

But in all seriousness, don't worry whether you are classified as a lagg/tagg/fagg, whatever. Just learn to identify +ev spots and push those spots.

Well, whatever.
LAGG was the only way for me to get out any winrate at all at Party Poker. It's what got me up to 25NL time and time again - but I didn't realize when to stop it.

There's nothing wrong with trying something to see if it works. That's why I suggested he should try it at a lower level.

I never made a decision to play like that. The first time I started playing online I was amazed how much folding was going on , coming from a home game. The first 0-100 bucks I made, and this is no joke was by counting out how often they would fold if I raise, find out what was the minimum they would fold to was, and seeing how much money I made at average by just raising XX in what position. If they would call I did the same thing on the flop, and only if they called there, I started to look at my hand.
Of course this has changed a lot, and there is much more to it.
Still, if I can archive 0EV in a hand by open-raising/stealing, I'd rather do that than archive 0EV by folding.
I'm not saying it's the best was, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it's worth a try and it can work.

If you beat the micros 2+ years ago - let alone before the gambling bill. -You can't tell me that it's the same game.

Just keep adding hands and experiment with playing out and playing back at spots where you otherwise would have folded. Particularly when you have a read that your opponent is terrible or opening too light.

I never said "I'm going to play LAgg". I just kept finding more spots to gamble or attack weakness. Then one day I saw that I was running 30/20, reviewed a bunch of spots and was pretty ok with that.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Just keep adding hands and experiment with playing out and playing back at spots where you otherwise would have folded. Particularly when you have a read that your opponent is terrible or opening too light.

I never said "I'm going to play LAgg". I just kept finding more spots to gamble or attack weakness. Then one day I saw that I was running 30/20, reviewed a bunch of spots and was pretty ok with that.

This ^^^

My personal opinion without reading all the replies. Winning as a LAG is harder than winning as a TAG because you're playing more weak hands and so need to be better at reading hands. This means to be a good lag, you need to be really good at poker.

If you're really good at poker, you probably:

a) arent playing micros
b) understand how to do it anyway.

That said, reading the quote from Fnord sounds pretty right, just be careful you dont blow your roll by jumping in over your head with this stuff.

Also, playing like I do at most 6 max games is pretty exploitable. It's just that very few people I play with are capable of exploiting me, I keep a short list of those who do and adjust.