Combatting a LAGG

[DoanDiggy]

The thing I seem to be having the most trouble with is laggy opponents. When I say laggy, I mean LAGGY. Just a couple days ago, I was playing with a 74/45 or so. More typical is someone who is running like 50/35 at 6max or 40/25ish at full ring.

I find myself trying to take advantage of the tiniest edges, and it ends up costing me a lot of chips. One example is when I am quite sure that I am way ahead of my opponent's range. Often this is a hand like middle pair good kicker or top pair no kicker, sometimes (on certain boards, given certain action) it's even a strong ace. The problem seems to come mostly when I'm out of position: I don't want to bet and get raised off my hand, and I don't want to check/raise since that only gets called when I am beat. So end up check/calling, knowing I'm doing great against villain's range, and inevitably I get sucked out on by the river, usually on the river. With me having no idea what my opponent is holding and having the mindset that I'm likely ahead, it's really difficult to know if the river card has helped.

Obviously the solution is to play stronger hands where I'm more comfortable betting or raising for value, or really strong hands where I am quite happy to call down and let him bluff. I feel like if we restrict ourselves to only the strongest hands, though, we're missing a lot of value.

Other than that, I find myself having the most trouble with 3betting. I really want to 3bet for value more, especially when villain is raising my blinds, but what happens when they call with like 65% of their 35% raising range? It really sucks to be holding a hand like AJ when it misses, knowing that we're often still ahead of his range on a lot of boards. If we raise his inevitable bet, he's only calling us when he's ahead. If we call, we have no idea when our AJ high is no longer good. Even when we hit our A and put in a value reraise, it's hard telling whether he's bluffing or has us beat when he 3bets us.

So a few questions:

What kind of hands should we be 3betting in position?

What kind of hands should we be 3betting out of position?

What kind of hands should we call with in position?

What kind of hands should we call with out of position?

How are these answers affected when one or both of us is in the blinds?

Are you trying to get to showdown against his crap hands, or just raise and take down the pot before that?

Against someone who's calling our 3bets more than half the time, it seems like we should be 3betting any hand that's in the top 50% of his raising range, but this can become difficult when the hand is hard to play postflop: e.g. middle pairs, unsuited (or suited when the flush draw doesn't hit) broadways and big aces, etc. I'm guessing it never makes sense to 3bet-bluff.

As for calling, it seems like suited connected cards can go up in value because there are a lot of times we can reraise with a solid draw and take down his bluffs. Any big aces or 99+ hands seem like good hands to have since they have great showdown value. It's just that I seem to get into trouble whenever I make a concerted effort to get to showdown against these opponents.

So, sorry for the long post, but does anyone have any sound advice for me? I feel like with the right plan, I should be able to really exploit these types of players and make a lot of money off them, but right now I definitely don't have that plan in place. I'm sure normal TAGG style takes care of this somewhat, but it just seems so silly to be folding a hand like ATo when he's raising my big blind from the CO and I know I'm WAY ahead of his range.


One thing I like about playing a little crazier (trying to take advantage of the thinnest edges) against LAGGs is that the other players at the table will start to give you less credit, even though you're still playing pretty TAGG and straightforward against them. This means that even if we can do no better than break even against the LAGG, altering our style against him can turn out to be +EV overall since our big hands get more action from the rest of the table. Is this an effect that we should consider when deciding whether or not to play back at the LAGG?

This leads me to one more idea.... What if you had a friend that you made a concerted effort to LAGG it up with? You could get on a couple tables together and go a little nuts against each other and then play straightforward against everyone else and profit. Has anyone here done something like that?

[XTR1000]

What kind of hands should we be 3betting in position?

What kind of hands should we be 3betting out of position?

What kind of hands should we call with in position?

What kind of hands should we call with out of position?

How are these answers affected when one or both of us is in the blinds?

Are you trying to get to showdown against his crap hands, or just raise and take down the pot before that?

Overall I find it hard to fight fire with fire. In general you want to avoid playing OOP against those guys. Since their ranges are so wide they can basically represent almost any board and as long as we lack solid postflop reads we´ll get position owned all the time.

on #1 - Largely depends on how the guy responds to 3bets in position. If he´s calling a lot widen your value range and don´t bluff him. Something around {99+/AJs+/AQo+} should make you a lot of money. If he´s playing 4b or fold you´d rather be keeping your value range a bit tighter and therefore throw in some 57s type hands. Also, dont waste the value of hands like KJo by 3betting them.

on #2 - Few, no matter what.

on #3 - A lot. Especially big cards that are likely dominating his wide and weak range. KJo, KTs, A9+, QJ and so on.

on #4 - Few. See above.

on #5 - Being in the blind or not doesnt directly affect my ranges. However, if I´m the blind and he´s the button I´ll adjust accordingly to his widened ranges.

on #6 - No general statement possible. Usually I´ll try to not waste my sd value, I dont see a point in betting like 3rd pr to the board, just for the sake of "taking it down".

[kb coolman]

Other than that, I find myself having the most trouble with 3betting. I really want to 3bet for value more, especially when villain is raising my blinds, but what happens when they call with like 65% of their 35% raising range? It really sucks to be holding a hand like AJ when it misses, knowing that we're often still ahead of his range on a lot of boards. If we raise his inevitable bet, he's only calling us when he's ahead. If we call, we have no idea when our AJ high is no longer good. Even when we hit our A and put in a value reraise, it's hard telling whether he's bluffing or has us beat when he 3bets us.

Um, were you playing at the same table with me on stars last night?

Wow. I was just about to post on this EXACT SAME topic. Last night I was sitting right of not one, but TWO 65/37 types in FR. I ended up flustered. When I went back and reviewed the session, I realized I should have left the table, because I only had position on them from the button.

[oskar]

If his tendency is to put in all of his chips with most hands, you don't want to continue after the flop with hands that you are not willing to stack off with.
If you got the option: reseat to his left.
Don't go after him specifically. Don't call him down with 3rd pair or A high. Wait for a hand and take his stack.
If you're playing 10NL or higher, throw in a little session at 2NL, pick a nitty table and play über-lagg for a while just to try to understand what a LAGG player wants you to do. Remember: 40% of the time he will catch a pair. Just because he's playing every hand doesn't mean he never has anything.

[DoanDiggy]

I have played LAGG in the past. Personally, I would bet/raise with all kinds of weird hands. My favorite are hands where I have like a gutshot with a runner-runner flush draw. A decent amount of the time you pick up a flush draw or open-ender on the turn and can either check behind or 2-barrel (if it's a scare card to the board). When the draw comes in, bingo! Time to make bank.

So what did I hate when I was playing laggy? I hated big pots. I didn't like being raised off my marginal draws. I didn't like getting river folds after hitting my crazy draws, because that meant I got most of my money in bad.

So I guess that pretty much answers my own questions. Raise or reraise preflop so that the lagg has to pay more to play his marginal hands and so that it's easier to get all the chips in with a big hand. Don't go for slim value postflop... if you think you have the best hand, you should be raising and taking it down right there. Don't call on the river without a strong hand. Just because you're thinking "the only hand I'm worried about here is 85, and there's no way that hand should be in the pot given the action so far," that doesn't mean it's not a possibility.

I don't know what made me fail to consider what it was like from the other side. I absolutely loved it when people would just call my small raises on the flop and then check the turn, because then I was able to play on my own terms. So check/calling with a decently strong hand is about the worst thing you can do against a LAGG. Raise it up and punish him. There are no implied odds and not much slim value against a LAGG, so with strong-but-vulnerable hands, bet hard, and only consider slowplaying your biggest, most invulnerable hands (e.g. top 2 pair or sets on dry boards).

[Erpel]

What we're talking about here isn't just LAG though - it's maniac really. I've read some articles from people saying that they like having a maniac on their left, because it gives them relative position in the hand. When the action comes around to them on any street with a hand they want to play they can just basically do a 'pass' - limp or check. Let the maniac do his thing and then when the action comes around to you a second time you can decide how best to play. It's like having the button on every hand, and most things you do close the action on that street.

That said, certainly - the things that annoy you the most when you play LAG - do them against them.

[Micro2Macro]

What we're talking about here isn't just LAG though - it's maniac really. I've read some articles from people saying that they like having a maniac on their left, because it gives them relative position in the hand. When the action comes around to them on any street with a hand they want to play they can just basically do a 'pass' - limp or check. Let the maniac do his thing and then when the action comes around to you a second time you can decide how best to play. It's like having the button on every hand, and most things you do close the action on that street.

That said, certainly - the things that annoy you the most when you play LAG - do them against them.

This. That's not a LAG you're dealing with, he is a maniac. Erpel's post is really good, it explains how you can exlpoit his play without having position.

I myself find it easier to play these guys oop. Sounds odd but I suppose it is easier to trap, and relative position as described by the other post is key. You can also be sure you'll have him raising too much, so you can set yourself up for a limp-re raise preflop to isolate him after everyone has called his raise. In position make your 3-bets alot bigger because everyone will want to get in a pot with him.

[littleogre]

beat you chest and be more laggy then he is