So I am lying next to the pool, drinking my iced coffee and relaxing. This is really the best preparation for the Sunday major tournaments. I was trying to come up with the subject for my next article, which is always the hardest part for me. I decided to give my opinion on what is the winning style in poker and attempt to help everyone (as always including myself) to look over the stereotypes we have ourselves created. <READMORE>

LAGgy or TAGgy? How should I play??

Many people argue that to beat the lower to middle levels you have to develop a good Tight Aggressive game while you need to be very Lose Aggressive to beat the highest limits. While the above statement has a lot of truth in it, it can be so misleading that by itself it can destroy the game of a very solid player. I myself am a very aggressive player overall but that’s not always the best strategy.

I’ll give a few examples here to illustrate my point.

A few weeks back, in the stars 530$ Million, I played a significant amount of time on the same table with stinger, while we both had big stacks. Unluckily for him, I was seated to his left. Now I haven’t played that much with stinger, but we were both aware of the other’s reputation. I have to say that I was very impressed with his game. Even with his big stack he was playing a very solid game and at some point I asked him why and he said exactly “well there is a certain player on my left who wont let me LAG it up”. Hmm… analyzing his game afterwards, that was very wise of him. Even though I’d prefer to stay out of his way, I repopped him three times with air when I felt he was just trying to steal. Two of those times I was successful. I made those raises not just for the chips, but also to keep him in line.

So stinger swallowed his ego and realized the table dynamics and opted for the optimal strategy, which was to raise with hands he wanted to play, and not just to steal the blinds.

Later in the same tournament I had about a 90k stack, stinger 50ish I think, and they brought a monkey (Stars image) three to my left. I was running the table so nicely at the time, so that was bad for me but I opted to try and maintain my aggression anyway. Sure enough, the monkey called pre flop and took away my raises twice in a rotation and basically put me back in order. I then opted for the correct play myself and tightened up my range. Just because I love being the table captain doesn’t mean I will put myself in disadvantageous situations when I don’t have to.

Another great example was WCOOP Event #2. For the last six hours, I had Rambo two to my left. Rambo was a very LAGgy player and I had to constantly change gears to face him. He had position the whole way so that was extremely tough. Down to two tables I did a lot of raising and with 12 players left Rambo (and Lunoid) switched gears and started repoping me at will. Well, two or three unsuccessful steal attempts should be enough of a signal to anyone to put the breaks on. So how did I adjust? At the final table I never raised in position without a semi-legitimate hand. I made my rare steal attempts from out of position just because I knew that the two players on my left would resist my aggression.

Some of the other players at the table did not know me and after playing for a while with them at the final table they probably thought I was a tight player, so I tried to resteal from those that had been a bit overaggressive in position. Because of the table dynamics I tightened up a lot in my opening hand but then I loosened up a lot for my reraising requirements.

I’ve mentioned the term table dynamics a lot, but what does that really include?

Table dynamics are affected by:
· Your chip stack in relation to the blinds/antes (M)
· The chip stack of your opponents
· Your position in relation to your opponents chip stacks
· The style and the ability of your opponents
· Your position in relation to the style and ability of your opponents.

The goal of this article is not to write a guide of the form:

If LAG player on left = tighten up
If BAD player on right = loosen up

These rules have to be developed by each individual. Poker is a game of constant subjective educated guesses and not of hard programming rules. There is no single optimal strategy to beat the highest stakes MTT. To beat them you have to be able to adjust your game and to switch gears as necessary according to table dynamics. The ability to recognize changes in table dynamics paired with the ability to switch gears will help you develop the optimal strategy and style. Always be aware of the image your opponents have of you and If they are players who will adjust accordingly (i.e. if they think you are overaggressive, they will push any two on top of your button raise) then try to always be one step ahead of them. If you switch gears just one pot before they expect you to, you will find many profitable opportunities.</READMORE>