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How to stay aggressive and remain profitable

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  1. elendil elendil is offline

    Sydney
    Australia

    Posts: 2,758
    Joined: Jun 07

    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 7:26am)

    Been tring to add a little more aggression to my game and it just not working. People seem to call me down so light(and are right OBV), I think i'm taking pretty strong lines, raise flop, raise turn(leaving fold equity) shoving river in position etc, I'm getting called by alot of opponents with 2nd, 3rd pair etc. Its not like I'm playing super LAG(that would be a disaster) just tring to mix it up a little more. Also pre flop I'm trying to add a few more light 3 bets and alot of the time I get flatted and then they donk on flop. I'm starting to pull my hair out over how many times I'm getting pwned.
    My question is how you LAGtards get away with it, do you aim up certain type villians, take certain lines, interpret weakness and pounce, put people on certain hands and just raise hoping they'll fold. I think I'm definitly missing something.
  2. supra1988t supra1988t is offline

    Cary, IL
    United States

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 7:39am) in reply to elendil

    Move up in stakes where people respect your raises.
    649 
  3. darkhawk-200 darkhawk-200 is offline

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 7:42am) in reply to supra1988t

    you are probably doing it in the wrong spots. Really wouldn't bother playing lag in low stakes unless you know what u r doing and why you are doing it.
     1
  4. nosucout325 nosucout325 is offline

    Saint Louis, MO
    United States

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 9:00am) in reply to darkhawk-200

    yeah dark hawk hit it on the head, low stakes poker should be played by the book, until blinds get high and antes kick in...until the money bubble and final table bubble approaches, then u can do more bluffing..i would never bluff shove in low stakes!!!
  5. tb4rizzl tb4rizzl is offline

    United States

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 9:10am) in reply to nosucout325

    get deep by playing abc, win by out playing and bluffing at the very end. ez game theyl be scared when u get to the end but not any other time.
  6. TheBulldog3 TheBulldog3 is offline

    Bowie, MD
    United States

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 9:56am) in reply to darkhawk-200

     
    Originally Posted by darkhawk-200 View Post

    you are probably doing it in the wrong spots. Really wouldn't bother playing lag in low stakes unless you know what u r doing and why you are doing it.

    Agree with this. From my own experience I would say not to play LAG just for the sake of it. My natural style has always been very aggressive and I would get in a lot of trouble just playing aggro for the sake of playing aggro. It wasn't until recently that I started to pay more attention to the spots I picked and target specific players and have a reason for doing everything, instead of just spewing alot of chips in random spots and hoping for the best.

    Low stakes is definitely beatable without forcing yourself to play out of your comfort zone, but if you are going to try and open your game up a little bit I would recommend making sure to pay attention to the tendencies of your opponents, and also make sure youre comfortable interpreting different board textures and I think your bet sizing becomes more important since you are splashing around in more pots.
  7. Passiveplay Passiveplay is offline

    Erlanger, KY
    United States

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 1:04pm) in reply to TheBulldog3

    I like to keep the pot small with smaller preflop raises and smaller continuation bets to allow more room to maneuver. You have to have a good grasp of flop textures, and scare cards so you can find situations to credibly rep scare cards. Also learning how to manipulate the pot size is key. I think most players think that the best way to pot control is to check call, I disagree I like to pot control by betting.
    Edited By: Passiveplay Mar 20th, 2011 at 01:05 PM
     
  8. elendil elendil is offline

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 3:33pm) in reply to Passiveplay

    Cheers for the replies people. Think I got to forget playing "LAG" and just find more spots to be agro in.
    Thread Starter
  9. BlindPyro BlindPyro is offline microlifer

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 5:16pm) in reply to elendil

    I think alot of ppl forget that the although the opposite of LAG is TAG it's the AG that's important. Aggression is rewarded either way but the difference between the two is one takes every spot available while the other looks for certain types of spots/opponents. Nothing wrong with a solid TAG game (especially at low stakes) as long as you have a move or four up your sleeve for when you see an opening. Not everyone can 5b 57s profitably.
  10. pjformella pjformella is offline

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 6:17pm) in reply to Passiveplay

     
    Originally Posted by Passiveplay View Post

    I like to keep the pot small with smaller preflop raises and smaller continuation bets to allow more room to maneuver. You have to have a good grasp of flop textures, and scare cards so you can find situations to credibly rep scare cards. Also learning how to manipulate the pot size is key. I think most players think that the best way to pot control is to check call, I disagree I like to pot control by betting.

    Can you elaborate on how you use betting for pot control? Not being a douche if it sounds like it, just never heard pot control used in this way before.
     
  11. Gags30 Gags30 is offline

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 6:22pm) in reply to pjformella

    stop trying to make people fold in micro stakes...wait for a hand
    170 2 

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  12. Passiveplay Passiveplay is offline

    Erlanger, KY
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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 7:02pm) in reply to pjformella

    One of the most basic aspects of poker is raising pre flop and continuation betting. I think the basic rule of thumb would be something like cbet your strong hands, your air, and check call with some medium strength hands . The problem I have with checking my medium strength hands is you give up the initiative in the hand, you lose a lot of your ability to control the pot size and it's much harder to be creative on the turn. I'll use this example to try and explain what I am talking about, I stuggle to explain some concepts so hopefully people won't be able to poke holes in what I am saying.

    You raise pf with 9s7s to 125 at 25/50 the button calls blinds fold

    the flop comes Td7h4s (325 pot)

    A typical line of thinking would be I have a medium strength hand I probably won't get called by worse so I will check to let them bluff. Against some opponents this line would be good, but it sets you up to have to guess from here on out on what to do. What do you do when the turn is an A and you check he bets? You are in a tough spot, he could have an A and just took a shot on the flop because you checked to him.

    I like to bet around 175 here. The benefits of betting are it's a small enough bet you will still get value from worse hands, a slightly better hand will probably just call which isn't bad. But most importantly it makes your opponents guess on the turn. So when the turn card comes an a scare card you can fire again and vary your sizing based on what you are trying to get your opponent to do, or if it comes a spade you can fire again as a semibluff. You also set yourself up for situations where you can hit a turn card or river card that your opponent wouldn't think helped you such as a 7 and you can manipulate the pot from there.

    Think of how Durrr plays on HSP because he is a master when it comes to this. Hopefully this gives you something to think about.
     
  13. pjformella pjformella is offline

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 7:42pm) in reply to Passiveplay

    Ah ok I was just thinking about the term pot control in its most conventional sense, which I think is just "keeping the pot at a manageable size by check calling rather than bet not knowing what to do if you get raised." I would say what you are talking about is a more literal application of pot control, because rather than worry about size, you are more so talking about maintaining the initiative in the betting. I think they are two pretty different things, but both could be called pot control.
    Edited By: pjformella Mar 20th, 2011 at 07:42 PM
    Reason: forgot to delete my first response
     
  14. Passiveplay Passiveplay is offline

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    Mar 20th, 2011 (3/20/2011 7:48pm) in reply to pjformella

    That is kind of what I mean, when you bet you can set the price, and you have more tools to work with. In low/med stakes I don't think you get raised enough on the flop to be worried about it.
     
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