Dealing with ultra LAgs.... My take on the situation

So recently I've been coming across alot of LAG's, especially on party. I'm talking about guys with numbers like 75/25/2 or worse at time. I have come up with what I feel is a solid strategy for dealing with players of this type. For starters, they are so prevalent on Party, that I feel even though sitting at any position on a table would be profitable, the additional profit to be gained from having position on these guys is worth not settling for anything but a seat from 1-3 spots to the left.

Once you have position on this player, focus on isolating the player whenever you wish to enter the pot.


[13:30] <XaowX> if they are raising into you with great frequency
[13:30] <XaowX> tighten up your game, NEVER call
[13:30] <XaowX> raise with anything from A-J, KQ, and 88 up
[13:31] <XaowX> you should ALWAYS reraise
[13:31] <XaowX> every time
[13:31] <XaowX> if you get action behind you you almost always know you're going to be in bad shape unless you're holding a premium hand

[13:32] <XaowX> or, if players behind you are really really bad
[13:32] <XaowX> then what they do almost doesn't matter, but it will change your strategy a little
[13:32] <XaowX> when you're heads up in the pot
[13:32] <XaowX> always bet the flop
[13:32] <XaowX> whether you miss or not
[13:33] <XaowX> if they check the turn you can opt to freecard
[13:33] <XaowX> if you don't
[13:33] <XaowX> you check behind and check/call the showdown
[13:35] <XaowX> which does 2 things
[13:35] <XaowX> one
[13:35] <XaowX> it confuses them
[13:35] <XaowX> if they don't have a hand
[13:35] <XaowX> they now wonder if you had been bluffing
[13:35] <XaowX> and if they bet, maybe they can steal the pot
[13:36] <XaowX> or 2, it forces them to lose out on at VERY least, one bet that they should have collected on the turn with their monster hand they were slowplaying

[13:37] <XaowX> its a very very solid strategy imo
[13:37] <XaowX> reason being
[13:38] <XaowX> you are obviously holding stronger cards than these guys 90% of the time
[13:38] <XaowX> so you always want to showdown your hands vs these idiots, you punish them with your made hands and you aim for cheap showdowns with your speculative ones.

This is a work in progress of course and while some of this is common sense, I thought maybe this could help people when they come up against these knuckleheads and aren't sure what their line should be.

I just posted in the "where do you play" thread how I thought Party was too aggressive. Can I win money there? Yes, but the play is so LAGgy it forces me tighter (as you describe above) which isn't what I enjoy. I like winning money, but I want to enjoy playing and Party takes the fun out of it for me. I'd rather just play at Absolute or Pokerroom which have games more to my liking and I can still pick up a few bucks.

this is limit i presume?

i say 2 things:
1. you should rarely be floating anyway... the fact that he's a lag just means you open up your 3-betting range.
2. be prepared to make some thinner value/protection bets on the turn that you might not make against a tighter player... AK on a 9842 board, 99 on a Q52J board, etc. but if he starts to figure this out he'll start opening up his turn check/raising range and maybe c/r with 87 on the first hand or Q7 on the second hand. this is ok, since you figure to have TT+ on the first hand a lot or KQ+ on the second hand a lot.

what it means is you should just balance your bets and your checks in these situations... in some sense you just make thin value bets against him to encourage him to play back at you when you have a monster, and you might be betting the best hand anyway. but you shouldn't always make these questionable value-bet/semibluffs as it allows him to play more perfectly in check/raising a very wide range of hands.

I just posted in the "where do you play" thread how I thought Party was too aggressive. Can I win money there? Yes, but the play is so LAGgy it forces me tighter (as you describe above) which isn't what I enjoy. I like winning money, but I want to enjoy playing and Party takes the fun out of it for me. I'd rather just play at Absolute or Pokerroom which have games more to my liking and I can still pick up a few bucks.


I play at all three sites and I can say that Absolute and Pokerroom are fairly similar. I really enjoy my play at Absolute more than Party, but I would think my long term expectation at party will be higher with these people giving up waaaay to many easy chips. I don't have a large enough sample at Party for it to matter yet, but I can say with almost certainty that I believe my stats are going to look very very different from what they are at Absolute, or pokerroom.

this is limit i presume?

Indeed.


1. you should rarely be floating anyway... the fact that he's a lag just means you open up your 3-betting range.
From late position you can open up significantly, however make sure not to open up from early position.

2. be prepared to make some thinner value/protection bets on the turn that you might not make against a tighter player... AK on a 9842 board, 99 on a Q52J board, etc. but if he starts to figure this out he'll start opening up his turn check/raising range and maybe c/r with 87 on the first hand or Q7 on the second hand. this is ok, since you figure to have TT+ on the first hand a lot or KQ+ on the second hand a lot.
Value betting I'm all for. I'm pushing my marginally strong hands against these guys much more than a normal player. However make no mistake, these are value bets and not protection bets. When you bet into these guys with marginal hands you are at times playing into their game as they are often able to reraise you with absolutely nothing, and make you feel sick about your initial bet that you must either call down with or fold. I by nature am a tight player so I am more apt to call his bets than add my own with a hand like mid pair, or tptk with a very ugly board. Alot of these aggressive players have no problem 3betting the river without a card in their hand, which is why it can be so tough to value bet them.

What it means is you should just balance your bets and your checks in these situations... in some sense you just make thin value bets against him to encourage him to play back at you when you have a monster, and you might be betting the best hand anyway. but you shouldn't always make these questionable value-bet/semibluffs as it allows him to play more perfectly in check/raising a very wide range of hands.