TAG, oh how Ive missed you

Like most beginners, I started off attempting a tight aggressive style. After a long while of playing tight, I started to become frustrated seeing people win monster pots with terrible starting hands, loose players that seemed to get lucky too frequently. I would play few hands, get married too much, etc. and just watch the J-8o raiser + the rest of his kind build elaborate palaces with their chip stacks. I was tired of being outplayed by the "stupid". So i tried to play loose as well, gettin in as many cheap flops as possible so i can try to outplay.

Anyway back to the point- LAG holdem teaches u many things, mainly about how much trouble mid pairs on bad kickers get u in. Tight playis easier IMO.

I agree wholeheartedly. I played a LAG game for quite a while and broke even for quite some time. Sat back down one day and read an article on avoiding bad beats, the idea was to play an extremely tight style, and when you do play put more into the pot. When applying this to my game I found myself folding mediocre hands more often and re-raising my premium hands, and when there were limpers I started raising 4x + 1x for every limper, which I never did before.

The results have been fantastic, isolating the poor players who call the massive raises with poor hands makes my life so much easier, not having to worry about players behind me and only the single, generally fishy opponent makes c-bet +++EV and when we both hit top pair, since I generally have TK I can usually build a pot and not be too scared of my opponent having a monster.

Of course it's all situational, but by isolating single opponents with great hands it makes post flop play much easier, and more profitable imo.

Yeah i feel tag poker is more formulaic (sic?), much less tough decisions to be made RELATIVE to lag poker. It takes a lot of skill to be a good lag.

good taggs are simply laggs who play conservatively out of position.

You went to the dark side, and didn't want to pay the price of learning black magic. What I mean to say is everyone who ventures into lagg gets owned at first. Maybe it scared you, but it's just the way it is. I lost $$$ learning lagg. Eventually I started raking explosively huge pots, making sick laydowns, and executing daring all in bluffs.

I was wrong A LOT, when I first started doing it. I was really bad at it.

I think playing extremely tight and not getting action on your preflop raises is extremely frustrating. Overbetting pre-flop will do just that. Win small pots, loose big ones. People will just spot you out and avoid playing with you; especially when moving up in limits. I mean thats what HUDs are for no?
Like it was said before, good lags play Tag OOP.

I don't know how much I agree with lag is tag OOP. I think there are a host of differences.

Originally Posted by Rondavu

I don't know how much I agree with lag is tag OOP. I think there are a host of differences.

good tags and good lags play big pots nearly identically, except that lags use overbets more (with their image, overbets get paid off more)

I think a good tag's raising range on the button preflop is roughly the same as a lag's.

I think he said that TAG is LAG oop, not vice versa.

Dubrod
There is no such thing as an overbet preflop. (Unless it is an overbet )

What im trying to say that if you pot it whenecer you raise, and raise whenever you play (with some exceptions) youll get a lot of action. I play 23/11 poker and i have the worst rep in the world. Because i raise almost every button, reraise with non-premium cards, and semibluff my draws often in position. So nobody knows me as the guy who sees one flop every orbit. They know me as the guy who bluffed them with a flush draw and who steals their blinds all of the time.

BUT

Anybody who isnt potting it preflop i can instantly identify as a poor player IMO. Who cares if your premium hands dont get action. As someones signature is (rondavu?) i only care about my cards when i have to use them

I've lost more money trying to play LAG than I care to count. But than again that was before I found this wonderful site and had a proper bankroll.
At the stakes I play at (25nl on Party Poker) I get plenty of action anyways. And if the action tightens down on a particular table I just raise every hand until everybody gets crazy! Than watch my pocket cowboys get paid off!