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Without a shadow of a doubt, the most difficult player to combat at the cash game tables or in tournaments is one who plays a loose-aggressive poker strategy and plays it well.

A good loose-aggressive player, or LAG, at your table is a constant thorn in your side. Such players will frequently raise and three-bet preflop, fire more than their fair share of continuation bets, are not afraid to barrel on all three streets, and will pounce on any sign of weakness.

When no-limit hold’em was first becoming mainstream, there were very few people who knew how to play loose-aggressive poker, or at least were willing to do so. I vividly remember reading an older strategy book when I first discovered poker and seeing a section that said to proceed with extreme caution if you had been reraised, even if you held a hand as strong as pocket kings!

This may have been solid advice in the days of passive poker (played both loose and tight), but with so many players adopting a loose-aggressive poker strategy these days, you would be burning money by playing as advised by that particular book.

What is Loose-Aggressive Poker Strategy?

This is a discussion on Ridiculous Line? Within the online poker forums, in the Cash Games section; Hi guys, I must apologize for the lack of exact stack sizes and suites in this hand, my tracking. Kelly Minkin joins this $5-$10 table halfway through the session and the fireworks commence. Ryan, Derek and Henry wager on what the first hand she played wo.

As its name suggests, a loose-aggressive poker strategy sees players loosen up their starting hand requirements (they play quite a lot of hands, often 30% or more that are dealt to them) and they play them aggressively (by coming out betting and raising).

However, not all LAGs are created equal. Bad LAGs are often reckless and will never find a fold, but LAG players who know the nuances of how to play loose-aggressive poker well almost always know where they stand in a hand and will fold to resistance. The former can be frustrating to play against, but the latter can decimate your stack and bankroll if you are not careful.

Loose-Aggressive Poker: Starting Hands

Some LAGs will play literally any two cards dealt to them and rely on their aggression or postflop skill to outmaneuver their opponents once the community cards come into play. If you are looking to start playing with a loose-aggressive poker strategy, it is advised to have some structure to your starting hand requirements.

We mentioned earlier than LAGs play a lot of hands, often 30% or more that they are dealt. Thirty-three percent of hands is a range that would include:

• 22-AA
• 54s+
• 75s++
• K8o+
• K4s+
• A2o+
• A2s+

As you can see, 33% represents a lot of hands, which is where some of the strength of a LAG style stems from — you have a difficult time knowing if such players are strong or weak preflop and whether they are betting with a pair, set, draw, or on a bluff after the flop.

How to Combat a Loose-Aggressive Poker Strategy

You have probably gathered by now that taking on those who know how to play loose-aggressive poker can lead to stressful situations at the tables, but that is not to mean that they are unbeatable. You just need to adapt your own style to combat theirs and use their LAG style against them.

First, when playing against LAG players give more consideration to your own starting hand requirements. Finding yourself out of position against LAG players is a nightmare, but even having position on them while holding a weak hand can be equally as difficult.

A hand such as may be a perfectly legitimate hand to open with from the button, but if there is a good loose-aggressive player in the big blind who has been three-betting you all session, it is probably best not to raise here as a steal because you are likely to be playing in a bloated pot with a weak hand against someone who is not going to let you see a cheap showdown.

Second, when up against a LAG consider slowplaying your strong hands both before and after the flop. Players who are starting to get out of line with how frequently they three-bet you are likely to fold to a four-bet because their reraising range is so wide. This gives you the perfect opportunity to simply call a three-bet with strong pairs such as aces, kings, or queens. While you should not make a habit of this, it is a good play to have in your arsenal when taking on someone playing a solid loose-aggressive poker strategy.

Furthermore, you can extend this slowplaying to postflop, too. LAGs will often make a continuation-bet and at least another bet on the turn (barreling), yet put the brakes on when they face strong resistance. Instead of check-raising or raising a hand as strong as a set, let your loose-aggressive opponents have a little more rope with which to hang themselves.

Also think about using an opponent’s loose-aggressive range of starting hands against them by bluffing them. A couple of paragraphs ago we advocated slowplaying big hands preflop, yet you can also four-bet bluff a habitual three-bettor — especially if you have a tighter image — because they will give you credit for a strong hand and they are more likely to be holding something less than stellar.

Likewise, the occasional check-raise bluff on later streets can work wonders if your loose-aggressive opponent has shown to be capable of giving up on a hand when facing aggression.

Conclusion

Like all moves in poker, do not overuse any of the tips mentioned above. If you do, you will become much easier to read, and someone will eventually call your bluff. Once players with a solid loose-aggressive poker strategy figure out what you are trying to do against them, they will target you and make your time at the tables most uncomfortable.

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Meanwhile, learn how to play a LAG style yourself and you can be the one making things less comfortable for others at the tables.

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Ridiculous Poker Hands Svg

There are many spots these days in six-max no-limit hold'em where online poker players are turning hands far too strong into bluffs.

Most often, players should have played such hands more slowly at an earlier juncture, then from there they get themselves into a 'win the pot at all costs mentality' after having forsaken pot control — or impulse control (it is sometimes hard to distinguish).

Just as a general reminder, you should be making the biggest bluffs with the stone bottom of your range. Therefore, often, when it comes to absolute hand strength, when those bluffs get looked up, they will look potentially ridiculous.

Wow... what a preamble, you say, waiting on the edge of your seat for the example hand that is about to exemplify the concepts discussed above. Wait no more.

Three-Betting Preflop, Then Continuing Small

It started out as just another ordinary hand of 100NL 6-max. ($0.50/$1). They all glide by so casually, each indistinguishable from the next. How then, do players suddenly let loose and lose their mind and with that their money? Who is to say? But this hand began simply enough with the middle position player raising to $3.50 after under the gun folded.

It folded to a loose-aggressive recreational player in the small blind who was on a card rush — the kind of player you think you want to play against until they are putting you all in — who put in a three-bet to $9. The action returned to the initial raiser, playing $125, who just called. Rule out aces and kings.

The flop came . The small blind continuation bet $9 — an interesting size, since one would think most of the small blind's ace-king combinations would give up here, save perhaps three of the 16 that have backdoor flush draws.

In other words, small blind should not be betting that often on this texture, since the player who called the three-bet does not often fold for one bet. When someone has a lower betting frequency, you'll often see a bigger size. But instead he chose $9.

Things Get Interesting

There are some derisive terms sometimes used to describe recreational players going to war. Those terms will not be repeated here.

Suffice to say the turn was the and the small blind decided to bet huge — the exact pot, which was $35 and change after rake.

This bet seems really strangely advised, since the in-position player is more likely to have hands like -suited and -suited as well as blockers to ten-nine like pocket tens and nines. Indeed, one would imagine from a theory perspective, this bet size is a mistake.

If the small blind has pocket aces, he is about to hate life if any more money goes into the pot. Meanwhile if he has ace-king he is probably not getting quite enough folds as he would like. It's a fine line, and it is not that often that just jamming on the 'bet pot' button threads it.

The three-bet caller, the defender, the player on the back of his heels, called this pot-sized wager.

Cue Fireworks

With roughly $105 in the middle the river brought the , making the final board with a turned flush draw that didn't come in. Time for a small digression.

There is an argument to be made in favour of over representing ace-king when bluffing, in so many spots, because ace-king is the hand that all players put their opponents on most often, far more often than they should, when facing aggression.

Whether that argument applies here in this spot is hard to say. In small stakes games, we should focus on bluffing weakness, not strength. It is indisputable that the player here calling the preflop three-bet, the small flop bet, and the big turn bet has a strong range. Calling is stronger than betting, and becomes even stronger the bigger the pot gets. And by the time we reach the river in this exact hand, this is a very big pot.

In terms of bluffing candidates, our small blind kamikaze wants to have a hand that blocks , and therefore ace-king in general, but isn't so strong to have a pair that can win at showdown. is a value hand with a straight, and should check the flop to call more often than bomb away. Meanwhile, it is hard to think of a hand that could even justify three-betting preflop and then would not have a piece of this board with all its Broadway cards.

Cards Up

Have you put together where all this is going? On the river the small blind let loose with for $70, putting his opponent to the test and clearly shouting he was bluffing on the turn for pot with ace-king. I think that the size the small blind bet on the turn is a mistake, because after all, what hand is going to fold for $35 that won't fold for $25? And — to look at the other side of the coin — what hand will call $25 but fold for pot? Recall how so many one-pair hands like -suited, -suited, and picked up straight draws.

With that being said, seems an excellent candidate with which the small blind can empty the clip here. It checks three boxes. First, the river is scary, presenting a clear threat to his opponent's range. Second, it blocks his opponent's easiest calling hands. Third, it has absolutely, positively, no hope of winning when the action goes check-check on the river.

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The recreational player in position had a tough spot to sort out with a hand as absolutely strong as . He of course called in the end. Even so, in this little corner of the internet, the small blind's heroism got recorded by history.

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^{This strategy article by Gareth Chantler for PokerNews is sponsored by partypoker.}

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