Lagging - Page 2

On January 09 2009 21:44 FrEaK[S.sIR] wrote: That seems like a really, really bad way to go about it. Should just work on your mental game. Was always my biggest leak.

it's easily my biggest leak too...i just have no real way to work on it right now w/ school and all occupying time sooooo i am just gonna avoid tilt situtations til summer when i can work things out better

I think the idea that playing LAG increases variance significantly is wrong.

I think if you are playing high variance, you're doing it wrong.

being LAG=pushing more and applying greater pressure more often in marginal situations where you are only going to be a slight favorite which by nature increases variance at least in showdown winnings...at least that's what i've always been told and thought

You can push plenty and apply lots of pressure in marginal situations playing TAG or LAG. Your VPIP doesn't define your post flop tendencies. You shouldn't feel obligated to make certain plays because you're a LAG. That's the biggest leak most people attempting to play LAG make. It's really, really exploitable. Your plays are defined by what your opponents are doing long before you even need to consider what you're doing. The advantage of playing LAG is that if you have a good grasp of what other people are doing you are given more opportunities to take advantage of those things since you are playing more hands.

Playing LAG isn't a reason to spew, it's a reason to play smart and exploit people. If you want to push more and apply lots of pressure on me, I will thrash you. I used to think like you. I have since grown and learned to let my opponents define my moves, not define my own moves because I'm so "loose and aggressive"..

freak anychance I can sweat u sometime? I really wanna see how you play w/o sitting down on tables w/ u...plus it'd probably be really educational for me cuz I remember u (when not tilted) were a table steamroller. Just PM sometime if i can.

lol I came online today to see that this blog post had a shit storm of comments and I was like "WTF it wasn't a very good post". ^^

Freak you like my spewy shove with A4s yesterday? blah!

Freak is right though - you don't have to be super crazy aggro post just cause you're lag pre. That's the real trick. It's hard to avoid spewing though cause you have to be very smart in your value lines. Since you're in the pot with worse hands so often you have to be very good at figuring out your opponents range. So far my biggest problem has been that I'm value owning myself too often, plus I keep seeing disgusting rivers and calling when I'm almost certainly beat but they give me like 4 to 1.

Freak do you have teamviewer / skype?

Yes, I do have those.

And I didn't like your push much. The range that I 4bet and fold isn't particularly big and consists of a lot of Ax hands due to it being difficult to get a flop where you have reasonable equity while still having decent PF equity. You've seen me do this a few times so I was surprised to see A5. I think AT is probably the worst you should be doing it with as it dominates a reasonable amount of the hands I might 4bet from the cut off. I also wouldn't reshove hands KQ- simply because a lot of my 4betting range consists of Ax hands that you're losing to. Something like 88+,AT+ might be a good 5bet shoving range.

But I also figured you'd be 5betting me semi light due to history, hence the 4bet to begin with.



Uh..I mean. Yeh, your shove pwned.

hahah yeah I was slightly tilty at that time and I just went "ah LPer META GAME MUST SHOVE!"

As soon as I did it I was like "WTF I suck", and that was before I saw your hand =)

Playing more lag increases variance imo, doesn't matter how u turn it. Once you steal the blinds every single time people are playing back and 3bet/5bet shove lighter which means when you have something like AK on the button you are encountering more races. Which results in more variance.

On January 11 2009 10:19 gororokgororok wrote: Playing more lag increases variance imo, doesn't matter how u turn it. Once you steal the blinds every single time people are playing back and 3bet/5bet shove lighter which means when you have something like AK on the button you are encountering more races. Which results in more variance.

Thats the problem i think... You have to go with the dynamics and not steal every blind.

Also if you widen your opening range this doesnt mean your variance is going up. Its just how you play your hands postflop and on the turn. Do not c-bet every flop if the board is very wet (sometimes i just give up after i opened the pot and got called).

So basically if you are playing LAG change the dynamics of your game... 1) bring some variance in c-betting 2) just dont steal every time when you are on the button 3) widen your UTG range 4) keep your 3-betting relatively high (semi-bluffs 3-bet most of the time in position) (making sure you get max value out of premium hands).

What i also do is that if you playing laggy like me I exclude the river for betting (other then for value). In this way I have more control on the variance cos a river bet is the biggest bet what you make while you playing poker.

On January 11 2009 10:19 gororokgororok wrote: Playing more lag increases variance imo, doesn't matter how u turn it. Once you steal the blinds every single time people are playing back and 3bet/5bet shove lighter which means when you have something like AK on the button you are encountering more races. Which results in more variance.

Stands to reason that if people are 3bet and 5betting light that AK racing. How the game is played preflop will not increase your variance unless you want to get into a pissing contest with people. You adjust to the table, you don't just blindly play LAG. That's stupid and creates high variance, small edge poker.

Your simplifying something down to things that don't even matter to it =

On January 11 2009 10:44 nouck wrote: Show nested quote + On January 11 2009 10:19 gororokgororok wrote: Playing more lag increases variance imo, doesn't matter how u turn it. Once you steal the blinds every single time people are playing back and 3bet/5bet shove lighter which means when you have something like AK on the button you are encountering more races. Which results in more variance. Thats the problem i think... You have to go with the dynamics and not steal every blind. Also if you widen your opening range this doesnt mean your variance is going up. Its just how you play your hands postflop and on the turn. Do not c-bet every flop if the board is very wet (sometimes i just give up after i opened the pot and got called). So basically if you are playing LAG change the dynamics of your game... 1) bring some variance in c-betting 2) just dont steal every time when you are on the button 3) widen your UTG range 4) keep your 3-betting relatively high (semi-bluffs 3-bet most of the time in position) (making sure you get max value out of premium hands). What i also do is that if you playing laggy like me I exclude the river for betting (other then for value). In this way I have more control on the variance cos a river bet is the biggest bet what you make while you playing poker.

Exclude the river from betting?

Ew. That's so bad = Why does it need to bring variance in cbetting? My cbet % is like 55-60% for a reason. Because my preflop range is as wide as it is I am less inclined to cbet in a lot of spots and will also pot control and take free cards a lot in position. Since my hand range is weaker on average it means that my range is compromised of more air than not-air. Which makes being overly aggressive BAD. It makes cbetting too much BAD. Once you start cbetting too much, you start barrelling too much because you have 0 showdown value. That increases variance and is bad poker. And you can cbet the turn too. You don't have to cbet the flop.

There are so many things people don't even think about. People constantly turning hands with showdown value into bluffs for no reason, when they could just as easily stick to turning their air into bluffs. Trying to steal unstealable pots. Cbetting waaaay too much for how many hands you're opening. Playing too aggressive when you're not supposed to be. Barrelling when you're not supposed to be. Not barrelling when you should be. Not value betting enough, not pot contrlling enough. It's not about bet bet betting. It's about playing smart.

Your preflop game doesn't increase your variance. Being a blind spaz post flop does.

On January 11 2009 11:49 FrEaK[S.sIR] wrote: Show nested quote + On January 11 2009 10:44 nouck wrote:   On January 11 2009 10:19 gororokgororok wrote: Playing more lag increases variance imo, doesn't matter how u turn it. Once you steal the blinds every single time people are playing back and 3bet/5bet shove lighter which means when you have something like AK on the button you are encountering more races. Which results in more variance. Thats the problem i think... You have to go with the dynamics and not steal every blind. Also if you widen your opening range this doesnt mean your variance is going up. Its just how you play your hands postflop and on the turn. Do not c-bet every flop if the board is very wet (sometimes i just give up after i opened the pot and got called). So basically if you are playing LAG change the dynamics of your game... 1) bring some variance in c-betting 2) just dont steal every time when you are on the button 3) widen your UTG range 4) keep your 3-betting relatively high (semi-bluffs 3-bet most of the time in position) (making sure you get max value out of premium hands). What i also do is that if you playing laggy like me I exclude the river for betting (other then for value). In this way I have more control on the variance cos a river bet is the biggest bet what you make while you playing poker. Exclude the river from betting? Ew. That's so bad = Why does it need to bring variance in cbetting? My cbet % is like 55-60% for a reason. Because my preflop range is as wide as it is I am less inclined to cbet in a lot of spots and will also pot control and take free cards a lot in position. Since my hand range is weaker on average it means that my range is compromised of more air than not-air. Which makes being overly aggressive BAD. It makes cbetting too much BAD. Once you start cbetting too much, you start barrelling too much because you have 0 showdown value. That increases variance and is bad poker. And you can cbet the turn too. You don't have to cbet the flop. There are so many things people don't even think about. People constantly turning hands with showdown value into bluffs for no reason, when they could just as easily stick to turning their air into bluffs. Trying to steal unstealable pots. Cbetting waaaay too much for how many hands you're opening. Playing too aggressive when you're not supposed to be. Barrelling when you're not supposed to be. Not barrelling when you should be. Not value betting enough, not pot contrlling enough. It's not about bet bet betting. It's about playing smart. Your preflop game doesn't increase your variance. Being a blind spaz post flop does.

well that is exactly what i mean. english is not my language so sometimes its difficult for me to explain myself for 100% However i dont think excluding river betting for 80% of the time (as a bluff) is not bad... Iam just a nl50 yet and on this stake i will get called most of the time on the river by incompetent shrimps. Thats why i am not a big fan of bluffing on the river as well (after 1 or 2 barrels on flop or turn).

i think if you play lag and i think you something mean like this freak.sir is that people underestimate the value of their hand. for instance if iam in position and i have some sort of gutter with a backdoor FD i dont love to c-bet this kind of flop and love to take a free turn card. If you play laggy you have to put value on backdoor FD, gutters and al other kind of connections with a flop. Only if you understand this you can make a lot of profit playing lag style...

Exactly. You don't have to cbet 2nd and bottom pair, backdoor draws, ace highs and everything else. Use your position to maximum effect. It's not important to be aggro to pick up pots. It's important to be aware of how hands play out and to play them the best possible way. I've spent a ton of time thinking of how to optimize my preflop strategy and my post flop leaks. A lot of them revolve around being too aggressive since that's how I used to play.

It takes a lot of work. It's not about pushing small edges or bluffing. It's about playing smart, whether you're TAG or LAG.

In fact, pushing small edges as a TAG is much more effective since you get more credit. Doing it as a LAG is just spewing.

yeah I'm noticing a lot of the same things freak. my first lag session I was far too aggro post. Since I've toned down postflop it works out better.

I switch between LAG and TAG pretty fluently right now. I'll start a session LAG and then the tables change or I get on a lot of tables so I'll switch to TAG, then I close a bunch of tables or i'm no longer sitting with 3 40VPIP + fish but instead 4 regs and 1 fish so I switch back into a LAG approach. But all I'm changing is preflop. Try to keep it very much the same post.

hmm maybe i'm wrong about being lag getting more variance.

I think what i meant to say was that being more lag in 3/4/5bet pots results in more variance since you're flipping more. Which is probably something i encountered a lot more on nl200. Once u really get dynamics going AK is often in for a flip. (even against 2 random 5betbluffshove cards) And I don't really see how this is small edge poker. Also postflop i tend to raise a lot of draws and shove something like AcQx on a Jc2c4c board. You are often in a 45/55 situation and once people see you getting it in with this they are definitly paying off your sets. Sure there is no edge in taking flips, but there is a lot of value in the notes people make from this. The longer I play with the same players, the more I get paid.

And losing 10 flips in a session gives a lot of variance.

I'm not talking about super agro stuff and making random plays vs people. But imo this is basic poker, fold equity, equity to win, metagame and so on. (when u don't have AA obv)

Let me know what u think, because if this is wrong then it's probably a matter of time before I go bust.

I agree that as you get into more aggro 3bet/4bet/5bets PF you get into higher variance as you get into more flipping situations. And man, I've had sessions where I'm getting it AIPF a bunch on flips and I lose em all, and is that ever fucking painful. =)