5/10: LAG session

I found a few nice tables without any good regulars, so I was playing a slightly looser than normal 34/28/3 LAG session. Most of the opponents were good enough to adjust by constantly raising me light preflop, but I think I got them pretty far from their comfort zones. When the others start to adjust, we need to readjust. Sometimes I just go back to TAG, but since I didn't feel like anyone really good was at the table I thought I would play back at them instead (this might look ugly).


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Hand 1: Isolating a fish (45/0/0.4). Villain is a 28/24 fairly decent loose TAG.

Texas Hold'em $10-$20 NL (real money), hand #P4-68396552-143
Table Taegu, 24 May 2008 9:31 PM ET

Seat 2: BB ($1,609.50 in chips)
Seat 3: SB ($1,185.00 in chips)
Seat 6: FISH/CUTOFF ($231.50 in chips)
Seat 7: BUTTON ($1,119.25 in chips)
Seat 8: HERO [ 4S,AH ] ($976.25 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
HERO posts blind ($5), BB posts blind ($10).

PRE-FLOP
SB folds, FISH-CUTOFF calls $10, BUTTON folds, HERO bets $35 (to $40), BB bets $120, FISH/CUTOFF folds, HERO bets $250, BB calls $160.

FLOP [board cards 7D,8D,4H ] (pot $590)
HERO bets $300 (obviously intending to call a shove)...



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Hand 2: Villain is a 24/18/2.5 aggro TAG.


Seat 1: BUTTON ($135.00 in chips)
Seat 2: SB ($2,803.85 in chips)
Seat 3: BB ($972.00 in chips)
Seat 8: UTG ($1,035.00 in chips)
Seat 9: HERO [ 10H,9H ] ($1,486.00 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
SB posts blind ($5), BB posts blind ($10).

PRE-FLOP
UTG bets $35, HERO calls $35, BUTTON folds, SB folds, BB folds.

FLOP [board cards JC,2H,3D ]
UTG bets $65, HERO bets $180...


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Hand 3: Blind battle. Same villain as in hand 2, 10 minutes later. Normally I'm folding (or sometimes raising) pre, and I usually fold the flop too.


Seat 1: UTG ($391.00 in chips)
Seat 3: CUTOFF ($892.50 in chips)
Seat 7: BUTTON ($105.00 in chips)
Seat 8: SB ($1,264.50 in chips)
Seat 9: HERO [ 4H,5C ] ($1,660.50 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
SB posts blind ($5), HERO posts blind ($10).

PRE-FLOP
UTG folds, CUTOFF folds, BUTTON folds, SB bets $30, HERO calls $25.

FLOP [board cards QH,7H,5H ]
SB bets $50, HERO calls $50.

TURN [board cards QH,7H,5H,6C ] (pot $170)
SB bets $130, HERO bets $350 (intending to fold to a shove)...

Are we calling a shove here with a bad image, a pair, OESD and FD, 126BB deep?


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Hand 4: 115BB deep. 5 minutes after hand 3. Looks like the perfect opportunity to squeeze when 34/28 LAG (me) raises from the cutoff and button calls. SB is same villain as in 2 and 3. Bet sizing ok? (the raise is to $435)?


Seat 2: BUTTON ($1,168.50 in chips)
Seat 3: SB ($1,151.00 in chips)
Seat 6: BB ($206.75 in chips)
Seat 7: UTG ($1,081.25 in chips)
Seat 8: HERO [ 9C,9D ] ($1,520.50 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
SB posts blind ($5), BB posts blind ($10).

PRE-FLOP
UTG folds, HERO bets $35, BUTTON calls $35, SB bets $155, BB folds, HERO bets $400 (fully intending to snap call a shove)...

No love for these hands? FPS?

I usually play a fair bit looser than the other regs at my table, around 27/24 and I find that they tend to get really frustrated and not give me any respect (which is the plan) the big thing when playing like this is to try and anticpate when your opponent will 'snap'. Sometimes you can just tell they are getting frustrated and you know they are going to reraise if u raise - so 4 bet them and they get so angry, it's difficult to reply to these hands as so much of what the corredct play is, is based on your opponents emotional state/how frustrated he is getting.

Hand 1 - I like this, from my experience, when somebody cold calls your 4 bet preflop when they are slightly frustrated it is usually an AJ/KQ hand which they call with the intention of raising a lot of flops, that being said i really like your cbet size, and I do the same - 1/2 pot into a 4 bet pot to give them some room to make a mistake by attempting to make use of their percieved FE. If you are beat - then oh well, more variance is the price you pay for playing more LAG.

Hand 2 - Again I like this and would play it exactly the same as you - if you get called just give up, this is really good for balancing the times you have 22/33

Hand 3 - this one is tough, I'm not a big fan of it as you are repping such a small range and generally villains dont believe you blind vs blind ESPECIALLY with a bad image. If he shoves I'd just fold as often your outs are dirty. Although having said that, it does put villain in a really tough spot with a lot of his range.

Hand 4 - This depends on how you think villain is feeling, id probably also make the 4 bet a little smaller to try and get him to shove a little bit more often preflop - and yes I'd usually snap call too.

Thanks toads!

Hand 3: I don't like calling the turn since all my outs could give me a second best hand. That makes folding pretty standard, but raising has some merits here. If villain has a marginal hand or some good draws, he might call the turn and check it to me on the river in which case I will take down the pot quite often (I've got 45% equity against two black aces for instance), and I doubt he can shove anything worse than a flush. Another good thing is that I must raise any made hand that figures to be best because of all the draws, so my range isn't overly polarized.

But as you said, the fact that I have a bad image and it's BvB makes this very marginal.

Hand 4. It's not really possible to raise small enough for me to be able to fold to a shove, so I want to DISCOURAGE him from shoving overcards, since folding them is a mistake against my hand. I don't think he ever folds anything better, except maybe tens. I also think he never 5-bet bluffs with total garbage in this situation, even if I raise smaller.

hand 1:

-yah I don't mind this play once in a while. I think if I was raising to isolate, I'd raise more PF given that I was OOP. As played is fine

hand 2:

-I'd prob need reads on this, that he cbets too much etc, but with reads this is good

hand 3:

-I don't really like it too much. I think it looks kinda airy, since you'd prob raise most of your entire range of strong hands on this board on the flop. I'd just raise flop if I wanted to put in a raise.

hand 4:

-yah I play it the same pretty often