Loose Cannons

If you could create a robot to play poker perfectly how would it play? What style would it adopt? Would it play tight, loose, or move in a lot? What would it look like? Would you be able to see its innards with a bit of a face, like in Short Circuit? Or would it be completely indistinguishable from a normal man, like the Terminator or Vernon Kay?

Actually, I don’t think it would have a style. To play perfectly the robot would be completely adaptable. It would play whatever style was appropriate given the situation, the hand, and the opponents it was up against, effortlessly changing between styles and plays.

To play poker well and achieve ongoing success at the game, it’s wrong to play any one specific style, and incredibly important to be aware of all the different ways of playing. This is partly so you can use them when the game conditions are right and partly so you can combat them when others use them.

In this article I’m going to look at loose-aggressive – or LAG – play. A style that would have been dismissed years ago as maniacal is now being used widely in cash games and tournaments and, when applied correctly, to great effect.

Okay, let’s start with the basics. Perhaps the only common factor linking all good poker players is aggression. This goes back to the heart of poker, because what makes the game so unique is that there are two ways to win – either by having the best hand or making others throw theirs away.

Until recently, most winning players played a tight-aggressive style. That is to say, they would play few starting hands, opting to wait for premium ones, and then making aggressive bets and raises to push home their advantage.

Loose-aggressive players, however, play more hands than is optimal. That is to say, they know they’re taking the worst of it pre-flop because other players will be starting with a better hand than them. LAG players make up for this by exploiting two things – that they can make others fold better hands and that they will get paid more when they make a big hand.

The loose-aggressive style of play puts a lot of pressure on opponents. It gives them very little room to breathe and constantly asks them if they want to continue in the hand. Playing against a good loose-aggressive player can be a living nightmare, especially if they’re to your left. Actually, what’s worse is if they’re two seats to your left and you can’t reach out to slap them.

It’s probably deceptive to view good loose players as playing one style. Some players specialise in putting pressure on their opponents by making big bets and re-raises before and after the flop – pros like Roland de Wolfe and Barry Greenstein often play this way. Others like Erick Lindgren, Daniel Negreanu and Gavin Smith prefer to play smaller pots, constantly asking smaller questions with bets and raises.

Players who take this ‘small ball’ approach use the concept of ‘leveraging’, which is the process of making small bets to try and win a bigger pot. The advantage of this approach is that they will pick up a lot of pots when no one has a hand or one good enough to make a call, but if they do run into a hand they can muck their cards having lost relatively little.

Fors and againsts

Let’s look at the two big benefits of playing a loose-aggressive style. First, you will win a lot of pots when no one holds very much – orphan pots as they’re known. This can happen before the flop when you’ll pick up the blinds and antes, and after the flop when no one has connected. The second is that your opponents will view you as loose and – particularly if you show down junk a few times – that you ‘never having anything’. This means that if you are a loose-aggressive player you have a much better chance of getting paid off when you do have a genuine hand.

So should we all be playing in a LAG way? Well… umm… no. But as you gain experience and look to improve your game you should experiment by adding this style of play to your arsenal. In fact, you could argue all great players become loose-aggressive to some extent, because in order to win against better opposition you will need to vary your starting hands to become less readable.

The danger with playing this way in lower limit games is that players call more so it’s harder to win pots when you don’t have a hand. Quite simply, against calling stationtype opponents if you play a tight-aggressive game and value bet effectively you will get their money with less risk.

You also need to be aware that in playing poorer hands pre-flop you are giving up an edge against the other players. You MUST play much better after the flop than them and many people overestimate their ability to do this. If you’re making a habit of entering pots with hands like J-8s, 7-6os or 5-3s you will regularly be hitting some of the flop and making hands like middle pair with backdoor draws. But these hands and situations after the flop are very difficult to play well, and inexperienced players will struggle to make the right decisions.

To make this style work you also need to read hands and players extremely well. You need to be targeting the right players for your bluffs and be able to put them on a narrow range of hands in order to play your marginal holdings well.

Payoff

A good LAG player will play all their hands the same. So they will make roughly the same size bets with the same frequency, whether they have a hand or not. An extremely common mistake beginners make is to lead out with continuation bets on the flop until they hit a monster, at which point they get worried about not getting paid off and elect to slow-play. The key to LAG play is to get paid when you have a big hand, so keep betting and you’ll be amazed what players will pay you off with.

You should recognise that you will have a very specific table image if you play this way. The looser you’re playing the less inclined players will be to believe you have a hand. They will start calling you more and, if aggressive, will start playing back at you. It’s important not to be discouraged – to continue to bet and wear down your opponents.

Two factors to bear in mind when playing loose-aggressive Hold’em are position and stack size. Position should always remain an important part in your play and your thinking. Acting in later position is an advantage in Hold’em and provides an edge for the player who acts last. Therefore, if you’re playing more hands, open up in the later positions towards and including the button. If you’re running over a table it can be tempting to play sub-standard hands from any spot, but there are very few players in the world that can get away with giving up an edge in starting hand and position.

In terms of stack size LAG play is far more appropriate in deep-stack games, where you have the opportunity to bet players off their hands after the flop. They also provide the implied odds necessary to be paid off handsomely when you hit quirky starting hands, which will otherwise miss most of the time. If you have a stack of 30 big blinds or less a loose-aggressive style is difficult to play successfully as all the money can end up committed before or on the flop.

The quality of a loose-aggressive player can be measured by their judgement when the big bets go in. They know when they can make a big bluff but mostly when a big pot is being played they’re showing down the 9-7 that made a straight or the J-6 that hit trips. Technically you should be wary of making big bluffs if you’ve been playing a lot of hands. There’s an obvious relationship between the looser you are and the more likely you are to be called, so making big bluffs when you have a loose image takes great judgement.

Close combat

	You have a better chance of getting paid off when you do have a hand

If you have a good player at your table who’s playing a lot of hands, how can you combat them and their LAG ways? Well, apart from the previously mentioned slapping technique or moving tables, there are a couple of things you can try. It may be unforgivably wimpy but staying out of their way is not the worst idea in the world. In no-limit – particularly cash games – it’s possible to pick and choose a bit who you play pots with, and an aggressive player who keeps putting you to decisions for your chips may be one to avoid.

But let’s say you either want or need to take them on; in this case the key, as with most strategic problems, is to do what will disappoint your opponents most. So if the loose player is playing ‘small ball’, i.e. making a lot of smaller testing bets, try reraising them, forcing them to play big pots. Alternatively, if your opponent is making a lot of bigger bets and re-raises then you need to call more. This can be tough to do but you need to lower your starting hand standards slightly when making a call.

Playing against a good LAG player can be really tough. If they make good judgements on when to make big bets, you’ll often end up paying them off. Now wouldn’t it be more fun to be the one playing loose-aggressive, hitting a straight with 8-5 and cracking the rock’s Aces…? It’s something to think about.