Adjusting to those around you part 2

Although tight aggressive players and rocks can prove profitable if attacked correctly; most of the money you will earn throughout your playing career will come from loose players. Loose players tend to play lots of hands, call and make lots of bets, and generally appear in lots of pots. This is the reason that most of the money will come from players like this, unless they are extremely skilled (more on this later), players simply cannot fight the mathematics of constantly being involved with so many inferior hands. By far the most profitable loose player type to ever have at your table is the maniac.

Maniacs.

This group of players seem to slot into one of two categories. The first is the loose passive maniac. The loose passive player plays lots of hands, and just tends to call and check with them. As a result, these players haemorrhage money in every direction, simply because they call so much and never really bluff - arguably the worst combination of characteristics for a poker player. To take advantage of these players, simply get in a pot with them, hit a hand, and bet it all the way.

The second group of maniac is the more loose aggressive style, which although a little more tricky to play against, are still immensely profitable people to sit with. These players tend to bluff far too much, play too many hands, and make very reckless calls. The best tactic against these players is to use their overly aggressive style against them. Check calling, check raising, leading into them out of position in the hope they re-raise - these are the tools of the trade when dealing with the spewy loose aggressive maniac. They can be a roller coaster ride to play against - but eventually you will win the chips.

Really try and remember that these are the players the games will usually be built around - try and actively seek them out. Most players employing this type of style will either be inexperienced players looking to gamble, players with bad gambling problems in general, or simply rich players who want to gamble. All are relatively easy to make large profits from.

Loose aggressive.

Although many maniacs play loose aggressive, they play the style very badly, and can be quite easy to take advantage of. There are however, good loose aggressive players, and they are some of the most dangerous and frustrating players out there. Good loose aggressive players can be an absolute nightmare to deal with. Notable players to have had huge success with the loose aggressive, or LAG, styles are: Annette Obrestad, Stuey “the kid” Ungar, and Chad “lilholdem” Batista.

Unlike their LAG maniac counterparts, good LAG players can counteract the constant mathematical disadvantage that playing so many marginal hands brings, due to the fact that they know full when to push small edges or back off in the face of strength. Their post flop skill more than makes up for their loss in mathematical edge. They mix up their plays constantly, check raising, floating in and out of position, and leading into people at all the right times. Because they play so many hands in so many positions, they are masters of knowing what action means what in a given hand. As a result they nearly always have a good idea of where you are at, while you have very little idea where they are - a combination which is never going to be good for you.

What makes these players even harder to deal with is that unlike the skilled TAG players we looked at last week, who don’t enter that many pots; good LAG players are a constant menace at the table, and you will struggle to stay out of their way. Perhaps the best advice with dealing with skilled LAG players is to identify them quickly and stick to solid hand values and big raises. Unlike LAG maniacs, good Lag players will regularly check behind on flops after raising pre flop, and use all the different poker moves on a regular basis. They will not just bet at every available opportunity like their maniac counterparts.

Once you have established that they are in fact one of the rare skilled LAG players, try and only enter pots with them with: a) good hands, and b) re-raising. By building large pots pre flop with good hands, you counteract their post flop skill (after all if you’ve only got a little over a pot sized bet for the flop there is not much a good LAG player can do against you), and make your life much easier.

Next week: Putting it all together.