Beat the LAGs in Online Poker

If You Want to Win No-Limit Cash Games, You Must Be Able to Beat the LAGs

There's a mountain of money to be made playing no-limit cash games these days, especially online. If you want to move up levels in the no-limit cash games and become one of those monster players making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, your biggest hurdle will be the dreaded "LAG."

LAG stands for Loose-Aggressive, and for many solid players it means "the guy in seat 9 who plays too many hands and always seems to have a hand when I call him down," or simply "the lucky rat who took all my money with 8-6 suited."

Your typical LAG will call your raises often enough to make life hard, steal your blinds frequently enough to be frustrating, and if you play with him long enough he will teach you the most valuable lesson in no-limit hold'em:

Play big pots with big hands and small pots with small hands.

It seems simple, but so many players forget this rule as their skills grow. They make a few great calls with second pair for all their chips and suddenly think their reads are flawless. Don't be that guy or the LAG will be buying a new car with your bankroll. What most players forget is that LAGs play so many hands that they become very good post-flop players and they have this rule down pat. If a LAG looks like he wants to get all his chips in the pot, then your top pair is definitely not ahead and may even be drawing dead.

To survive as a LAG your opponent must have learned not to get all his chips in with weak hands.

This piece of advice will help you defeat the LAG more than any other. If you raise preflop with aces and a LAG calls you on the button, you can generally put him on a hand like a suited connector or one-gap, or a small pair. Once the flop comes 3h-4d-8f, the time is right for a check-raise if you know this particular LAG wil bet.

The reasons for a check-raise are:

It gets more money in the pot when you are probably ahead and punishes the LAG for his aggression. He may have folded to a bet anyway but now you get more of his money.

It defines your hand. You have announced to him that you have a real hand rather than two overcards, and it lets him know that you are serious about the hand. He will not suspect you of having A-K and try to push you around after you show this much strength.

It defines your opponent's hand very clearly. If he reraises you he almost always has you beaten and you can throw away those aces without losing your whole stack. No solid LAG player will get in a big fight here with one-pair hand that he wouldn't reraise with preflop.

It keeps him (and the rest of the table) guessing. If they see you check-raise sometimes with a big hand and bet right out other times, they will never be quite sure what you are holding. This allows you to win big pots with your big flops more often and helps your continuation bets to be successfull as well.