How do you play this in position against a LAG?

Question

You're in a 9-handed game, effective stacks $100 ($0.50/$1 NLHE). A certain LAG player who is seeing WAY more than 50% of the flops opens with a minimum raise. According to your notes, that means he has a premium or near premium hand. Since it's cheap, you decide to limp in 2 seats behind him (1 from the CO) w/ QJs (diamonds). Assuming you are heads up and in position, what do you do if your opponent:

A. bets the pot?

B. checks to you?

With a premium hand, unless it's abundantly clear he's beat (4 diamonds on the board and he's holding 2 black aces), he's very reluctant to let go.

What do you do if you are OOP (you put in a 3-bet preflop and he re-raised the minimum) against this opponent, with the same pocket cards and same flop?

Answer 1

Depends entirely on the texture of the flop.  

If he's an aggressive player with a premium hand, I'm not likely to bluff him.  In fact, I'm likely to play it fairly straight; bet/raise if I made a hand, check/fold if I didn't.

Betting/calling with a hand that's beat is not likely to pay off; he's aggressive.  Slow playing a made hand may be effective, but maybe not.  If he checked to you, he's already suspicious.

Answer 2

In the first situation where we have position on the fish, its a raise on A and a bet on B.

For A, we have to raise because chances are he has an overpair. If thats so, we can get him to put his whole stack in on the flop.

For B, the flop is too drawy for any messing around. Bet and hope he c/r. If he folds, o well.

For situation two (we opened he 3-bet preflop), i probaly fold preflop. Yes, its temping but we are OOP so we dont have much implied odds.

If we do call, we bet into him.

For the second flop, our equity drops a little, but its still the same line for all the situations you asked about.

There are some alternate lines for the second flop you can use, but betting works fine too.

@sabes

"because there's obviously a chance he could have aces or kings which would now have me beat"

You are beating him by 1% equity. You are the one beating him

"when someone 3-bets pre-flop they are going to bet the flop nearly 100% of the time if they are a decent player"

problem is, villian isnt decent

@Judashero-

"I see 30%-40% of flops"

If you do this, you are losing money, unless this is a HU statistic. You have to be very confident of your postflop skills compared to the rest of the table. You also are giving yourself extreme variance. Basically, the table has to have very specific conditions before you should be doing this...

Answer 3

If you have position on a LAG wait for premium hands that you can use to exploit his aggressiveness. When you find yourself in this situation value bet your hand mercilessly. OOP is the same, except be prepared to fold if you miss the flop. Actually in position you shouldn't be cbetting light very often either, it's -$ev against a bad LAG since they tend to call down light and fight back a lot. Keep in mind most LAGs are bad, and the good ones are easy to identify. If you do see a good LAG just avoid him unless you pick up a monster.

Also if you have a read on someone that leads you to believe they have a strong hand, don't get involved with a speculative drawy one. Because unless you're some kind of poker savant it's a very expensive mistake.

Answer 4

on the Q-J-6 flop, i think you have to fire out a pot-sized raise if he bets into you...that's the easiest way to get value for the hand, sure he could have A-K or 10-10 but he could just as easily have A-A or K-K...and if this flop was bad for him, he probably won't put any more money in the pot unless he draws out on you...if he checks to you, the pot-sized bet is your best option here, since this looks like a flop that hit him and there's a good chance you can get paid

on the Q-7-4 flop, i might just call if he makes a pot-sized flop bet because there's obviously a chance he could have aces or kings which would now have me beat...if he checks to me, though, around a half-pot bet should be good enough, since there's not any hand he could really be drawing to

now, in a situation where he re-raises me and i'm oop, i would check every flop no matter what...when someone 3-bets pre-flop they are going to bet the flop nearly 100% of the time if they are a decent player and especially if they are lag...therefore, it's pointless to bet the flop especially if you flop a hand, since you can be nearly certain that you will be bet into

edit: oops, didn't see that we have a flush draw on the second flop...doesn't really change the analysis, but in fact we would have the best hand on the second flop as well, albeit very slightly

Answer 5

one important question: does he have more chips (money) than you or not?  If he does, then you will have to bet/raise to give him clue that you have a hand here.  or he might decide to push all-in on a draw if you show any sign of weakness.   If he does not, you can trap him but remember do not give him any free card.  Of course, slow play against an loose aggressive player is dangers because he could have any two cards.

Answer 6

Yeah throwing in the flop does help :)

With queens and jacks you're in a position to take his money and you've got position on him.  If he bets the pot I'd just call here and if you raise you may give your strength away and he may fold.  You want to collect a good sized bet on the turn as well and on the river well that's where you can think about it for a time then hit him with the raise.

If he checks to you well this isn't a hand I'd look to take down now so I'd check back as fast as I could showing weakness and then if he does it on the turn he's got to pay to play at this point which could be interpreted as trying to take it down so you might get called for that reason.

If you just have the top pair in the second scenario I'd still call a pot sized bet.  You're worried about AA KK QQ AQ but I'm he may have gone bigger with the pre-flop raise if he had these.  I wouldn't check back though as I'm more worried about getting drawn out on and would bet half the pot anyway to make him pay to draw on me.  Getting him to throw down though wouldn't be the best outcome and the most EV here is taking this to showdown as long as it isn't a free ride.

A.J.

http://kingcobrapoker.com