Posts Tagged ‘poker bluff’
Nobody can win as much money as quickly as a loose aggressive player. He gets action because he overplays many hands. With good cards, he can win lots of money. Just take Phil Ivey as an example.
Nobody wins or loses money as quickly as a loose aggressive poker player, but nearly all of them lose in the long run. In fact, every very loose-aggressive player (8,8 or higher) is a big loser, but some of them lie about it. Poker rewards patience, discipline, and selective aggression, while LAGs are impatient, undisciplined, and promiscuously aggressive.
Any extreme style is rigid and predictable (except, perhaps, tight-aggressive), and the combination of looseness, aggression, and predictability can be deadly. This make them the target. People know much more about them than vice versa, and they can easily develop strategies to exploit their weaknesses.
The most obvious are check-raising, slow-playing, inviting them to bluff, and isolating them with hands that normally would be correct to fold (e.g., three betting with hyperactive words and gestures). Their opponents – especially the better ones – may learn he is bluffing when he forcefully throws in his chips, is weak when he says “check” loudly or stares at his cards, and is ready to raise when he sits erect.
Of course, you must always watch out for smart loose aggressive players who will send false signals. Unless they send out tells and telegraphs, they are among the hardest players to read, and maniacs can be almost completely unreadable. How can you put them on a hand when they will raise with garbage?
The complete maniac is often unreadable, but hardly anyone is that extreme. Reading the 7,7 or 8,8 player can be difficult, but it is certainly not impossible. The key is to remember when he does not raise.
Since he will raise with weak cards, not raising in earlier rounds let you exclude certain possibilities. For example, if the flop has two hearts, and he just called behind two players, he probably does not have a flush draw. Otherwise, he would have raised. If another heart hits, don’t be too afraid of a flush.
Or take a flop AJ9. If he did not raise before the flop and bets now, he may have a pair of aces or jacks and nines, but he probably does not have any set or aces up because he would have raised with AA, JJ, AJ, or A9.
These players are mostly beatable except the very best in this style, such as Phil Ivey or Gus Hansen