Loose Player

Similarly, players who are risk averse can be intimidated by what amounts to an increase in stakes as variance increases with a loose-aggressive player in the game. Conquer Your Fear with Clear.

The term “Loose” in this case refers to starting hand selection, while “Aggressive” refers to post-flop betting. Players who employ a LAG style play a wide range of starting hands with the hopes of outplaying their opponents after the flop and reducing opponents’ capabilities of putting them on a specific hand. A good loose-aggressive player, or LAG, at your table is a constant thorn in your side. Such players will frequently raise and three-bet preflop, fire more than their fair share of continuation. Hell Let Loose is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Australian studio Black Matter and published by Team17 and released for Microsoft Windows. The game was announced via a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2017, where it raised US$220,000. It was released on Steam as an early access title on 6 June, 2019. 21 hours ago Week 8 Recap: Caps Lose Key Player. By Andrew Chodes. Posted March 8, 2021 Tom Wilson was suspended for seven games. (Caps Outsider) Following a week of three straight victories which lifted them East division, the Caps, despite falling to second behind the Islanders, continued to collect points by winning 2 of their 3 games this week.

The most common opponent you are likely to face at an online poker table is the loose opponent. Most complaints you will hear from most experienced players involve loose players. They are the source of most “bad beats” and can cause frustration for even the most talented of sharks.

The only way to beat these loose players is to made adjustments to your game. Here are a few things you can do to adjust your game for a loose opponent.

A loose player is generally defined as a player that plays a lot of hands, no matter the quality. You can spot the loose player by watching what cards he plays to showdown. Pay particular attention to hands that are raised before the flop. Keep notes on what cards he will call with to a substantial pre-flop raise. Be careful not to over-estimate calls made on the blinds or in position. Look for weak hands that call one or more raises in poor position.

While loose play is generally a losing strategy because it costs money to see so many flops and cards post flop, it has the advantage of masking the strength of the loose player’s hand. If he will play any two cards, you never know if he is playing good cards or bad cards. Either he is just an action junkie that likes to play every hand, or his plan is to spend a little money on every hand with hopes to win enough big hands to make up the difference.

There are, of course, a few different types of loose players. There are three categories of looseness. There are loose passive players, who are called Blackjack Players. Blackjack players approach the poker table just like they approach the blackjack table. They get two cards, they make their bet and they are going to see what they get. They hope for a 21, if not, they hope the dealer busts. They call every hand pre-flop no matter how much is raised, and call every street down to the river hoping to make their hand. If they lose, they don’t care, there’s another hand of blackjack being dealt in a couple of moments. Another chance to win their money back.

The second category is the Calling Station. Calling stations don’t play quite as many hands as the Blackjack player. They might exercise a little bit of pre-flop selection, but if they see a flop and hit any part of it, they are going to call down to the river.

The third and most dangerous of the loose players are loose aggressive players, or LAGs (Loose Aggressive Guys). The LAG will bet and raise with a large range of hands. Just because a LAG raises, doesn’t mean he has a good hand. It doesn’t really mean anything. Just because a LAG doesn’t raise doesn’t mean anything either. LAGs often raise with weak hands and call with super-strong hands, trying to be “crafty.”

Once you have identified the particular type of loose player you are up against, you can use a strategy against him to increase your chances of winning against him. For all these players, the first and most important thing you must do is play tighter than normal.

If you are facing the Blackjack Player, You must play tight. When you actually enter a pot it is important to raise as often as possible. If he wants to see more cards, you have to make him pay as much as you can to see those cards. You can assume that you are entering the hand with superior cards, but you will often get out-drawn by these players. It is important to calculate pot odds very carefully with drawing hands. Math is on your side against these players. As long as they don’t get extraordinarily lucky, you will win against these players in the long run. You will take bad beats from these players, and it is very important to control yourself to keep off tilt. Do not try to bluff these players, but you may be able to call them down with ace high if you don’t think they have caught anything.

If you are facing the calling station, don’t bet as often as you would against a Blackjack Player. Never slow play a big hand against them, as they are going to call your bets anyway. Any pair larger than bottom pair can worth betting against these players. Top pair is almost a lock and should be played to the river unless overcards come. Do NOT bluff these players. They simply will not fold. Count on them always having at least one face card or ace in their hand. If a calling station should raise, consider folding immediately. You can assume he has the nuts or something close.

When facing a LAG, the most important thing to accomplish is to isolate. You can beat the LAG with marginal hands, but your other opponents should have tightened up as well, and you don’t want to take a marginal hand too far against more than your LAG. Don’t raise this player unless you are sure you are ahead, which is difficult to tell against this player. Let him do the betting until you are sure you have him beat. Since you are only playing premium hands against this player, usually any high pair is good enough to call down to the river. This player loves to play fancy and make “moves” so don’t be surprised by any bets, and don’t be fooled into thinking those bets mean anything. There will be swings as the pot sizes can be quite large, but if you play the right hands against this player, you can make a substantial profit.

The most important thing to remember when playing loose opponents is that they will catch cards. It is going to happen. They will hit goofy straights and catch runner-runner flushes against you. Bad beats are inevitable. DO NOT TILT. Keep playing solid tight poker against them, and your solid wins will out number and out stretch the bad beats.

The main tool being used by majority of online players is the HUD (Heads-Up Display) available through poker tracking software. This tool provides a whole range of statistics on your opponents which allows you to gain extra information when making decisions at the table. When HUD’s were first introduced into poker not many players were using them due to the unfamiliarity with the program. However, the top online players quickly adapted to them which gave them an even bigger edge at the tables.

Statistics and math are a valuable tool in poker now despite not all players believing so. The great aspect of using a HUD is that it can be designed to whatever suits you as a player. Some players prefer basic stats to use a guideline whereas others prefer using as many statistics as possible to determine how their opponents are playing.

When using a HUD you need to make sure that you use the information given to you over a large sample as opposed to few hands: Making decisions based on players stats over a 20 hand sample might not give a true reflection of how they actually approach the game.

I would start to make decisions based on the HUD after an 80 hand sample or more as by then you’ll have a better indication of how someone is playing simply due to a more reliable sample of hands. Some of the following stats are typically used on a default HUD.

VPIP (Voluntary Put in Pot)

This statistic is used to show how many times a player voluntarily puts chips into pot e.g. limping, making a raise or calling a raise. However, it does not take into account the small and big blind position as they are both mandatory. VPIP is an important statistic and helps us identify if a player is tight, loose, solid or an extremely fishy player. The following categories show what number will relate to an opponent's playing style.

VPIP Numbers

0-10 - Tight player
11-20 - Tight players will have a VPIP of unto 13/14 but other statistics will determine how tight they are. Loose passive/aggressive players will also show a number in this range.
21-30 - Loose aggressive players will show a number around 21-25 but anything higher usually indicates a weaker fishy style of player. However, extremely aggressive/good players can show a VPIP in this range.
30+ - Weaker/fishy players

PFR (Pre-flop Raise)

This statistic is displayed in the HUD to show how many times an opponent has raised before the flop. This will indicate how aggressive/tight your opponents are which will help you identify a specific hand range which you can assign to certain players. The following number ranges will help you determine what style of player you are playing against.

PFR Numbers

0-10 - Tight player
11-20 -Tight players will tend to have a PFR capped at 12/13 but anything higher will be determined as just a regular aggressive player.
21-30 -Some aggressive/good players will be playing with a 21/22 stat but anything higher is a super aggressive player who are playing too many hands.
30+ -This range is usually assigned to fishy/weak players who are overplaying hands dealt to them.

3-bet

This statistic is used in the HUD to show us how many times our opponents re-raise another opponents raise pre-flop (the third bet). It's an extremely important statistic to use in the current era of poker and will help you understand how your opponents are playing and how you can exploit them depending on the % of hands they 3-bet. The following categories will determine how much your opponents are3-betting and what that necessarily means.

3-bet numbers

0-3 - This usually indicates a tighter player who will only 3-bet their value hands.
4-6 - This will indicate a fairly aggressive opponent who is still fairly tight but will be 3-betting some hands as a bluff.
7-9 - This statistic in the HUD will indicate a much more aggressive player who is 3-betting a vast amount of hands and will be trying to put pressure on opponents majority of the time.
10+ - With a 3-bet % of 10 or more, this will indicate an extremely aggressive player who is 3-betting way more than often showing that they are trying to run over the table or exploit the weaker opponents at the table.

Essentially, the more your opponents 3-bet the more you need to adjust to that player and figure out how to exploit them. This could be by only opening a strong range of hands with that player left to act or deciding to 4-bet bluff on a few occasions to play back at your opponents.

Fold to 3-bet

This statistic tells us how often a player will fold to a 3-bet pre-flop. Using this stat in our HUD is extremely important is it will give us enough information to determine how aggressive or tight we can play against particular players. If a player is opening a wide range of hands from a specific position and has a high fold to 3-bet then we can decide to 3-bet a wider range of hands. The following categories will determine how much your opponents are folding to 3-bets and how we react to that.

Fold to 3-bet Numbers

0-20 - This indicates that a player is not folding to 3-bets that often therefore we should only be 3-betting our value hands.
21-40 - This also indicates that a player will not fold to that many 3-bets but we can still pick our spots to 3-bet light especially if a players fold to 3-bet is close to 40.
41-60 - With a fold to 3-bet in this range, we can start to widen our 3-betting range against these players as enough of the time they will fold.
61-80 - Players that fall into this range will be relatively passive players therefore we can 3-bet them with marginal hands and play against these players in position a good amount of the time.
80+ - This indicates that majority of the time our opponents are folding to 3-bets therefore similar to the last category, we can be 3-betting more than usual against these players and exploiting them.

It's important to make sure that you adapt to different types of players but remember your own image at the table. Whilst it's fine to 3-bet a wide range of hands against players who have a high fold to 3-bet, you have to consider that our opponents will adapt to what we are doing at the table. Therefore, pick your spots and you don't always have to take a 3-bet spot, balance your play as much as you can.

Loose Layer Of Dead Plant Material

ATS (Attempt to Steal)

Hell Let Loose Player Base

This statistic tell us how often a player is raising from late position attempting to steal the blinds. Usually, a player will be attempting to steal from the HJ+ (Hijack) as there are less players left to act that will show resistance to the raise. Using this statistic in a HUD is extremely important in tournament poker as stealing blinds is a great way of accumulating chips. We will able to identify a more accurate range of hands that our opponents are opening with when attempting to steal based on the number shown in the HUD. Additionally, using the fold to 3-bet stat in conjunction with the attempt to steal stat, we will be able to identify how often they are stealing from late position but folding to 3-bets, which will give us a good indication of whether or not we can play back at our opponents . The following categories will show what certain statistics mean and how we can adapt to them.

ATS Numbers

0-20 - This indicates that our opponents are not attempting to steal that often therefore we can defend the blinds with a stronger range of hands and not play back at these opponents too much.
21-40 - This shows that our opponents are starting to steal a little wider therefore we can show some resistance by 3-betting or playing against them in position.
41-60 - With an attempt to steal stat in this range, this suggests that our opponents are raising a little wider in late position. Therefore, we can 3-bet a little wider in position against the right opponents and we can defend a little wider from the blinds if necessary.
61-80 - This indicates that our opponents are raising a wide amount from late position and we should be playing against them as much as we can in position to try and combat them. Typically, we will start to widen our 3-betting range and put more pressure on our opponents.
80+ - Similar to the last category, this suggests that our opponents are opening close to 100% of their range therefore we need to be playing back a good amount of the time or playing in position against them. These are the type of opponents we can attempt to trap and play our big hands in position to try and win the maximum.

Loose Play Parts

As much as these categories help identify the types of players we are up against, if we play back against them too much they will start to adjust their opening range and try and induce a mistake out of us. It's important to balance your play rather than constantly 3-betting a player that is stealing 80% of the time. Thinking about our own image is just as important as our opponents image.