First, let me say this is my first post at this site, hopefully the first of many. The forum itself was recommended to me by TheUnknownPlayer and as I have the utmost respect for his opinion on all things poker related, here I am.

In every book you read they always say Tight Aggressive (TE) brings home the money. But, as I’ve begun to evolve as a player and log more and more hours in home games, online and in the casino I’m starting to learn that while TE play may be safer, the profit it shows is generally minor against quality opponents. The problem seems to be twofold. First, a quality opponent will easily spot a TE player and avoid paying them off when it’s clear they have the best of it. Second, as a TE player you’re not really following one of Brunson’s maxims, “You have to give action to get action” and again, you don’t get paid off on many of your hands.

I’ve begun to open things up a bit more in my last 100 hours of play or so and while I’ve found I need to be more skillful to play Loose Aggressive (LA), I’m showing a much greater hourly win rate. Please note that I don’t claim to be the greatest player or anything of the sort. I’m a quality player who has been at the game for just over a year and has been winning consistently for about the past five months, with the past three months being especially good to me. I play live games about three nights a week and get to Atlantic City once a month for marathon weekend sessions and I play online for smaller stakes more for fun and practice than anything else.

Reading Super System 2 really gave me not so much the instruction, but more the confidence to play more hands and put more and more pressure on my opponents. I need to be much more sure of my reads and know when it’s time to push a marginal hand hard and when it’s better to let it go because it’s not best and I won’t be able to make the opponent lay down, but there’s no question I’m having more success with this style of play.

My question for the forum is basically what are your feelings about TE vs LA play styles? Have the things I’ve discovered over a relatively small sample size of playing time borne out for anyone else over an extended period of time?

Thanks for any input,

Dennis first welcome to BTP. I actaully disagree with you here. I dont think that playing LAG is the way to make money, nor do I think TE is the way to make money. I think you are missing the real reason that you are making money. You are making good decisions.A poker player that out plays the table can make money playin 7/2 offsuit, by making good decisions. I think its really your play that is the reason you are winning money. It may be that LAg suits your style of poker. The only downsides to playing LAG is the swings will be much worse, the good side is when your are on and making good plays and catching cards on top of that you are going to have much bigger days than the TE. player. Take a look the top pro's. As an example look at TJ Clotier and Gus Hanson. You have two opposite syles of play Rock vs LAG, what they both have in common is top notch decision making skills, readin players etc.. I

It's like the difference between Iceman and Palman. Iceman is more TAG, and Palman is more LAG, but both are very good NL players.

I notice that Ice has added a lot of moves to his game as he's moved up that make him less predictable though, like raising suited connectors in LP and limping more EP. I'm sure that's key against good opponents.

Think about it this way.

When you play at a table full of textbook TAGs, the best way to make big money is by playing very laggy preflop and flop but making good reads postflop.

When you play at a table full of idiots, play a TAG game and you are guaranteed to make good money.

In most online games, a TAG-style will be the best way to make money IMO. This is part of the reason why I hate the online cash games since it restricts the number of things you can do. When you play live you can really figure out your opponents and play a hyper-aggressive lag style that will allow you to control the table. This works even better when you are deep-stacked, as it allows more room to maneuver and bluff in certain situations.

Welcome Dennerman. I think this thread has a lot of good points. I think it's really the current game conditions which should cause you to play LAG or TAG. Mad Genius summed this up pretty well.

When I was playing $100 NL tables on Party with the old blind structure ($1/$2 blinds), I just waited for good starting hands and frequently took a whole stack anytime I got AA or KK, or hit a set. At a table like this there's no point in playing suited connectors, your stack isn't big enough to justify calling pre-flop, and your implied odds aren't there to flop a straight or flush.

But now that I'm playing the new $600 NL tables at Party, with the new blind structure ($3/$6), the entire game is different. There are much fewer players, so I see the same players a lot more often. This forces you to play a more deceptive game if you want to ever get paid off for a big hand. Add the fact that the stacks are deeper in comparison to the blinds, and you really need to play a little looser pre-flop In this game I've found that reads are much more important, and I must play looser to confuse my opponents.

Even on the same tables the day of the week or time of the day will affect the ratio of the types of players at the table, forcing a change in strategy to beat the table for the maximum. I believe it's being able to adjust your play to the current table conditions which allows for maximum profit.

That being said, for anyone just learning the game; I think that learning to play TAG is by far the best. Most people need to master TAG against loose opponents until they are winning consistently before they try to start playing a more loose style.