Busting the Lagtard

The names in this blog have not been changed to protect anyone. If Francis ever reads this (extremely unlikely!) I would hope that instead of being offended, he could learn something.

You will often hear of poker players being classified in four basic ways; tight-weak, tight-aggressive, loose-weak and loose-aggressive. "Tight" refers to a tendency to only play good hands, while a "loose" player will play more hands with a wider range of hole cards. An aggressive player bets often and bets heavy - thus always keeping pressure on their opponents.  A "weak" or "passive" player is cautious and will usually only bet when they are certain they are ahead. These are just generalizations, of course, and if you go out there thinking that there are only four types of players - and that a player can not switch styles in the middle of a game - then you are kidding yourself. Anyway, generalizations are helpful when trying to simplify things. So lets just play along for a minute.

It is widely believed that in no-limit hold'em, being aggressive is crucial. This is what attracts the macho men to the game - the idea that they can win with sheer balls and bullshit. The loose aggressive player (often denoted as LAG on poker blogs) is often the most successful model - but to be successful long term a LAG must be able to sense when they have run up against a player holding a hand they simply will not fold. If the LAG never learns to take his foot off the gas, eventually he will loose all his chips when his opponent flops the nuts and the LAG tries to bluff him. This is where aggression crosses the line into stupidity, and such players are sometimes referred to as Lagtards - guys who don't know when to stop.

Francis, is a lagtard.

Francis plays a lot of hands To be fair he doesn't always try to scoop every pot he plays, but he does bluff an awful lot. His worst problem is that when an opponent makes a big bet, Francis too often assumes it is a bluff - probably because he assumes the other guy is playing the way he himself plays - and so gets caught playing inferior hands against opponents he can't bluff. Still, his sheer aggression wins him a lot of pots. I have seen him build $200 into $1200 in about ninety minutes. I have seen him lose $1200 in about ten minutes.

In my post small stakes-big pots I related a hand in which Francis lost over $750 in a single hand, leaving him with only $350 in chips. When a lagtard looses a big pot, they often respond by stomping on the gas even harder, and that is exactly what Francis did on the very next hand. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be the wall he would drive full speed into.

I was two off the button and had been dealt pocket queens. A ten dollar bet seemed appropriate, so threw out two $5 chips. The table was still buzzing about the massive pot we had all just witnessed, so little attention was being paid to the current hand. Tom folded and got back to stacking his chips. Francis, in the small blind, raised it to $30. Big blind folded and I called. The flop was something like J 9 4 rainbow - nothing scary. I bet $40 and Francis called. The turn was a Queen, giving me top set but also raising the possibility of a straight. I checked and Francis pushed all-in. Now could he have a straight? Maybe - but if he did, why would he bet so much? No, he'd bet a smaller amount with the straight. This all-in is a classic lagtard bluff. I call.

The river is a low card. I turn over my set and Francis starts cursing. He curses his bad luck. He leaves the table. Seat open.

Tom says "What is his problem? He was behind in that hand all the way - what is he so upset about?"

I think he is upset that he was so incredibly unlucky that he ran into a hand he could not bluff. This is the lament of the lagtard. They believe they are skillful when they just being reckless. They believe they can dance in a minefield and then they curse their bad luck when they step on a mine.