Short Stacks Against a LAG
The LAG's whole game is leverage across streets, and short stacks confiscate it: at 40bb the third barrel does not exist, and the threat of it stops moving you off hands.
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3-bet shove range widens for value
The LAG opens wide and calls shoves wider than a TAG: at 30 to 40bb, hands like 88, AJ, and KQ suited become profitable 3-bet jams over their opens, printing against their light calls and folding out the junk that would have outplayed you postflop.
Call downs simplify
Short, the LAG's flop and turn barrels commit them almost immediately; your top pairs and strong middle pairs get the stack in by the turn and the guesswork ends. The medium hands that suffer against deep LAG pressure (weak top pairs, second pairs) go up in value short: two streets and showdown.
Do not flat speculative hands
The suited connectors that print against a deep LAG (implied odds off their barrels) lose their engine short: not enough behind to pay off the hit. High cards, pairs, shove-or-fold.
Worked hand
Worked hand
34bb effective, LAG opens the cutoff to 3x, you jam A♥ 9♥ from the button. Deep, this hand flats and plays position; short, the jam prints: they fold most of their range and call with enough dominated hands (A8, KQ, suited broadways) to keep the math friendly. The fold-equity plus showdown-equity package beats every postflop line at this depth.
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The mistakes that cost you
- Flatting their opens with junk to see flops (no depth to exploit position).
- Slow-playing big pairs (the streets you save them for do not exist).
- Treating their 3-bet shoves like maniac shoves (a LAG's short-stack shoving range is real; the wildness lives in their deep barrels, not their jams).
Practice beating the LAG
The app has a dedicated lag mission: hundreds of drills where the correct answer is graded against exactly this player type. Same hands, same reads you just learned.
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