As always a great pleasure watching your videos Oink.

I am trying to evolve my game from being a total nit to being a LAGTAG who runs like god - hopefully on occasion
Unfortunately, I end up overplaying a good amount of my hands against loose-passive opponents, and keep sending myself to valuetown vs. the non-believers.
I also estimate that I am over-analyzing certain situations, or just give fish too much credit when they spazz out against me on many occasions because they are getting tired of my constant raising. I make stupid moves against people who I know are not going to fold J-high etc.

It is a very delicate balance between value, and self-ownage that I find myself in lately, and although I have been winning more often, my variance is currently through the roof. Any suggestions on how to bring those swings down a little bit? Perhaps I should start open limping more in the SB if I happen to have a very loose big blind to my left?
I think this could be one of the areas in which I leak; because I am so loose opening from the SB I have to muck a ton of hands postflop if the BB who calls every one of my preflop raises keeps floating, and plays back at me on every single flop/turn.

I tried varying my game by switching styles. For example, I will play TAG for the first 5 orbits, and then throw in a LAG orbit or two during which I am a total showdown monkey.
How do you proceed if people are constantly cold-calling your raises, and you end up in multi way pots out of position? Just play TAG? Wait for big hand? Limp in with all the other limpers when I have postion on them instead of raising?

I know, very basic questions, but I think that those spots have become increasingly important the more I open up my game. It wasn't really a problem when I used to play TAG because I would only play strong hands which would hold up against worse ranges most of the time.
I think the LAG approach has already increased my EV in common games, but it has also created new leaks, and potentially opened my game up to being heavily exploited by opposition who just doesn't fold to any sort of aggression.
My non-showdown winnings have gone down which probably means I fold too much myself. I thought I had this covered, but now that I added more hands to my repertoire I need to get to showdown more often I in marginal spots I think right?

Again, thank you Oink - love your vids.

~fork

One more thing

GOing from 22/18 to 35/23 shouldnt be done in one step. It also shouldnt be done if you play in a high rake environment. At 1/2 as an example I wouldnt suggest playing much looser than 30/20. Even playing 27/20 with the rake there will require a nice set of postflop skills.

So be carefull about loosening up too much if you pay a lot of rake and dont do it in one step. Try and go from 22/18 to 25/19. And then to 28/20 and so forth. This will constantly increase the amount of tough spots you put yourself in and you will be ever more comfortable with playing marginal hands in a more smooth manner.

With such good tables I am sure you can crush with a vpip a bit above 30. But there is no need to be raising overly much. Dont worry about over limping 75s, 22, K4s, Q9o OTB or in the CO after 1 limper with some passive guys behind you.

The beautiful thing about playing such players is that they will pay you of light when you have something and let you draw cheap when you are drawing. You will get tons of free cards meaning you can peel flops light and you will get the chance to check behind rivers with 3rd pair or 4th pair because you play your hands in position. You will also get to make free crad plays in position with good draws such as fd's, OESD's, guts+ 1 or 2 oc's etc etc.

Raising a lot of hands OOP vs these guys will be suicide.

Finally. Remember to adjust to the rake. I take it these tables are fairly low stakes. The rake is such a killer. Remember that the EV curve of hands is hyperbolic (Check out the graph in Sklansky's and Miller's SSSH)with very few hands being huge +EV and a lot of hands being either slightly +EV or slightly -EV. The curve is in other words fairly flat around neutral EV for a ton of marginal hands. This implies that if you perturb the game conditions even slightly the set of +EV and -EV hands can change dramatically.

At your tables there are two effects. The huge number of fish shifts the curve upwards while the rake shifts the curve downwards. I am not sure what effect is most important but I wouldnt be surprised if playing with a vpip much above 32 5-6 handed is very suboptimal. (Assuming you play something like 1/2 or 0.5/1).

At your games I'd be very selective UTG and in the HJ. But I'd play a shitload of hands OTB and in the CO. Being in position against loose passive players is by far the most profitable spot in any kind of poker game. In your games you have the opportunity to do this a lot and you should take advantage of that. And the play quality hands OOP. I'd prolly not open more than 66, A7s, ATo, KTs, KQo, QTs, JTs and T9s UTG, but very rarely fold 75s, 96s, Q7s, K3s, A2s, 22 OTB unless its 3-bet before me. (Coldcalling a ton in position is fine in these games despite what you might read at 2p2 - like TAG opens UTG. Two fish coldcalls and you have 74s OTB with a TAg and a fish in the blinds. Easy peasy coldcall because position on fish = $$$$$)

I usually play two tables 6-max at stakes .25/.50 and .50/1 - seldom 1/2 (PS, FT and Everest). The games are still very good "down" here, and I think there is plenty of money to be made at these stakes for someone with solid skills. Everest is one of the loosest places, and it can be extremely profitable if you know how to play well in multiway pots against a table of French non-believers. Also the nice thing about Everest is that there is no cap on the river if the pot is HU - valuetown ahoi

My UTG and MP ranges are pretty standard or even tighter (77+ A8s+, ATo+,KTs+,KJo+,QJs+ in UTG and a few more hands from MP as stanard opening range). I play around 40% of my hands in the CO and OTB if it is folded to me.

Your suggestions will not be ignored, and I will try to get myself involved as often as possible in position after bad players open. This I have not been doing much at all, and then I often say to myself something along the line of "why didn't I just call preflop, he is constantly overplaying his hands, and I could have made so much money here - Or oh no, they continue to hand out free cards to everyone in the pot. Why didn't I just cold-call if they are going to let me draw for free, and they don't fight for the pot if they miss?" I was always a bit hesitant to cold-call because it always seemed so "fishy" but hey, who cares what it looks like if we can turn a profit by playing like this right?

2+2 suggestions seem to be very conservative to say the least. They are definitely great overall strategies to start with. But as you said, sometimes we need to think out of the box, and just get involved in hands with the bad players - regardless of how "standard" play might look like. I believe you mentioned this in your last episode, and it was something that got my attention. I hope you are going to elaborate more on this subject in one of your future episodes.

I am so excited right now, I get cold-called a ton by the passive who never fold, and it can be very very frustrating when they keep floating, or simply outflopping me. As of today, I'm going to try to do the same thing to them with my speculative hands, hoping that my position and postflop skills give me the edge I need to turn this into a profit.
I think I was isolating and 3-betting too much overall. What seems to be a good basic strategy doesn't really work as well when people simply don't fold, and both the blinds will come along 100% of the time along with everybody else yet to act.

Sklansky/Miller graph regarding rake implications; I should have this book around here somewhere, but you are definitely right, and the rake is crazy at those stakes. Many hands lose a ton of value because of this which is a shame.
The rake at those limits is also one of the reasons why I stay away from HU games for the most part. It is kind of sad because HU is a lot of fun but what it comes down to in the end is that we both end up broke while the house is cheering.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me in such great detail Oink. And thank you for dealing with my chaotic English
It means a lot to me.

Oink, I would just like to say that I have done well at 1/2 with fairly LAG stats (about 32/23 with a WTSD of 40) over a very large sample. So, it is possible to play a LAGTAG style at these stakes. The rake is compensated by more fish for the most part in my experience.