Hold'em strategy: The TAG fish disease
Online poker, like most other sports, is a continuously evolving entity. What works today as far as success at the green felt is concerned, may not work the same tomorrow. A couple of years ago, being a Tight Aggressive Player (TAG) was the definition of cool. Tight Aggressive players ruled the roost, felting clueless rookies left and right armed with nothing but basic ABC poker knowledge.
These days though, being a TAG player is no longer such an obvious advantage. As people continue to wise up to ever more intricate strategies, TAG players are everywhere. As matter of fact, there are TAG players now who find it difficult to break out of the break-even and losing molds. Thee guys act and look like successful players. They buy in for the maximum allowed amount every time, they top up every hand and they play the purest form of TAG poker there is. Yet, they're long term losers or break-even players at best. These guys are TAG fish. There's nothing funny or fun about being a TAG fish.
Due to the fact that they play reasonably well, it's tougher for these players to find the mistakes in their own approach and to improve by eliminating these setbacks. They just stick to being TAG fish and keep on losing, thinking that Lady Luck has a personal bone to pick with them.
These days though, being a TAG player is no longer such an obvious advantage. As people continue to wise up to ever more intricate strategies, TAG players are everywhere. As matter of fact, there are TAG players now who find it difficult to break out of the break-even and losing molds. Thee guys act and look like successful players. They buy in for the maximum allowed amount every time, they top up every hand and they play the purest form of TAG poker there is. Yet, they're long term losers or break-even players at best. These guys are TAG fish. There's nothing funny or fun about being a TAG fish.
Due to the fact that they play reasonably well, it's tougher for these players to find the mistakes in their own approach and to improve by eliminating these setbacks. They just stick to being TAG fish and keep on losing, thinking that Lady Luck has a personal bone to pick with them.
Being a TAG fish is such a subtle disease that it barely has any sort of symptoms. If you think you're playing your best yet you fail to show anything for your efforts at the end of the month, you may be a TAG fish yourself. Here are a few of the more subtle symptoms of the disease, to help you find mistakes in your approach and to eventually help you overcome your condition.
TAG fish are usually so confident in their skills, often they don't bother signing up for rakeback. After all, rakeback is for those who have trouble turning a buck at the table. Wrong! Rakeback (the best such deals, including some excellent poker prop deals are on offer at Rakemeback.com,) is for everyone. Winners increase their profits and losers diminish their losses through it, and if you are indeed a TAG fish, you need it to get you over that illusive red line.
Tag Fish often overestimate their implied odds. A clear example in this respect is cash game set mining. A TAG fish knows the theory well, and he knows that despite the apparently EV- nature of the move, the implied odds will come through for him in the end and bail him out. These guys fail to take it into consideration that sets are sometimes defeated too which means there are no guarantees the implied odds will work as well as they do in theory.
This takes us to another TAG Fish symptom: the misapplication of various poker skills. As said above, TAG fish are good at poker theory, practice is an entirely different thing however, and that's where these guys have serious deficiencies.
A TAG fish will learn that giving up on a C-bet is bad, so he'll keep at it every time he fires one out. The problem with TAG fish is that they're rather clueless how and when to apply the skills they've learned.
There are other TAG fish symptoms as well, like having post-flops leaks in your game, tilting too readily, not considering subtle position differences and ignoring your own perceived range. If you recognize one or more of these problems in your own play, chances are you're a TAG fish yourself. The good news is, once it has been spotted, these problems can be addressed and eliminated one by one.
posted by AllStars at 10:08 AM
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