[BluffTHIS!]

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Great, great post Bluff.

My biggest leak against these players is undoubtably the river bluff and sorting out when I am ahead and when I am behind. I was reading through a couple of Rolf's old columns and one thing that really struck me was his arrogently-intonated suggesetion that the tough spots are somehow demystified by the "better" players whereas "weaker" players often make the wrong decision. Perhaps some of it has to do with the nature of Internet poker and the general lack of tells. Many of the "face" players make their living reading live action, and for the most part, this luxury just doesn't exist online. As you point out, a great deal of careful observation and notetaking can help you get feel for the percentage of the time a given player will make a play, but in the end it just seems that all you have is a percentage. I try to note the action in each pot as it builds to a climax in order to make sure that it is consistent throughout, but even this can be misleading because the maths are often blatently disregarded.

I feel like I am missing something...

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I didn't reply to this post the other day because I wanted to think through my reply carefully so as not to give advice that might get lesser experienced players into lots of troubles with the kinds of players my post is about.

You are indeed correct that a lot of the problem comes on the river when there is still decent money to bet, and especially if you are out of position and can't as often get a checked down river when you would like it. If you have been able via the stack sizes to get allin before the river then that is usually preferable, but not always possible. However, even on a draw heavy board, you should often consider checkraising the turn out of position for this reason, that is to try to get allin.

On the river when trying to read whether they are bluffing, you have to consider that they are willing to bet hands that most other players would check, such as low flushes, non-nut straights, and even straights made with a card that also brings a flush. If the river is multiway, then you mostly go by your hand strength and math. But if headsup against one of these players you have to be able to play back the action in the hand and compare it to how you have in the past seen them play various hands such as middle set, nut flush draws with nothing else, and bigger draws.

When out of position with a set or a straight that might have been beat with a flush card on the river, you are simply going to have to call a certain percentage of the time or they will steal your balls off in every similar situation. And you should often make a bluff stopping bet (also in nl referred to as a blocking bet), although you need to know how they react to such bets, and you need to be seen making the same smaller bets with the nuts.

When headsup on the river and having position though, you need to realize that the "best LAGs" are not river calling stations, so you should not value bet as thin with non-nut hands as you would against the ones who call much more. And you have to be aware that if you reopen the action after having been checked to, some players might then put in a bluff checkraise. So all of this requires very good judgement and good notes as to their past play.

The key I believe though, is to employ a mixed strategy where a certain percentage of the time you make bluff stopping bets and also bet smaller with the nuts to balance this so that they can't figure you out as easily. And since they are so aggressive, a side benefit occasionally will be they will sometimes raise those smaller river bets when you have the nuts on a steal.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, their whole strategy is based on trying to force you to make the nuts while they steal on every scare card that comes. So you have to occasionally reverse this with well timed bluffs of your own, assuming again, that they aren't known calling stations.

Bottom line is that they are hard to play against because of a combination of aggression and an inability to read their hands as well as you can with other players, and because all those successful steals give them an effective freeroll to suckout with inadequate odds. So you need to make yourself harder for them to read by occasional slowplaying, smaller bets with nut and non-nut hands, and your own bluffs. Just realize that it takes a bigger bankroll at any level to play more successfully and aggressively with these players.