what possesses the LAG donator?

[Rhone]

So I spent an enjoyable hour at a 5/10 6-max table tonight with an uber LAG the likes of which I have never seen before:

His Poker Tracker stats:
VP$P: 65
pf raise: 67
post flop aggression: 5

He would routinely raise every bet on every street. He lost 75 big bets in just under an hour.

Now this guy would win a lot of small pots by getting a single opponent, or sometimes two, to fold under pressure on the flop. I understand how in a short handed game you benefit from quite a bit of aggression on early streets, and therefore I can empathize with the thinking of a loose aggressive player who may take that strategy a bit further than I would, but who nonetheless appears to be adhering to a strategy of some sort that he expects to generate rewards.

But this guy was something of a completely different nature. He would routinely make utterly hopeless aggressive moves on later streets, capping holding stuff like 9 high against multiple tight and/or passive opponents on a board that had broadway cards and flush and straight possibilities, knowing the other players knew he bluffed constantly. There is no possible way any rational player could expect to induce folds in this situation, yet he kept on trying. He was hemorrhaging money.

I think we take for granted that even the worst players can rationalize their play according to some type of strategy, bogus or not in reality, that they at least believe will make them winners. But with this guy it almost seemed like he was just trying to get rid of his money.

Have you encoutered players like this before? Any thoughts on what's going on inside his head? Do you think he is rational, in the sense of a) being motivated to win money, and b) employing a strategy that he believes will accomplish that goal?

[fnord_too]

Read this thread

It is quite long but brown thumb is (was) an uber lag donator. He describes his reasoning quite well in the thread. Plus it is just a great thread, probably my favorite thread ever.

Here is how the very long thread begins:

[ QUOTE ]
I am BrownThumb from UB, BigBet, AbsolutePoker, and many other sites. Anyone that has played with me knows I am a total jackass, but I have a lot of fun.

I raise almost every hand preflop, and most hands postflop. For some reason, this irritates many players. It shouldn't because I always lose my money (even after the times I run $50.00 up to $1,500). I always lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Rhone]

[ QUOTE ]
Read this thread

It is quite long but brown thumb is (was) an uber lag donator. He describes his reasoning quite well in the thread. Plus it is just a great thread, probably my favorite thread ever.

Here is how the very long thread begins:

[ QUOTE ]
I am BrownThumb from UB, BigBet, AbsolutePoker, and many other sites. Anyone that has played with me knows I am a total jackass, but I have a lot of fun.

I raise almost every hand preflop, and most hands postflop. For some reason, this irritates many players. It shouldn't because I always lose my money (even after the times I run $50.00 up to $1,500). I always lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the link. It's hilarious, and a must read, but he doesn't go too deeply into his psychology, except for this passage:

"Most of the fun is busting up a table when they don't know how to handle me. I always lose, but I have fun. .... Part of the fun is seeing how I lose and how long I last and how many people get bent out of shape when the bustup comes their way."

Pretty interesting, though. I wonder if this motivation is common among those who play this way.

Also interesting, while brownthumb clearly enjoys mixing it up verbally with his opponents, the guy I played tonight was totally silent.

[Al Schoonmaker]

LOTS of people do NOT play to win.

That's one of the basic themes of my "The Psychology of Poker." If you want to understand HOW people play, you must understand WHY they play and vice versa.

If fact, YOU do not play only to win. You have lots of other motives, and some of them cost you significant money.

The most important player for you to understand is yourself.

Regards,

Al

[Rhone]

[ QUOTE ]
LOTS of people do NOT play to win.

That's one of the basic themes of my "The Psychology of Poker." If you want to understand HOW people play, you must understand WHY they play and vice versa.

If fact, YOU do not play only to win. You have lots of other motives, and some of them cost you significant money.

The most important player for you to understand is yourself.

Regards,

Al

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, the question of why he plays is what I addressed in the last paragraph of my post, trying to understand what his motivation is.

You write that we all have mixed motivations for playing, some of which do not involve maximizing returns. Ok, fine. But the only thing I could infer about his motivations from observing him was a single-minded determination to give his money to the other five people at the table. I don't really believe this is what was going through his head, though, which is why I'm asking what others think his true motivations might be.

[Stuey]

[ QUOTE ]
But the only thing I could infer about his motivations from observing him was a single-minded determination to give his money to the other five people at the table. I don't really believe this is what was going through his head, though, which is why I'm asking what others think his true motivations might be.

[/ QUOTE ]

The reasons only make sense to them just as the reasons we behave the way we do only make sense to us. Some of my reasons don't even make sense to me. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Let's look at one possible reason.

The LAG type player might be getting enjoyment from being the central focus of the game. Yes he is losing money but the perceived attention he feels he is getting is enough to make the activity seem worthwhile to him. He does not consciously know he is an attention whore.

Here are a few other possible reasons.

The limits in the game are to low for him and he is playing for fun only. How does a person that works hard to earn big money relax? Lets hope they play poker.

The guy is tilting for poker or real life reasons. He could be drunk on top of all of this.

She has won in the past with this style and is in denial of her overall win rate.

There are as many reasons as there are lag's imo. The important part is once you notice they are a lag you can be very confident they cannot and will not change their playing style.

I know a person that buys a combination lottery ticket that costs $900. We all know his chances of winning do not improve by buying this. He brags to me that he won $300 on it and he plans to buy one every draw from now on. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

I explained the math to him and told him not to do it. He is a successful businessman. And he should be smart enough to understand this imo. He would not listen and he continues to buy them.

I think he does it just to make himself feel important. As he likes to show and tell people how much he spends on the tickets (This is his motivation). He has no idea how dumb he looks to most people. Worst part is I am probably wrong and this guy impresses the majority of people. It should not matter to me should it? [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[Dudd]

Why do they do it? Because it's fun and means nothing to them. My younger brother likes to play the play money tables and just move in every hand. Sometimes he gets a big stack, and then he can bully the table around, forcing everyone to risk three or four hands before they double up enough to do any real damage. Now, this is fun for a 16 year old with no money. If you're a successful businessman, to which a small stakes game feels like a play money game to someone like my brother, the same entertainment can be achieved by LAGing it up.

[Blackjack]

Yea but if you're really successful, you try to excel and succeed at ever facet of your life. You just don't go [censored] up in poker.

Blackjack
A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

[xniNja]

I think this makes a lot of sense. Someone who can spend $900 on a lottery ticket, throw away $1-10,000 dollars a night on a game of poker or in a strip club or anywhere else isn't looking to grind out a big bet an hour. This question answers itself in the original post. He's not trying to grind; it's that simple. He's there for fun, to show off, etc. When I think deeply about it, I'm in fact impressed by a $900 lottery ticket and blowing thousands of dollars... why? because it means he has those thousands of dollars to blow. Thousands of dollars that I want to somehow take. All this has been said, I'm just repeating it for synopsis.

[Rhone]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But the only thing I could infer about his motivations from observing him was a single-minded determination to give his money to the other five people at the table. I don't really believe this is what was going through his head, though, which is why I'm asking what others think his true motivations might be.

[/ QUOTE ]

The reasons only make sense to them just as the reasons we behave the way we do only make sense to us. Some of my reasons don't even make sense to me. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Let's look at one possible reason.

The LAG type player might be getting enjoyment from being the central focus of the game. Yes he is losing money but the perceived attention he feels he is getting is enough to make the activity seem worthwhile to him. He does not consciously know he is an attention whore.

Here are a few other possible reasons.

The limits in the game are to low for him and he is playing for fun only. How does a person that works hard to earn big money relax? Lets hope they play poker.

The guy is tilting for poker or real life reasons. He could be drunk on top of all of this.

She has won in the past with this style and is in denial of her overall win rate.

There are as many reasons as there are lag's imo. The important part is once you notice they are a lag you can be very confident they cannot and will not change their playing style.

I know a person that buys a combination lottery ticket that costs $900. We all know his chances of winning do not improve by buying this. He brags to me that he won $300 on it and he plans to buy one every draw from now on. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

I explained the math to him and told him not to do it. He is a successful businessman. And he should be smart enough to understand this imo. He would not listen and he continues to buy them.

I think he does it just to make himself feel important. As he likes to show and tell people how much he spends on the tickets (This is his motivation). He has no idea how dumb he looks to most people. Worst part is I am probably wrong and this guy impresses the majority of people. It should not matter to me should it? [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]


[/ QUOTE ]

Good points. My gut tells me that this:

[ QUOTE ]
The guy is tilting for poker or real life reasons. He could be drunk on top of all of this.

[/ QUOTE ]

is what's really going on. I still doubt he's playing a style he thinks can win. Lots of LAGs do win in the short run, of course, and, as you wrote, could have the mentality that the style works sometimes and can work again, without recognizing their true win (loss) rate. But this guy was truly at a different level of lagginess, playing a style I don't believe could even win in the very short run.

I also didn't get the sense it was attention whoring, just because you'd think if that were it he'd be chatty. But he was totally silent, even though lots of other players were trying to engage him.