The 1/2 Exploits That Print Money Off Anyone

29 Sep 2025

Beginner

This material is for beginner players

Most players walk into a poker room hoping to get lucky. But winners? They sit down with one question in mind: Who can I exploit today? Here’s the secret: you don’t need to be the best player at the table to win consistently. What you need is the ability to spot each player’s habits — and know exactly how to punish them.

In this guide, we’ll break down:

• How to recognize different player types at the table.
• What exploiting actually looks like in practice.
• How to exploit every type of player — even the pros who are a few steps ahead of you.

I’m Andreas Wagner. I specialize in exploiting live low-stakes players and even wrote a short cheat sheet, Exploit Every Player Type.

Before we dive into actual exploitation, let’s talk about how to label players at the table. When I sit down, I ask myself two simple questions about any unknown opponent: Is this player loose or tight? Or is this player passive or aggressive? 

The answers define the player’s basic type:

• Loose-Passive. These are the weak players — what many call “fish”. They play too many hands but without aggression, making them easy targets.
• Loose-Aggressive (LAGs and Maniacs). These players can be anywhere on the spectrum — really good, really bad, or somewhere in between. But whether it’s a true LAG or their cousin, the maniac, they always have exploitable tendencies.
• Tight-Aggressive (TAGs). Typically winning players. This is the style I personally use in live poker and the one I recommend for anyone who wants a long-term positive win rate.
• Tight-Passive. Often small winners or break-even players. The most famous archetype is the Old Man Coffee (OMC) — a player who sits tight, waits for premiums, and rarely takes risks.

Of course, these categories can be refined, but they form the foundation for exploitative play.

When I sit down at a table, I’ll always look for more details. But honestly, if you use the first 30 minutes just to figure out which players fall into these four main categories, that’s already enough to start exploiting them.

Let’s begin with the loose-passive player, also known as the calling station. These are typically the biggest losers in the game, often with win rates around –30 big blinds per hour.

Traits of a calling station:

• They love pairs. If they flop one, they’re almost never folding unless you make an extremely big bet.
• They are passive: they limp frequently, rarely fold, and seldom raise.
• If they do raise post-flop — especially on the river — it almost always means a monster hand.

About half of all 1/2 and 1/3 players in the US fall into this category, although skill levels vary:

• They call far too much, convinced everyone is bluffing them — or simply without thinking at all.
• They are predictable: they only show aggression when holding a strong hand. Such predictability makes them some of the easiest and most profitable opponents—but it requires discipline to exploit them correctly.

How to exploit calling stations:

• Value bet relentlessly. If you have an overpair, a set, a straight, or even just a strong top pair, go for three streets of value.
• Overfold to their aggression. If you have pocket kings on a 9-6-2 rainbow board and the calling station check-raises you, it’s almost always a set. Don’t stack off — just fold.

It sounds absurd, but many ambitious players still try to force these opponents to fold top pair. In reality, all they’re doing is letting the calling station turn the tables and exploit them.

The next player type to exploit is the TAG. These are the consistent winners at 1/2 and 1/3.

Traits of a TAG:

• They only play strong starting hands.
• They understand poker theory well.
• They are aggressive when they have a hand.

The good ones make about 10 big blinds per hour, while weaker TAGs still earn at least 3 big blinds per hour. Some TAGs play tighter, while others open up their range a little or bluff more often. But overall, they share one clear trait: they don’t like putting money into the pot without a big hand.

This cautiousness makes TAGs very predictable. The reason they get away with it is simple: most players either don’t notice, or if they do, they don’t know how to counter it. That said, even if you know how to exploit them, you won’t win huge amounts from TAGs. But you can still extract money — it just requires a different approach.

How to Exploit TAGs

To beat TAGs, you need to be willing to bluff big. Their win rate relies on value betting often and folding to major resistance. They know that most players don’t risk large sums without strong hands.

If you can make them believe you’re also a TAG, they will fold everything except the very top of their range. A big check-raise on the turn is a perfect example. Yes, it might cost you over $100 to run the play, but if you have a tight table image, you’ll get them to fold most of the time.

And the biggest mistake players make is calling their preflop raises with trash hands like   offsuit. The logic goes: “Since TAGs play high cards, I’ll stack them if I hit two pair”. But here’s the issue: many TAGs are too disciplined to stack off with just an overpair. They won’t pay you off nearly often enough to cover all the times you miss — or worse, when you hit bottom pair and lose to their top pair.

The next type is the loose-aggressive player (LAG). So what are their main traits? First of all, LAGs are the hardest to pin down, because they can be really good, really bad, or anywhere in between. The more hands someone plays, the harder it becomes to stay profitable — but the very best players use this style to attack weaker opponents and still win consistently.

As the name suggests, LAGs are:

• Loose: they play a wide range of hands.
• Aggressive: they raise, 3-bet, and even 4-bet constantly.

They don’t need much of a hand to put in action — sometimes nothing more than “two napkins”. Even if they’re not great players, their relentless aggression makes them very tough to face. 

How to Exploit LAGs

Exploiting a LAG is nerve-wracking. You need to be willing to put a lot of money into the pot with medium-strength hands—something most players hate doing. But it’s the only way to beat someone who constantly tests you. Now let me provide an example:

• You raise   offsuit, and the LAG 3-bets. Normally, this would be a fold.
• But if you’ve already seen him 3-bet with   offsuit, this is an easy call.
• The flop comes   , he c-bets half pot — you call with the top pair.
• The turn is a , and he overbets. Against this opponent, you must call.
• The river is a , and now he bombs two times the pot. You don’t love your    here, but against a true LAG, you still have to call.

Sometimes, yes, you’ll run into A-K or a set of 8s and it will sting. But this is the price of exploiting a real LAG. They bank on you folding eventually, which is why they keep barreling.

The key against LAGs is to avoid ego battles. If they’re good, it’s hard to make money by fighting fire with fire. If they’re bad, they may still out-aggress you if you start 4-betting light. Instead, patience pays off. The best strategy is to trap them and let their over-aggression work against them.

Finally, let’s talk about the pro — the crushers in your games. These are the players making around 15 big blinds an hour. They don’t necessarily play for a living — since making a living at 1-2 or 1-3 is tough — but they are simply the best players in your player pool.

They generally come in two forms:

• A solid TAG with strong fundamentals and sharp exploitative adjustments;
• A high-level LAG who bumps up every pot and constantly keeps opponents uncomfortable.

Can you exploit them? Yes, but it’s not easy. Everyone has leaks, even the best. The issue is that while you may spot how they’re unbalanced against a calling station, that doesn’t mean they’ll be unbalanced against you. In fact, if they are, it’s probably because they’ve found your leaks and are deliberately exploiting you.

The way to exploit a pro is by doing something unpredictable:

• This usually means bluffing big.
• Think massive turn check-raises, light 3-bets, or even 4-bets preflop.
• This works best if they don’t know you or if you’ve built up a tight image.

But make no mistake: to pull this off, you need to be comfortable putting a lot of money in with weak hands. That said, in general, you should avoid tangling with pros. Long term, the best you can hope for is breaking even. Many players make the mistake of trying to duel them — constantly raising, calling, and forcing action just to prove something. This can be good for training purposes — think of it as paid practice — but it costs money.

And if you want to shortcut the learning curve and study exactly how to spot, label, and exploit every type of opponent, you should check out our coaching platform Getcoach Poker. It’s built to help you turn theory into profit at the tables.

Beyond the main four categories, you’ll also encounter additional archetypes at the low-stakes tables:

• The Regular. The average reg is a break-even or small winner who understands fundamentals and avoids big mistakes. There isn’t much profit in targeting them directly. The better approach is to shift your attention toward weaker players while making sure you don’t become exploitable yourself.
• The Maniac. Unlike a well-calibrated LAG, the true maniac plays with reckless abandon. They shove chips into the pot with any two cards, constantly applying pressure. Exploiting them requires patience. Wait for strong hands, trap, and let them spew into you.
• The OMC (Old Man Coffee). This is the classic tight-passive player. They limp often, rarely bluff, and only commit chips with very strong hands. While not usually massive losers, they are extremely predictable. The exploit is simple: value bet relentlessly, and when they suddenly put in big action, give them credit for a strong holding.

Consistent profit doesn’t come from playing perfect GTO — it comes from exploiting tendencies:

• Loose-passive players (calling stations): bet your value hands heavily, never bluff.
• Tight-aggressive players (tags): pressure them with big bluffs in the right spots.
• Loose-aggressive players (LAGs): call down lighter, and avoid ego wars — trap instead.
• Pros: not worth the battle. Avoid them and direct your energy toward weaker opponents.

The true edge in these games isn’t about memorizing charts — it’s about disciplined observation. Recreational players reveal their patterns quickly. Once you recognize those tendencies, you can map out clear exploits. You don’t need to outthink the entire table. You just need to systematically dismantle each player type in the way their style allows. That’s how real profit is built: not from being “the smartest player in the room”, but from being the most adaptable. So this was all for today. Thanks for being with us and have a great week!