Every so often, the topic of best playing style comes up.  In this way, poker's no different from chess, golf, or any other competitive endeavor.  The poker forums generally favor a LAG (loose aggressive) style of play.  So I decided to look through my data to see if there was any validity to the LAGs' claim that their style is superior.

The data I analyzed comprises of 978K hands over the past 12 months where I've played with 8 or more people, for the 298 players who I have played 10+K hands with. The 10+K min hand requirement should get rid of all non-regulars.  Not getting rid of the casual players will bias the data towards TAGs (tight aggerssives), as most fish play way too many hands.  As you can see, there is "some" difference in win rates, but that difference is not statistically signifcant.  In addition, there are three factors that would make the LAG data look better than it actually is:

* There is a significant population of mid to high stakes regs who don't play 12+ tables.  As you move up, people play fewer tables, play more hands per table and focus on more on extracting max value from each hand.

* My data still includes short stackers, who either have TAG or sub-TAG stats.  It is well known that short stacking produces a very small win rate.

* Over 50% of the hands in my sample are from 8 handed play.  You may be saying that 8 handed is basically the same as 9 handed.  But the GTO (game theory optimal) stats for 8 handed will be 12% higher than 9 handed.  While everyone looks at stats that are averaged over all the different sized tables they play, if you look at "pure" 9-handed full-ring stats, they look like this:

There are only 148 players that have 10+K hands on a 9 handed table.  But here are some tables that clearly show that looser is not better.  However, I think this subset of data is too fine, as most people play anywhere from 7 to 9 handed and still consider the game "full ring."  Also, some players with LAG stats aren't really LAGs at a 9 handed table because their stats include a whole bunch of HU and short handed play at full ring tables.

This data is obviously nowhere near conclusive, but considering how many "LAG is best" comments there are in the forums, I see no data that would justify this.  That having been said, when I think of the top three mass multitabling regs at midstakes, they all play around 18/13 (which I consider the lower end of LAG) - maybe people just remember how the best play.  But as I've said in the past, good players are LAG because they are good - so they can play more hands profitably.  Players don't get good because they play more hands.