Poker - Playing Aggressive

Posted: September 2nd, 2007 | Author: Erick Mastack | Filed under: poker strategy |

Aggressive Play can be a very difficult strategy for many players. The very nature of this style lends itself to larger swings—Bigger wins and also bigger losses. Today I’ll give some examples of how to play aggressively in table or tournament play.

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Aggressive Poker is all about Fear and Greed.

They say there are two key Wall Street trader emotions—Fear and Greed. Similarly, the main objective behind aggressive play is to instill fear in your opponents and incite their greed. What do I mean by this? Well put simply, you’d like your opponents to fold to you, afraid of your big hands(fear), then go on tilt as they get desperate(greed).

This is best performed by you being the one who takes action first. You should be the first to bet, never the caller. The primary purpose of this is to force your opponents to make a decision. This allows them the opportunity to make mistakes. According to David Sklansky’s Fundamental Theorem of Poker, you always want your opponent to make the non-optimal play—a different play than one they would make if they had perfect knowledge of all the cards.

But doesn’t this mean you could be making the wrong decision? Sure, you could have the worst hand and be betting. But more often than not, your opponents don’t know that for 100% certain. All they know is that you’ve made a bet, preferably a large bet, and that instills fear into them. Let them decide what they want to do.

Greed comes into play when people go on tilt. They’re angry for losing, and they’re not thinking straight. When this happens, $$ signs light up in their eyes, and they try to crawl back into the game by calling or betting with bad hands. They start to gamble. This is another time when your aggressive play can scoop up. Your opponents are playing worse hands—even if you get called, your win percentage will go up just based on the fact that your tilting opponents are playing worse starters.

The Right of First Bluff.

Sometimes the flop comes and a bunch of dispersed crap shows up. Most likely nobody has anything, or do they? Someone who paired up is likely to bet. The ones that didn’t will probably fold. What often happens is the first guy to bet often wins the pot. No one else hit anything either, so they’re just going to dump their hands. You collected all the flop bets, for a single additional bet.

If you check, and everyone else checks, the guy in last position almost always invariably will bet a token amount in this situation. Of course he is just playing position, but the principle is still the same: Instill fear in your opponents and they will fold. One thing to mention: Aggressiveness is not to be confused with blindness. If someone calls or raises you, watch out. They may actually have something and it’s probably time to get out.

Semi-Bluff Aggressiveness

This is probably the best use of aggressiveness in poker. A semi-bluff is where you bet knowing that you probably don’t have the best hand, but have a decent chance at drawing into an extremely good one. In this type of bluff, you’ll hope your opponents fold right now and concede the pot to you. If they call, you still have a shot at drawing to a straight or flush or pairing up your cards to win in a showdown. Again, you’re putting pressure on your opponents, forcing them to put their money in to continue. They’re afraid you might have something big, and if their hand is mediocre, they’ll drop. Watch out though, if they stick around or come over the top. Chances are, they’ve got something, and you’re going to have to rely on a little luck to have your semi-bluff pay off!

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