Some Thoughts On Aggression

It is my conviction that the vast majority of poker players don't bet and raise enough. Sometimes it takes a lot of guts to be the aggressor, especially when you have serious doubts on whether you're ahead or behind. Yet it is extremely important that you seize seize the initiative in exactly those situations. Another thing that most people (including yours truly) don't do enough is folding. Whereas I highly recommend betting on marginal hands, I also recommend folding good hands when you run into a raise. Betting marginal hands will win you a lot of pots where nobody has much, and folding good hands for a raise will help you from losing much when someone has a monster. And given the fact that most players don't raise enough, folding a winner for a raise, will not cost you much, compared to call them down every time.

Typically raising is done for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Raising for value

2.Raising to isolate

3.Raising to get a free card

4. Bluffing

These reasons all represent a situation where you have a clear idea of where you stand. But oftentimes you need to raise in situations where you cannot know whether you are ahead or behind, simply to give yourself information. You have a hand that you will continue with, but you don't know whether you're ahead or behind. You would wish to get heads up, but as there are a number of calling stations in the game, you don't think you can succeed in this, and you are not too sure that you can bluff these players. Nevertheless betting and raising is the best thing to do in a lot of these marginal situations. Why? For several reasons.

Let's say you hold Kh2h in the BB and get to see the flop for free in a 6-way pot. The flop comes Ks10c3h. You have top pair no kicker. Yet I think you should bet. If someone has you out-kicked, so be it. Now by betting the following things can happen; first, your opponents will have to consider a raise behind them when they call -so you have a good chance that some hands that have a few outs against you will be folded. You will actually achieve a certain amount of isolation by betting here. If someone has a really good hand and raises, you can fold with a smile, knowing that you just saved your self two big bets compared to check calling it down. Furthermore, there is the possibility that you actually do have the best hand. In this case you're betting for value. Lets for instance say your opponents hold 102, A5, 37c, 106, J9. You have the best hand on the flop, but are still a slight dog against their 18 outs combined. But your bet makes the first three players fold. Now you're only up against 106 and J9, and you have reduced the number of outs against you to 9, making you a solid favorite. This will make up for the times where you are out-kicked and your hand doesn't improve to 2 pair.

Lets look at another situation: You hold 55 from MP in a 4-way pot. The flop is 338. First player checks and it's up to you. Again, I think you should bet, and if you fail to do so, you will, in my opinion, have to raise or fold when someone bets (the problem with a check raise here is that it tends to suck people in, and you want them out). If you bet, most players will fold anything but a trey, or an eight with a good kicker or a high pair. If you check, someone will bet and try to steal the pot, or bet for value, and you will be the one having to guess which of the two it is. But even if it is a steal attempt, your fives are not in very good shape here. You are up against two overcards (6 outs) and these 6 outs will hurt you. Had you bet, you could have taken down the pot right there, whereas now you will have to call it down as an appr. 75-25 favorite (which is not a lot considering the times where you are up against a trey or an eight). Betting is the play, and folding is the alternative. As a matter of fact, the only situation where check calling is okay is when you have a draw with sufficient pot odds but too many opponents to try a semi bluff.

Lets look at a final hand that often gets people in trouble: You have raised with AKo from MP. Two players cold call behind you making it 5-way. The flop comes 932 rainbow. You can argue that on such a ragged flop nobody stands to have gotten much help from this flop. And had it been 2- or 3-way I probably could have kept firing. But against 5 players this is an easy check fold. You might easily be looking at A2, A3 or A9 here. Yet I see a lot of players getting married to the hands they have raised preflop. It seems to me that these players have their raising philosophy all wrong. They only raise with their great hands, and they get married to these great hands long after it is obvious that they have turned sour.

My raising philosophy is the opposite of this. I like to be very liberal with my raises, especially from mid to late position, but to review the situation completely as the hand progresses. Hey! All I've done is that I've invested half a big bet extra on a playable hand. Not exactly a disaster.

Loosening up on the preflop raising requirements also makes it easier to walk away from the raised hands when you miss the flop. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to raise any hand I'm willing to play. Why not? If I'll play the hand, it must be because I reckon that I stand to win more then my fair share. Say 6 players have limped to me on the button. Why not raise with 87s? 87s will win more then it's fair share in 7-way action, so you are actually value betting here! The raise might buy you a free card (on a flop with only one card of your suit, that free card may be the difference between winning and losing the pot!). You add quite a bit of deception to your hand, as well as to later hands. When you hit your hand you will get more action then you deserve, as your opponents will put you on high cards. And as the game progresses some of your opponents will start to realize that a raise from you can mean anything from 87s to AA. As they will have to do the guesswork, you will probably get more action on your premium hands then you deserve to. And finally, as you will be playing a lot of odd hands for a raise preflop, it will get a lot easier to lay down that big slick when you miss the flop. You get all of these benefits for an extra small bet here and there. It is simply too cheap to let it go.

A final note on this subject concerns "the language of poker". To win a hand you either must have the best hand at showdown, or make everybody else lay down their hand prior to the showdown. When you start out playing poker, your main concern is your own hand. But as you gain more experience you should start to realize that all you need at showdown is the best hand (which can be a rather mediocre hand at times), and that the worst hand you can hold is the second best. When you realize this, your focus should shift from your own hand to your opponents' hand (you are now experienced enough to know the absolute strength of any hand, so now you can focus on it's strength relative to the hand of your opponent). At this point poker becomes a game of communication and the language being a type of Morse code made up of bets and raises. To illustrate, take a look at this hand:

In a tight aggressive game a player from MP has raised. Everybody folds to me in the big blind, and I call with Qh10h. The flop comes Jd10d4h, and we start to communicate.

Me: Check
Him: Bet
Me: Raise (I like my hand)
Him: Re-raise (You'll have to pay to see that flush draw through)
Me: Cap (I'm not on a draw. You're looking at a queen or better. If you have AA, KK or AQ you might have me beat, but anything else is definitively no good)

Turn and river are blanks, and he folds for a bet on the river, probably holding AK or AJ.

Now this example shows an interesting thing about poker, namely that there are two completely different games going on, and often at the same time. In loose passive games poker is all abut pot odds, and manipulating the pot. Most hands will reach showdown, so you will win a relatively low percentage of the pots you enter, but the pots you do win, will be of a decent size, especially if you bet the hands you decide to play (remembering that you don't necessarily need a monster - just the best hand). But when only 2-3 players see the flop, shorthanded strategy applies, and here you simply don't get pot odds to draw. But at the same time, it usually takes less of a hand to win at showdown, and many hands end before showdown. Therefore, your poker language skills come into play (you need to be able to persuade your opponents to fold, and you need to get out of their way when they do the same to you). The funny thing about this is that on most tight aggressive tables, individual hands where a lot of players limp, I will come up, and you will have to apply the strategy from loose passive games. Also shorthanded pots do come up in low limit games, and here you can use shorthanded strategy to your benefit.

As in the example above, shorthanded strategy starts out with an analysis of the flop, and what hands your opponent might hold when he decides to proceeds from the given flop. The "discussion" in the example given above, centers on the fact that a Jd10d4h flop, contains a lot of draws for straights (with legitimate start hands) and flushes. So all the betting and raising, basically concerns whether you have a draw or a made hand (or both)? On a flop of say 2h6s9d the only meaningful draws are 78 and 810, so the same betting sequence would amount to the following:

Me: Check
Him: Bet
Me: Raise (I have a piece of the board)
Him: Re-raise (I have a pair, not AK)
Me: Cap (I can beat an overpair, or I don't believe you. Pick your choice)

Now the thing about aggression as a means of communication is that you'll have to make sure that your opponent has a receiver- meaning that before you consider using bets and raises to communicate with your opponent, you'll have to make sure that he "speaks the language," i.e. that he understands the message hidden in your actions. If this is not the case, you should play straight forward poker, knowing that deception is wasted on him.

The first element of your decision has to do with the level of knowledge of your opponent, whereas the second pretty much has to do with the nature of the board. You don't always want to bet betting straightforwardly. Often people expect that the person who led the betting in the previous round will keep on firing. As they expect this, a bet in this situation will not make them stop to think. They will just keep on calling. In order to make them stop and think, you'll need to make a move they don't expect.

A few examples: I hold QsQh in the BB and make it 2 bets to go for a 6-way pot. Flop comes Js9s4h. I bet and everybody calls. Now this might easily mean that I'm in trouble. I most certainly am up against a large number of outs from them combined, but on the other hand, this is a flop leaving a lot of draws on the table. The turn is the 6d. Now with 5 players still in the pot, I'll be damned if they all check behind me if I check. As the pre-flop raiser I was expected to keep firing. A check on the turn amounts to saying I have AK. And sure enough - someone decides to bet, and even though I might be looking at 2 pair at this point, I will raise, making their draws very expensive, and winning me a good pot when my hand holds up.

Another example; I hold K10o on the button and call making it 5-way. The flop comes K82 rainbow. It is bet and one player calls and I call, so we're down to three on the turn. The turn pairs the deuce. Same player bets, mid player calls and I raise. Now this raise might look awfully risky to you, but it really isn't. My raise certainly will make my opponents consider the possibility that I hold a deuce. Unless one of them holds a deuce, they will call or fold. The fact is that my K10 might easily be the best hand out there. Even if it isn't I might catch a ten on the river. But the most important thing is that if I get called I can check the river, which means that my raise on the turn hasn't cost me a dime. The only thing that would hurt me was if somebody decided to re-raise me on the turn with a hand that I could beat. And here's your homework for next week. How often do you think that you will fold the best hand in this situation?

© The Poker Forum.com, all rights reserved