Why you need to dismantle your poker game (part 3 of 5): Aggression

Aggression is one of the harder concepts for people to apply to their game: They know they should be aggressive, but there is a very fine line between playing aggressively and being a maniac.

The most important reason for aggression is aggressive play gives you two ways to win the pot: By having the best hand, or by forcing your opponent to fold. If you’re passively checking and calling, you’re only hope for winning is by having the best hand at showdown. On the other hand, if you are aggressively betting you can often force your opponent to fold a better hand than yours, or a hand that can outdraw you. In poker, it’s not always what your cards are; it’s often what your opponent thinks they are.

Another advantage of aggression is aggressive play gets more money in the pot. In poker you want to maximize your wins, and minimize your losses. This is why you should avoid playing garbage hands. The best way to maximize your wins is to get as much money into the pot as possible. You want to charge your opponents the maximum to try and run you down. You’re not always going to win when you start out with the best hand, so make sure you charge your opponents as much as possible for the chance to out-draw you.

Aggressive play will also improve your position. When you raise or re-raise you will cause players behind you to fold, giving you position on the remaining players in the hand. When you check and call it’s more likely anyone still to act will get involved, since their pot odds increase with every limper.

Aggressive play will also help you avoid good players, and isolate the bad ones. If a good player sees you’re aggressive (and selective with your hands) they will steer clear of you. The bad players -who don’t pay attention- are not concerned with (or even contemplating) your aggression.

Finally, aggressive play helps you define your opponent’s hand. People tend to call raises with far fewer hands than they are willing to limp with. This allows you to narrow their holding down (especially if they’re tight players). The more information you have about their hand, the easier your decision making process will be.

Previous entries in this series:

• Part 1: Introduction to Systemantics
• Part 2: Starting hand attributes
• Part 4: Positional advantages and disadvantages
• Part 5: The importance of odds