Effective Play Against Agression

One regular situation when playing poker is that you have aggressors and you have meek players. These aggressors seek to steal blinds and incrementally build their stack using cards that most players wouldn't hesitate to fold.

The thing with playing aggressive players is only call with premium hands and try not to get bullied when you have these types of hands. By premium cards I mean high pockets and an Ace and a picture card.

One great thing with these players is that you normally always get action.

If you tighten your starting hands and simply call when you these players act you can usually trap them and use their aggression against them.

In many instances you could lose 2 or 3 blinds to an aggressor and double up easily when you hit a hand.

Be subordinate to aggressive players and it is much easier to win a hand. I was once playing heads up in a live tournament against a hyper aggressive player that went all in every hand. I was first to act looked down at AA, I simply called and he put me all in. Great result. The player then berated me for only calling (instead of raising), showed Q6 and got lucky hitting a full house knocking me out of the tournament, however if I had of raised pre flop he would have been suspicious and might of folded.

One important part to playing great cards against aggressors is playing them the same as any hands.

People are creatures are habit and they become weary if you raise when you have never raised before (you may want that when bluffing). If you know for sure that there is an aggressive player that will raise and thin the field for you, simply call and let them knock themselves out.

There are situations however, where you are short stacked and there is a player that will put you all in regularly, logic will tell you that you cannot simply call and you need to tighten you starting hand requirements further.

Most players I know get frustrated with raisers, I like playing against these players mainly because they are consistent, regardless of their cards and when you win, you win big.

You do however lose cheap flops so you need to remove marginal cards from you game. The other concern is that you can't put them on good cards.

If you are playing these consistent raisers and you have a decent stack and want them to stop, reraise them with nothing occasionally. If you beat them show the bluff, and they will usually stop, if they don't would will usually put them on tilt.

One thing I have also found with raisers that if they are raised or reraised they will nearly always call through pride. If you try to tango with the raiser type be prepared to factor in raises at all stages of the hand. It seems as though these players will call preflop with anything but when their raise doesn't work they will rarely reraise on the flop (unless they have something) it seems as though they have a set play and if that doesn't work they call, see the flop and then fold if they don't hit.

Most of the time I don't try to slow down raisers at all, I simply sit and wait for a great hand and double up. The good thing about these players is that when the whole table is gunning for one player and the table is less aware of the hand or any other players if the aggressor folds. It is like a sporting team playing without there captain, they don't know what to do.

The most important thing about aggressors is identifying the type of aggressor, what effect they have on the table and adjusting your play accordingly.

For example there is guy I play against regularly and he will be all in with any two cards virtually every hand. Inevitably (if he doesn't get knocked out) he overpowers the stacks of the whole table and people are scared to play. If you call, your all in. If the aggressor does his standard raise and a solid player calls you need to be aware that he probably has a great hand. In a normal situation where you would call the raiser you need to reevaluate your hand because you not just against the raiser but a solid player with a hand he is happy to go all in with.

I have seen a couple of times where the people forget there are other people in the hand thinking the same thing you are, and call with marginal hands which are ok against one other player but not multiple players.

Aggressors try to put fear into a table and sometimes if they are lucky, they can force loose players to play good cards or die trying.

"Check to the Raiser"


Some Articles from: Poker Addict