Playing Aggressive Poker Players

As the game of poker evolves and educational resources (such as Pokerology.com) are at everyone’s fingertips, more and more players are learning to adopt an aggressive style at the poker tables. While being aggressive is more profitable, many players do not understand how to change gears and their aggressive poker play becomes predictable. If you are using your observational skills, this predictability will help you identify patterns and make smart decisions. When playing an aggressive player, you cannot wait for the nuts to play back at them. It simply won’t happen frequently enough and they will know you have a big hand since you’ve been waiting around all day. At some point, you will have to pick spots to play back with a marginal holding. How and when depends on the situation and that player’s individual tendencies.

While every player is different, the following provides a general look at the three types of aggressive poker players you will encounter at the table and how to play against them:

Tight Aggressive (TAG):

How to Recognize Them	Strategies for Playing Them
Doesn’t play many pots, but they will play aggressively if they do.	It’s usually best to stay out of their way unless you have a strong hand yourself. Is capable of bluffing, but it is infrequent enough where trying to look them up isn’t profitable.

Loose Aggressive (LAG):

How to Recognize Them

Strategies for Playing Them

Tends to raise or re-raise a wide variety of hands pre-flop and is capable of doing it from any position. Will often bet on most flops. Will bluff a high percentage of the time.

Let them take the lead in betting if you have a strong hand. Slow play hands to show weakness. Trap with weak bets to induce a raise. If you are on their left, you can lower the quality of hands you need to call or re-raise as you are likely ahead of the type of hands they are raising with. Identify whether or not the player is capable of folding to a re-raise. If they are, you can re-raise from the button or the blinds with any two cards. Just make sure you do this infrequently enough as to not become predictable yourself. Also you should raise enough that gets them to fold, but also looks like you want a call…usually about 3.5x their initial raise will work. Re-raising the aggressive player will have two primary benefits – it will slow them down in future hands, and it will also net you a nice pot.

Loose Aggressive/Passive:

How to Recognize Them	Strategies for Playing Them
A rare breed, this type of player will raise a lot of hands pre-flop, but will often give up on the flop or turn. Typically these are former TAGs or Tight Passives trying to experiment with looser play but are not comfortable committing to their aggression.	Call raises in position pre-flop in order to bet on the flop if they show weakness. If you are in the blinds, call the raise and bet out on the flop. Call flop bets in order to bet the turn if they show weakness.

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Hand Example – Opening Up Your Range

• No Limit Hold’em Tournament Play
• Blinds: 25/50
• You and your opponent both have 2,500 in chips.

Reads

The player directly on your right has been very aggressive from the start of the tournament. Any time it folds to him in late position, he has raised 3x the big blind. While no one has really played back at him, he did lose a pot earlier when the big blind called a raise pre-flop and check-raised him on an Ace high flop, resulting in a fold from the LAG. You have been moderately active at the table seeing some flops and raising a few, but nothing abnormal.

Pre-Flop

You are on the button and it folds to the LAG in the cut-off. As predicted, he raises to 150. The players in the blinds both have about 1,500 chips and have been playing conservatively. You have AT, which against a habitual late position raiser is a strong hand. You are definitely ahead of the range he is likely to be raising with. This could include anything from a low suited connector, any high cards like KT or QJ or any pocket pair including 22.

Figure 1

Now you have a lot of options here if you choose to play the pot. With the size of your stack in relation to the blinds, you can make a case for folding, re-raising or calling. Since you have a good read on the player, the blinds are conservative players and you have enough chips, I would call about 50% of the time, raise 30% and fold about 20%. With your stack size and the low blinds, calling is probably the best option because you can control the size of the pot. By re-raising you are bloating the pot with a marginal hand that could be dominated and a smaller pot allows you to have options on the flop, turn and river without committing yourself if it turns out he does have a better hand. Additionally, re-raising might cause him to fold a worse hand that he would have otherwise tried to bluff you with.

The Flop

The flop comes A93 (rainbow). There is 375 in the pot and your opponent bets 250. What now? Well, there is certainly a chance that he has an Ace with a higher kicker, but you got into this pot with a marginal hand against a very aggressive opponent. You have to expect him to continue the aggression and it’s very possible you have the best hand, so you can’t change your mind and get scared now.

Figure 2

There are two ways to approach this hand and your decision should be based on how he sees your image and how you both have played previous hands. For example, if you have been playing tight and you raise here, he will usually fold any hands that you are beating. However, if you have recently been pushed off of a hand and you are steaming he could think you are steaming and just making a move, thus playing back at you. Additionally, if you have shown to have called flop bets with middle pair or a low pocket pair and you call now, he might think you don’t have an Ace. He might fire another barrel on the turn with a bluff trying to represent having an Ace. Deciding how to play this hand also goes back to his past patterns and whether or not he is capable of firing on the turn with a bluff. If so, I would be more inclined to call here in order to induce the bluff. If he is the type of player that will only bet the turn with a hand that beats you then you should raise here to define your hand now while the pot is still small and you can get away from it if he gives you action.

Without having any strong reads, I would usually stick with the plan to control the pot size by calling and evaluating how he plays the turn. Most players are not going to fire another strong bet on the turn without a hand.

The Turn

The turn is 7 and your opponent checks:

Figure 3

Okay this is a good sign. Unless he is running an advanced slow play, you most likely have the best hand here. But should you bet? You can certainly make the case for it, but that decision also goes back to your read on the player and whether he thinks you have an Ace. If you think he will call a bet with a worse hand (i.e. weaker Ace, mid pocket pair, etc.) then you can bet. But based on the size of the pot and your remaining stack, a really aggressive player can check-raise here and put you in a really tough spot. There is 875 in the pot and you have 2,100 in your stack. Any reasonable sized bet (i.e. 600-800) will commit a lot of your stack and anything smaller could look like a weak attempt to take it down.

Since the blinds are low and we have likely only been playing with this player for less than an hour, all we know is that he is very aggressive so I would suggest checking in this spot. We are checking for two reasons:

• We are controlling the size of the pot in the event we are actually behind here.
• To either induce a river bluff or get him to call a river bet with a worse hand.

The River

The river is a 7 and your opponent bets 500 into the 875 pot:

Figure 4

Since the opponent could have any two cards here and there were no significant draws, there is a high likely hood that your opponent is bluffing. Could he have AJ or some random hand like 87? Sure, but sometimes you have to make decisions based on what is the most likely from the information about the player and the way the hand has played out. In this hand, you do call and your opponent shows KJ for a pure bluff. You may be asking – if we think we are ahead why not raise? Well because he most likely will only call with a hand that beats us. We gain no value if he always folds a worse hand. Sure there are times he might call with an Ace with a worse kicker, but over the long run a call likely has a higher expected value.

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