Aggression is a texas hold'em poker strategy that is probably the most fundamental skill that a player must have. Knowing how and why to act aggressively, and how to combat aggression is essential to playing texas hold'em poker. There are a number of uses for aggression, and a number of ways to counter an aggressive play. Making the right play in any given situation concerning aggressive hold'em poker play will be the difference between taking down a big pot or going out of a tournament early. First lets examine what an aggressive play can accomplish. One thing an aggressive play will do is to get lesser strength hands to fold. Also by making an aggressive play with particular cards on the board a player can make a better assessment of the opponents hand. For example if the flop comes out 4h-4d-7c and you make a large bet if the opponent calls or raises you can make a pretty good guess as to what he has. Of course this is an obvious example, but even in this example you have to understand all the possibilities. Lets say using the example flop above your hole cards where kh-4c. You have trip 4's and with a good kicker(the king). You may think in this situation the only thing you have to worry about is if your opponent has the last 4 and has an ace kicker. What if your opponent has a pocket pair of 7's and now has made a full house on the flop? It is important to look at all possibilities. Another thing aggression in texas hold'em poker can accomplish is establishing a table image. Making overly aggressive plays at early stages in tournament play or even when playing table games can help to set up your opponents for later hands. By demonstrating overly aggressive play your opponents will be more likely to call your aggressive bets thinking you are just continuing the same behavior you had demonstrated earlier. This type of play must be limited in order to be effective. As soon as players realize your folding bad hands and playing good hands aggressively they will only call if they think they are ahead in the hand. A very important thing aggression in hold'em poker does as well is steals blinds. Stealing the blinds means making a large preflop bet to get everyone to fold so that there is no flop and you collect the blinds and any antes. Making plays to steal the blinds may seem a little reckless and unnecessary, and I'm not saying to try to steal the blinds every other hand. What I am saying is stealing the blinds is more important play than it may seem to the untrained eye. In texas hold'em poker much of the game you make bets on the future probability of hand strength. You make this determination by examining the hand strength of your hole cards. Everyone knows this, and so if you only make aggressive plays when you have statistically hole cards that are of a high starting hand strength then your plays will become obvious. This means players will get out of hands earlier and you will be able to make less money on the hands you win. By stealing the blinds here and there it keeps your opponents guessing. It is important to talk about what constitutes an aggressive play in texas hold'em poker. In no-limit hold'em an aggressive play can be measured in proportion to the blinds and in relationship to the pot. This means in no-limit hold'em tournament play if the big blind is $200 and a bet is made of $600 that would probably be considered an aggressive play. Of course this depends on prior table action, but for the most part around 3 times the big blind is where aggressive hold'em poker play starts. In limit hold'em aggression can be a bit more difficult to employ. A good way to make an aggressive play in limit hold'em is to check/raise if possible. Playing aggressively in limit hold'em can be much easier at later stages of tournament play when betting limits are higher. If playing limit hold'em at a table game often times aggression is just continuing to raise the limited amount each time you act. The final reason we will discuss for aggression in texas hold'em poker is it makes people mad. Emotions in hold'em poker are inevitable. They are part of the game and should be treated as such. You have to always be aware of your own emotions and to make sure your making the correct logical decision in each situation. This doesn't mean you should try to keep emotion out of the game. Quite the opposite. Making plays in hold'em poker to make an opponent angry is a useful tactic. The ancient art of war written long ago by sun zu explains tactics and strategies of warfare. A proverb from the book states you should never enter a battle for which you have no chance of winning. Aggression makes your opponent make this choice. Choosing weather or not to play the hand. When an aggressive play is made it means it is likely the player's hand strength is high who is making the aggressive play. So the natural inclination of others is to not take the risk of playing the hand which will likely be beaten. There are so many intricacies as to the texas hold'em poker strategy of aggression they are too numerous to cover here. However; many of the fundamental principals have been covered here and from this you should be able to start to utilize aggression in your hold'em poker game. |
