How do you learn to get aggressive

I believe this is my biggest problem. I am tight/passive player. I am only seeing between 15-18% of the flops but if the flops donot hit then i am a calling station or i try to slow play and get wupped. How do i learn to get aggressive?

You need to read Small Stakes Holdem -- thats the easiest way to explain it. Aggression has to be applied properly, Aggression is not calling to the river, or betting until the river. Look at some hand histories that are posted here. Especially the ring games. I was a Semi Loose passive --- I turned into a Tight Aggressive Aggressive since reading Small stakes holdem

Here is an exercise for you:

1) Sit down at a cheap SnG.

2) Put a sticky note on your screen to cover your cards. (Draw 2 aces on them if you like)

3) Try your best to make it into the money.

How?

By being agressive in inteligent places.
-Fold every hand until the table settles down.
-When it is folded to you and you are in good position, raise preflop and if you get a caller, bet the flop like you just hit it. You are happiest to see low cards, as they are less likely to have made anything of it. If you only get one high card, do the same thing - odds are they didn't hit that either. If they come over the top of you let it go, or go over the top of them if you have seen them make this move before.
-Watch the other players. See where their weaknesses are and exploit them. They are all you have to work with.
-Aggression is the only weapon you have here. Learn to weild it in battle.. where it matters.

Idealy this would work best at a higher buy-in tourney where the other players will respect your plays more, but that gets a bit expensive. This is not a winning strategy, but it is a valuable learning experience. IMHO well worth the cost of a few SnG's.

start looking for obvious signs of weakness from your opponent. Let's say you're playing .25/.50 and you raise to 2 dollars preflop with ak and get a call. The pot is 4.75. flop comes rags. If you are in position and the other person checks before you, pot the flop. Why give them the benefit of the doubt that they made a hand? They probably didn't. Be the aggressor, they will back down often. If they call or raise, its an easy check/fold. If you're out of position, go ahead and pot the flop anyway. Remember they probably missed! If they call or raise, again, easy check/fold. The ~8x BB you spend on potting the flop will make you money in the long run if you win 2 of 3 of these bets. Do it, you will win!

Or you could try playing a cheap ring game and not calling, either raise or fold. If you don't feel your hand is worth a raise then fold, you'll see people react to your play in a way they won't if you're just calling.

Wow, sticky notes, that's an excellent idea! I might just try that.

Here's my suggestion.

First, start with one agressive move. (sng may be best place for this, but you decide. It won't work on limit, I'm sure.)

Here are some options for your first agressive move. Pick one.

1. You're on the BB, everyone fold and the SB calls. Go over the top for a big raise, say 2x the pot or higher. And watch him fold. It doesn't matter what cards you have, 27 is fine for this.

2. You're in a hand for whatever reason, with a bunch of limpers, and the flop is scary but no one bests at it. It checks around. On the turn bet 3xBB if no one in front of you bets and watch everyone fold.

3. You have one mid position limper and you're on the SB or BB, PUSH ALL IN and watch him fold. Again, any 2 cards.

Of these, the 3rd option is the riskiest.

But here's the deal on this. They are calculated moves to win the pot with a FOLD by your opponent. So it doesn't matter what you have. If you get called or raised then you're getting out of the hand as fast as possible. That's preflop agression that works more often than not. You're making someone who has already declared that they aren't particularly excited about their hand make a decision for ALOT of their chips.

Let me explain it this way - which I have explained before, but I'll do it again for you.

AA, KK, AK, etc each have a certain preflop statistical advantage, right? AA doesn't always win, but we play it strong because it will win more often than not, especially heads up. We raise to reduce the # of players, build the pot, and because it's the best starting hand. Right? BUT, it doesn't ALWAYS WIN!! It's not unbeatable, and there are times when you know you're beat even with AA.

Agressive moves are the EXACT same thing. CERTAIN agressive moves in certain situations are Statistically advantageous. Pounding on a SB who limps in with no one else in the pot will win you the blinds Right There regardless of your hand more often than not. And If you're called or reraised, then you KNOW you're beat, so you fold.


Proper agression is NOT, I will say again, NOT a measure of personality. It is a measure of proper understanding of Poker Odds, not just CARD odds but also BETTING odds. By Betting Odds in this post I mean the odds that your betting the right amount at the right time in the right situation will win you the pot regardless of your cards.

The moves above are 3 pretty easy moves to understand and use. It's basic psychology. If you're in mid position and you call the BB as the first person to enter the pot, why are you doing that. You like your cards, but you don't love them, right. There are still people to act behind you so you don't want to overcommit with a raise. But if you can get in cheap you'll do it. And then BOOM, one of the blinds is forcing you to make a decision for ALL your chips (or a big chunk). What are you going to do? What is Anyone going to do? Fold.

But wait, you say. What if he has a monster like AA or KK? Would you limp from mid pos with that hand? Hell no! Too many people left to act behind, what if 2 people and the blinds call? that's 4 against your AA, no good!! So you raise. If you want to be cute then you raise a little less, but you don't limp in there. When you do this move and get called by the limper it will probably be by a mid to small pocket pair who decided to take a coin flip against your AK or AQ, which he figures you have.

IFFFFF someone does that and catches you, then so be it. Ifff someone calls with KJ and you pushed with 47, then so be it. AA doesn't always win, just generally. This move doesn't always work, just generally.

Got it?

As you gain more experience and learn more then you'll be able to execute more complex agressive moves.



HERE'S THE OTHER ADVICE BASED ON YOUR POST.

BET, RAISE OR FOLD. If you don't have the Nuts, then don't call 90% of the time.

Let's say you have TT and you raised preflop and flop comes A59. Throw out out a 1/3 pot sized bet and "see where you stand". If you get called or raised then evaluate what they might be playing, and either fold or see the next card. But when you check/call you are gaining NO INFORMATION. When you bet you are buying information that you can use. And you may just take the pot right there.

Raise quality hands preflop. If they miss you BET for information (then act on the information), if they hit you BET to win the pot right there. If you haven't improved and someone bets in front of you or raises your bet, then FOLD.

"If you're callin' you're fallin'" Memorize that and live by it unless you're slowplaying the Nutz. Which you shouldn't do anyway.

People think if you bet without the strongest hand then you're BLUFFING. That's what people who don't know how to play poker do, not Pro's. Pro's make bets or raises with unmade hands etc, but they are "continuation bets", "bet to gain information", and "taking advantage of weakness".

They aren't "bluffs", they are strategic moves to win the pot or buy information. See it that way and you'll understand how agression works and what it means.

Note: when I say Bet post flop, I mean 1/3 to 1/2 the pot or more. Don't thow out a min bet and expect anyone to care. If you're not willing to do that with the cards you have in your hand, then check and fold to any bet. You don't ALWAYS have to make continuation bets, etc. You can check/fold. But don't throw out a min bet and don't check/call. Both of those are stupid, ignorant, fish plays - unless you're baiting the table to raise you and you have them dominated.

Very nice post aokrongly well stated

exactly as aokrongly said man,

in NL you mightn't like your cards, but if your last to act on the flop and everyone is checking, throw out a feeler raise (1/3 to 3/4 of the pot size.) Your only really going to get draws call you, and some people with the nuts are going to fire at you right here, making it an easy lay down for the cheap. Be wary of flat callers, sets, flush/st8 draws come to mind.

One small bet brings so much info/happiness/and pots you will find, many will be taken down right there on the flop to your bet!

..

great second post

props to aok.

One thing I know never ceases to amaze me if the amount of hands you win without a showdown vs with... recognize that all those times you didn't show down you may as well have had 23 as the QQ you really did have.

But I'd worry about becoming tight agg (15-18% of flops OK here, but when you play recogize you generally have the best hand, play it hard) before worrying about loosening up your game - the bet raise or fold strat that AOK mentioned is right on.

Another good post by Aok. I had a similar question a while back, and really had to modify the suggestions to fit my play style. That being said, the two things that let me be aggressive whenever the urge presents itself are:

1. Know what you'll do if you get raised/called
2. Be willing to let go of the raise (this seems obvious, but it was hard for me to give up when I was "caught" raisiing for blinds). It's not that difficult to guess if someone might be making big pre-flop bets on the button or reraising as the BB as an attempt to steal the blinds.

On the other hand, it's not bad at all to get caught and lose a little bit now and then. People might be more willing to stay in when you get a monster.

Excellent post by aokrongly. I play limit and found that some of those tactics can be applied there as well. Betting for information is standard procedure in limit and it works surprisingly well. NL is a much more complicated game and the number of possible plays for a given hand is unlimited. Best peice of advice I saw was that if you're not betting, you haven't gained any information, this is sooooo much more true in limit though. At least in NL you can see the size of other peoples bets.

I like that covering the hole cards idea...what a great challenge to encourage learning the game.

My advice would be to stop thinking in terms of dollars. Instead it's 1 big bet or a 1/2 pot bet. The sooner you can forget what each bet means to you in your real life the sooner you'll be able to throw out a bet without a made hand and get people to fold. Don't worry about what your stack was when you bought in and what it is now. Don't change your play because you've lost some money.

I found these posts to be helpful too. The advice to do a cheap Sit & Go is great. I realized recently that I am a LOT better in multi-table tournaments and Sit & Gos than in ring games.

I think the reason for that, is if I pay $1 for 1000 or 1500 chips, I feel like I have a lot to play with, and don't care if I lose 500 making the right move, because I know I can get it back. In ring games, I see the money floating away, and it bothers me. I know I have to get over this mentality, or I won't be able to play ring games well. I like the idea of playing a Sit & Go and blocking the cards. That might be worth trying.

After all the atta-boys, let me post how I totally screwed the pooch by not following my own advice. It's rare, but this just happened on Sunday in a $100k guaranteed tournament that I paid $110 to play.

I have KTs on the button and I raise the 3xBB to take the blinds right there but the BB calls. Flop is 9 high crap and I have position. The BB bets pretty strong, but I put him on Ace/Junk and think he might have paired his kicker, but I doubt it. So what do I do? Raise or fold, right? Either get out of the hand and say "oh well that didn't work out" or Push AI and watch him fold like a $7 church chair. Yes? NO!!!! I CALL!!! Turn is more junk... now I'm hoping for a King or Ten, but there are at least two hearts on the board now. And there are 4000 chips in the pot and I have about 1200 left. He puts me All In, AND I CALL AGAIN!!!! Thinking KT or Heart, KT or Heart. There no help and he wins with Ace High with a crappy kicker. I'm out of the tourney like 420th out of about 1100 players.

If I had pushed on the flop I would have won the pot right there. He had no pair and no draw and would have folded. If I had folded on the flop then I would have lost about 20% of my stack and lived to fight. Either option was viable, and I did the one Idiotic choice, TWICE!!!

After the hand he said, "Wow, I figured I was dead when you called." and I said, "Nope, you were just playing an Idiot!"

We all learn these lessons the hard way, and at times even when they're learned we revert to idiotic fish poker! Are you disciplined enough to play your best game 99.9% of the time? If so, then you'll do well. I've done well, but this is an example of what happens when you don't play right in regard to agression. Raise or Fold!! If you're calling you're falling.

Good luck!

Glad to see I'm not the only one who loses his poker brain once in a while

i think i need to read everything aok posts...

you definitely do, the guy shits golden nuggets of information on a regular basis.

Great info...and for free!

After playing tight passive, I recently started to play tight aggresive/loose aggresive (switching) just to see what happens and got to see a new side of poker. I started gaining enemies all around the table for "bullying", and they didnt think twice about calling my raises. My chips were up, then down, then up, then zero lol. My top 2 pair A7 were called by 66 and QT after the flop and another 6 came on the turn. QT was on a flush draw.
I would have tripled if he hadnt made his set. I like the results and will continue to play TA/LA and learn more.
btw, Im playing freerolls and play chips till I get the hang of it. Im kinda scared to play for real, even though I have some money.

Though you're gaining some experience don't take too much from playmoney. Most people will call you down regardless of whether you're LAg or TAg and you won't really see the effect it can have. Freeroll MTT's are better once you get to the point where the people who really don't care have busted out, then you might see some decent play, but don't count on it.

Stars have 0.01/0.02 NL and similar limit so you should probably just stump up $50 and give it a try. You can always withdraw the 50 once you're up to 100/200.

Originally Posted by Legendash

Though you're gaining some experience don't take too much from playmoney. Most people will call you down regardless of whether you're LAg or TAg and you won't really see the effect it can have. Freeroll MTT's are better once you get to the point where the people who really don't care have busted out, then you might see some decent play, but don't count on it.

Stars have 0.01/0.02 NL and similar limit so you should probably just stump up $50 and give it a try. You can always withdraw the 50 once you're up to 100/200.

Thnx for the advice, I suppose u mean PokerStars.com? I think I tried that site but didnt like the interface. I will try again soon. 0.01/0.02 is ok for me to start playing.

I appreciate the perspective of betting to gain information and am pretty aware of how to use it. However, what kind of information can be gained by using this against a call station?

I play with a regular group on Wednesday nights - anywhere from 20-35 people. There are several of them that are call stations. I mean... once they get to the flop they'll just about follow you down to the river everytime unless they REALLY know it's hopeless for them. Also, they see me as a bluffer/pot stealer 'cuz I play very aggresive in this game much of the time. Thus it induces alot of calls... which when I have the nutz... is great! I try not to bluff at the call stations cuz I know they'll prolly call me, so I make smaller bets to hopefully draw lots of chips out of them assuming they don't outdraw me. Again, knowing that he is a call station & how can I bet for information?

If you know someone is a calling station then that is generally all the inforamtion you need. There is only 1 way to beat a calling station: show them good cards. Draw cheap and don't bluff. Suited connectors are more playable, high pockets have to be treated with care as you're unlikely to know whether you're ahead or behind. Calling stations are probably the easiest of all players to beat. It sounds like you're on the right lines already, just bleed them dry with quality cards.