Thoughts and Aggression

Hi, I recently took about a month off poker after losing $30k in 2 days at 5/10. I took a month off and i became dissillusioned with poker and contemplated just taking the money I've won and living luxuriously (for a uni student) for a few years. However after 3 weeks or so I began to want to play poker again and over the last week I have just been studying - watching loads of CR videos and perusing this forums and poker tracker.

Over the past week, particularly after watching the CR 200th videos and reading Lukie's post regarding bld and his hyper-aggression, I started to think that maybe hyper-aggression is the way to go.

Most 5/10 players are pretty methodical, TAGG's playing SOLID poker - set mining, reraise JJ+/AK, etc etc, pretty standard stuff. Others, such as Gabe, play differently and I'm starting to see the merits of this. When playing against Gabe before I noticed that he would very rarely be in a pot without being the aggressor, this meant he was reraising all his small pairs almost all the time. At this time I used to think to myself that he was giving a lot of value up by doing this as set hunting - i.e. calling a raise with a small pp hoping to hit a set is so profitable, and it IS profitable even at higher stakes and if your playing as low as 13/7 you regularly get paid.

When I used to play against players like Gabe and stoplose who were hyper aggro I used to almost always just call with AQ+ any PP AA and KK included, and would CR AI if I had TPTK or better, as long as the TP was Q+.

After watching the CR 200th videos I noticed Green Plastic made a lot of money reraising a C-betting into players, Muddywater talked about set mining being unprofitable to reraises and after thinking about it I have to agree, and that EV wise it is best to dump the hand to a good LAG, as if their reraising range is light they are very often not going to have anough of a hand to stack off the 1 time in 8 you hit your set, a good player can lay down a hand, so for the sake of discussion lets say you get paid one in 3 times you hit your set - thats 1 stack for every 24 flops - Extremely -EV.

This in turn leads to the value of aggression, If you reraise with position, and get called, then you bet or raise the flop - what does the average opponant need to continue in the hand? I'd say at least TP/TK. As you have position on them they have to be worried that calling a flop bet or raise in a reraised pot may be commiting them to the hand, so there are going to be few times that you will be facing trouble when you reraise and C-bet, if you do face resistance then you are left with a decision, but if you are met with resistance this usually means as I said earlier at least TPTK for the standard players so this won't be often and you can just pitch it if you cant beat it.

Not to mention the times preflop that you'll take it down. Put yourself in your opponants shoes - say he has pocket 10's and raises, you reraise on the button - he knows your very lag, but he also knows your a good player. He can reraise his 10's - but that would essentially turn his hand into a bluff and does a standard players want to invest 30-40BB's with just 1010? probably not. So, he calls. If the flop brings all unders say 379, you take the lead, by either raising his bet or betting when he checks to you, now he is thinking "well, JJ-AA is beating me, as well as 99/77/33, If he called his stack is almost equal to the pot and in his mind he isnt beating much not a good situation. If the flop comes AJ7 - again, is he going to continue? probably not, either way +EV for you. Basically the only good flops for him are one with a ten on.

There is not much that can be done to combat this, apart from slowplaying AA/KK preflop then C/R flop (assuming 100BB stacks - but thats a different topic). Anyway sorry for such a long post, just random thoughts, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. In the end I suppose it boils down to, make sure you are the one raising, It just makes it a lot more difficult for your opponants, not to mention making you far more difficult to read.

Position+Aggression = money.

I'm also starting to question the value of set mining in general, above 5/10. I'm posting this in the higher stakes as I think it has the most relevence to the higher stakes games. Solid ABC poker works at the lower levels and against players who cant fold an unimproved AK or PP's this is definately not the best strategy, but against your standard 5/10 TAG it's a different story.

Also, just wondering how the U.S poker ban has affected the games, as I havent played much at all since the bill went through. Thanks.

position + aggression = money

couldnt agree more........hand reading helps too

would you mind PMing me who you were since i dont play on party anymore?

Good post! Too tired to think of anything else to reply with now, but I also certainly agree with the aggression in position stuff, been experiementing with more 2nd bullets in position at 10/20 today and it went well!

I usually just bet/raise untill allin...is that aggressive enough?

Just going to use this thread to post thoughts on different aspects of poker, and hope to get some interesting discussion.

Carrying on from the previous post, with the aggression, it remeinded me of a post Fnord made a while ago regarding Implied threat: to be successful I think that it is imperitive that you understand this and make use of it fully, although it goes hand in hand if your aggressive in position. Usually the implies threat to you opponants stack is made when you reraise in position and bet the flop, or call their raise and reraise 3x on the flop.

Brunson also refers to this in super system, your betting say 20BB, the opponant decides whether he wants to play for stacks, he is betting 100BB.
The key to being a small winning player and a big winning player at the limits you play is being able to beat the regulars - you can pick off the fish all day long and thats easy, but when you go up in stakes the fish get fewer and you are going to have to learn to beat the regulars if you are to be a big winner at your limit.

Most regulars are TAG, play them as I reccomended in the first post and hopefully you will start to see you have an edge over them. Most regulars are content to sit around and bust the odd fish, and break even against the other standard TAG's, If you constantly put pressure on them they won't like it and will leave you alone and concentrate on easier prey.

Just a little thought that popped up regarding sets, set farming is so much less profitable at higher stakes, so try this: when you call with a PP and its heads up, C/R or reraise the aggressors bet 3x regardless of whether you hit - it makes you far less predictable and gets you a lot more action - again making use of implied threat.

As gabe said, if you can combine position and aggression with good hand reading skills you are going to make money. Hand reading generally comes with experience but I think there are a few little things that can help fast track you to being a good hand reader.

Always think carefully before making a decision, asking yourself "What does he think I have?" in conjunction with whether or not your have either over-represented of under-represented your hand can help you make some very tough laydowns or calls. for example, If you have say 66, and get raise preflop from CO, button calls. flop comes Jh Qh 4s - you bet and he calls, your now thinking - ok hes probably on a draw as he didnt raise, 44 would raise the flop to get rid of draws eliminate JJ-AA because of preflop. turn is 2c, you check, he checks, river is 9s. Now there is no value in betting here - hes not going to call with less than 66, check and you will have shown virtually no strength. you check and he bets 3/4 or the pot - now the only hand your really worried about is K10. If he had a 9 or a J he probably wouldn't value bet and a Q would surely bet the turn. Anyway what im trying to get at is don't just think "I've got 66 on a board with 3 overcards ill fold" think "Ok, he probably doesnt think I have anything, yet he goes and makes a substantial bet and he probably doesnt expect me to call, that coupled with the fact the hearts blanked make for a realistic call."

A topic that I think is extremely important yet not discussed all that much is whether to over or under-represent your hand, I'll post some thoughts on it soon as its almost 3am now and I'm going to bed.

anyway I hope this provides some good questions and debate any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Toadstool

A topic that I think is extremely important yet not discussed all that much is whether to over or under-represent your hand, I'll post some thoughts on it soon as its almost 3am now and I'm going to bed.

That's actually a very interesting point. I usually always underrepresented my hands, but I'm changing that now..

Originally Posted by johnny_fish

Originally Posted by Toadstool

A topic that I think is extremely important yet not discussed all that much is whether to over or under-represent your hand, I'll post some thoughts on it soon as its almost 3am now and I'm going to bed.

That's actually a very interesting point. I usually always underrepresented my hands, but I'm changing that now..

Also another really aggressive move i like to make is in live games, i ALWAYS straddle, so that when i get AA or KK there is more money in the pot and alot more ACTION.