When does being agressive cross over into being stupid?

[Jacko912]

Low buy-in NL SNGs are my game of choice. However, a recent attempt to add some agression to my play proved catastrophic.

At the beginning of the SNGs, I would always play tight, but when I had a hand I would punch it. I was commonly raising 5x BB and on multiple occasions my stack was built into a respectable size.

My problems began when the table was 5-handed and below.

I started to raise 5x every time I had position with folds. This worked great for stealing blinds at first, but eventually people started to wise up and call. When I had hands like 83o, I did not hit the flop often. I would represent with a pot sized bet. Sometimes the people would fold, but more often than not I would get a caller.

What do you do when someone calls you after the flop?

If I invest more chips on a stone cold bluff and the opponent actually has something, I'm shooting myself in the foot. If I check the flop when I think I'm beat, people start calling me just to take the turn down.

I've managed to piss away good stacks by taking the agression too far.

How do I guage when to tone the agression down? Rippy's guide has helped for pre-flop play, but I'm getting murdered post-flop.

Any comments greatly appreciated.

[Fortune 500]

You show the same fish the same pattern enough times, and eventually, he'll crack it.

Don't push EVERY time you're in this position... let a couple pass. That will make your steals look that much more legit.

[PokerPatNEU]

Almost anyone can make the correct choice pre flop between call, raise, fold. Poker is played post flop. And the best way to learn how to play post flop poker is by playing lots and lots of hands, and seeing what works and what doesn't. Post your hand histories often and ask if you made the correct choice. Find out what the correct choice would be when you are making mistakes.

Here is your biggest problem

I started to raise 5x every time I had position with folds. This worked great for stealing blinds at first, but eventually people started to wise up and call.

Good poker players pay attention. When someone sees you doing this over and over, you are going to get screwed. People are going to slowplay monsters from the blinds, check raise your continuation bets, and all around just make it very difficult for you.

Important factors to consider when deciding whether to raise pre flop on a strait up steal with bad cards include your stack size, the blinds stack sizes, the type of players that the blinds are (tight? loose? passive? do they often reraise to defend their blinds?) and your own table image is also very important. Steals only work when your pre flop raise indicates strength. If you're doing it every time, it's just indicating that you are holding two cards...

[Fortune 500]

Another thing to consider is that against someone that raises your blind every time, sometimes the best defense is just to smooth call. It doesn't really matter what their cards are, because you're often sitting there with a marginal hand, sometimes bad position, and no idea what to do with it postflop. Aggression is good... Selective Aggression is the key.

[Jacko912]

I guess my biggest problem is that I'm trying to make a drastic change to my game and I don't know exactly how to find the balance. Before I would follow the exact same strategy early on in the game, basically tight-agressive and focusing on building my stack.

Once it got five-handed, however, I would really clam up and be scared of agression. I was able to make the money enough that I wasn't tearing my hair out, but it was almost always 3rd place..... 1st was out of the question.

I thought agression might have helped add some wins to my resume, but it's actually caused me more 5th and 4th place finishes... I'd like to find a happy medium.

How often should you try the steal?
Once an orbit from the button or the cutoff?
Is 5x too much?

I imagine these questions seem VERY noobish... but I'm not quite sure where else to go

[Fortune 500]

No... they're legitimate questions. The problem is that we can only answer them in a theoretical sense. Post us some hand histories. We can help you more there.. we need to know your reads, and the situation at the table. There's no right answer every time. Poker is a game of situations.

For example, you've gotten aggressive and stolen the blinds twice in a row. This time, you've got 83o. Do you do it again? Not usually, because they're going to defend themselves sooner or later, and when they do, you'd like to have some solid value to play with.

It's all situational...

[Jacko912]

I will try posting some hand histories next time I run into trouble in an SNG. I haven't really been keeping track of them...

Thank you for the assistance so far, I'll try to lay off the nonstop raising for sure.

[pgil]

5x might be a little too high. 2.5-3x usually works, if not try 4x, then go on to 5x if that is what it takes to get the blinds to fold.