Aggressive or conservative

[iamkidpoker]

This article is great and explains a lot about why people need to be aggressive, confident, and ready to take charge at the poker table. It is a little long but a lot of great info and will help any skill level of player.

Poker article written by Daniel Negreanu and published in Card Player Magazine

I'd like to set the record straight right here and now: if you want to win big money playing tournament poker you are going to have to play aggressively. It's simply not a coincidence that all the guys you see on TV winning millions of dollars have one thing in common: aggression.

So what exactly does it mean to be "aggressive?" Well, the idea behind being aggressive is to push the limits, fight for lots of pots, and get active in the the game. The apposing strategy would be to sit back, wait for premium hands, and hope that someone plays with you when you do.

Several key problems with that conservative strategy:

1) You won't be dealt enough premium hands to stay afloat. In no limit hold'em tournaments the blinds and antes continue to escalate which forces you to gamble. If you just sit there and wait for AA or KK you'll end up anteing yourself to death.

2) You become too predictable. If everyone sees that you aren't playing very many hands they'll know that when you do enter a pot you have a monster! Thus, if they have a marginal hand they won't give you the action you desire.

3) No one will fear you. If your opponents pick up on the fact that you are playing very conservatively they will repeatedly attack your blind knowing that you won't call unless you happen to have a strong hand. That's not the image you want. You'd be much better off being known as a "pest" that won't let the others breathe.

The key to being a successfully aggressive player is to be selectively aggressive. Going overboard with your aggressivle approach can easily turn into just being reckless. In fact, I'd like to introduce a new term called: cautious aggression. While those two terms would seem to contradict each other, I'd like to explain further how a cautiously aggressive player approaches no limit play:

A cautiously aggressive player will raise more than his fair share of pots looking to pick up the blinds first, pick up the pot on the flop second, and hope to make a strong hand third. If he gets any resistance from his opponents, he will "duck and cover" by throwing his hand away unless he's got a very strong hand himself.

If you think of it in boxing terms, a cautiously aggressive player will throw lots of jabs, but will always guard thier chin. Contantly jabbing, while dodging punches from their opponents. When their opponent gets sloppy and leaves their chin open, the cautiously aggressive player will take him out with one knockout punch.

On the surface this seems like a brute, chaotic approach, but realistically it's all rooted in basic mathematical rules. Let's look at a simple example:

The blinds are 400-800 with a 100 ante at a nine handed table. Already there is 2100 in the pot (400 small blind, 800 big blind, and 900 in antes). An aggressive player may decide to raise the bet to 2000, risking 2000 to win 2100 if everyone folds. One thing we know about hold'em is that it's very difficult to pick up a premium two card combination. If that aggressive player is up against is at a table full of conservative players, he'll pick up the blinds well over 50% of the time.

The key adjustment that a cautiously aggressive player would make, is that if one of his conservative opponents does call, or even re-raise, he will cut his losses and look to steal the next pot. That is of course if the aggressive player doesn't himself have a premium hand.

That's when the aggressive player gets a chance to throw the knockout punch. Since he's playing so many hands, the aggressive player is more likely to get action when he has the nuts (best possible hand.) So again, it's jab, jab, jab, duck and cover, throw the knockout punch.

Everybody hates playing against an aggressive player and for good reason. They are difficult to read and they are always putting the pressure back on you. Why not be that guy? Why not be the bully pushing everyone else around?

[Texun]

Awesome article Kid.

[Ninja Penguin]

Great stuff kidpoker. So which category do you fall under?