By now you should be starting to understand how important it is in poker to be aggressive. It is this aggression that will win you many pots uncontested. The problem with aggression is that it is starting to get to be a very well understood poker concept. The average poker player is getting far more educated now than what they have ever been.

When you play aggressively in a poker game then you are taking advantage of all of the players who are easily bullied and do not raise very often and will release hands rather than get into a showdown with minimal holdings.

Then there are the players who understand that you need to be aggressive and also that you need to respond to aggression as well. These players are the next step up the poker food chain and are more difficult to beat than the passive poker player types that can be dominated.

These players call your raises and do a lot of raising themselves thus robbing you of many opportunities. Many players cannot counter these types of players who have taken their poker to the next level. But this is my most favourite player in poker, the aggressive player who has little or no post flop skill.

Whenever I play against these types and they raise then what they are doing is effectively raising the stakes when I have the edge over them. Let me give you an example of a hand that I played recently.

Countering the simple continuation bet

My opponent was not doing anything too fancy and they raised to a standard $30 in this $5-$10 no-limit texas hold’em cash game. It was six handed and they were second to speak and I was on the button with the 5c-3c and called and both blinds folded. We both had about a $1000 on the table as I recall so there was no danger of them going all in on the flop. The flop came something like 8-6-2 rainbow and they bet about $50 into the $75 pot.

In this situation, I knew that it was likely that they had overcards and nothing more. When a player raises before the flop like this with a hand like A-J for instance then they are 2-1 against flopping a pair. So 66% of the time they will miss the flop and when they miss, this is what they are thinking

“Damn….I have missed the flop. If I check then they are going to think that I am weak. I don’t like betting first but I need to do something. I need to bet an amount that will get rid of him while not costing me too much if he has flopped something. $50 should be enough and he might fold thinking that I have a big pair”

Depending on just how I feel about the situation then I will do one of two things here if I think that I can take this pot away from this opponent. I will raise on the flop and put the heat down. A raise to $125 is getting me even money on my bet. I am risking $125 to win the $125 what is in the pot and the chances are far greater than even money that my opponent has no big pair in the hole and is merely firing with overcards.

Or I may call him very rapidly on the flop. A rapid call is a real shock to an opponent who has raised and been called before the flop and had his flop bet called like lightening. Not many players are capable of firing a second barrel here after they have been called twice.

They fear being trapped because that is precisely what they would have done. They know that the pot has escalated now to $175 so for a bet on the turn to mean something then it has got to be at least $100. Many players think like this, look out for part two on this site.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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