So they check and then I bet $130 and the pot is mine as they cannot call with no pair. Here I am using the leverage of our entire stacks to frighten my opponent away. I am using my opponent’s aggression as a weapon against him rather than let their aggression bully me into submission. Sure they will have big pairs sometime and sure they will flop monsters but that is poker. If you do not take risks then you do not win big.

Sometime ago I bought into a $5-$10 no-limit texas hold’ em cash game for $500 and had built it up to $4000 within two hours. I had taken advantage of aggressive players and built my stack up to $800. I re-raised all in with a powerful draw expecting my opponent to fold which he didn’t. I made my draw and doubled up, this made me the second biggest stack on the table and I busted the next biggest stack beneath me when I flopped a concealed straight. This made me the big stack and the rest was easy.

Top players just do not back off that easy

Whenever you see a top poker player in action you will notice that it sometimes takes an awful lot to get them out of a hand when they and their opponent have deep money. They know that their opponents know that they need to be aggressive and they counter this like a martial artist using his opponent’s weight and momentum against them.

Top poker players will call your flop bet with nothing just to see what you do on the turn. If you meekly submit every time an opponent shows aggression then you are going to miss out on an awful lot of opportunities. Obviously this also means that you need to be careful as well. I made the play with the 5-3 because I had a good read on my opponent and it was heads up play, a multi-way pot would have been a different story.

So here we have what is the beginnings of a poker food chain, at the bottom we have all of the passive players and the solid predictable players. The solid ones can make a bit of money because they understand good hands from bad ones etc. But both types tend to only be aggressive with good hands and to only call raises with good hands.

Then we move onto level two and come to the player who has figured out that he can win more pots by being aggressive and all of the pots that they have won playing this way reinforces that belief. They take money from the solid poker players and the passives through their aggression.

But they are like a young boy racer that has just been given the keys to their dad’s high powered Porsche 911. Going fast is easy, all you have to do is put your foot down but you need to know when to back off.

This is where I come in; I take the money from the aggressive boy racers. I hope that this lesson has been very instructive because it highlights something that is very important in poker. That responding to aggression and taking advantage of aggression is the hallmark of a solid poker player.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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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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PRIMARY POKER SKILLS

But yet one of the primary skills in any form of hold’em poker is in how you handle post flop play. In no-limit hold’em, most of the time you will not go beyond the flop so post flop skills are not required as often. But in games where big bets cannot win the pot immediately like with pot limit and especially limit play then you have to be able to play very well after the flop.

While you cannot lose your buy-in in one foul swoop in limit play, your level of skill will be under constant bombardment by having to see flop after flop after flop. This will be even more pronounced in six handed play. Let us look at an example to show what I mean here.

It has been folded around to the button who raises, the small blind folds and you are in the big blind with the hand Qh-5c. Now if this was a no-limit situation then you can clearly fold and wait for a better opportunity as Qh-5c isn’t exactly one of the better poker hands. In fact even if your opponent on the button is a very loose and aggressive player then folding would still be correct here. Even though you would be looking to open your range, it wouldn’t be opened wide enough to incorporate a hand like Q-5.

LIMIT PLAY IS DIFFERENT

But in limit play then you really must play this hand. Your pot odds and implied odds coupled with your opponents likely range gives you a straight forward call here. In fact to balance your play somewhat then you can even consider throwing in a small percentage of re-raises although that percentage cannot be very high with a hand like Q-5.

Your opponent could have something like K-9 but yet pot odds of 3.5/1 dictate that you simply cannot fold this hand. Then you can decide how to proceed on certain types of flop. For example if the flop came J-7-2 rainbow then you may get the opportunity to take the lead here on a ragged rainbow board that has likely missed your opponent.

You could try leading out or maybe check-raising for balance. You have reached this situation purely because you were playing a form of poker where you were receiving good pot odds to get involved before the flop.

Poor post flop play at limit hold’em is like a slow bleeding of money and this is why having a rakeback deal is critical these days to your hourly rate. The overall level of skill in limit play has led to variance becoming more and more of an issue.

This is precisely why I stopped playing the game and switched to no-limit play via a brief fling with SNG’s. But do not let anyone tell you that limit hold’em is a far less skilful game than no-limit because anyone who says that simply does not understand limit hold’em.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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Well, about my starting hands, I play about 20% of it, at times even higher, between 20% and 30%. And whenever I feel I have the best hand, I always push it through till the end.

In a way, I believe I am an aggressive player. But I’m not sure if others see me the same way I see myself. Based on what I’ve shared to you, what kind of player do you think am I?

Thanks for the great site by the way. I’m a regular visitor, particularly of your FAQ’s section. And I love using the 4/2 Rule for calculating odds! Thanks a lot for sharing this to us players.

All the best,
Jeff
Jeff,

It sounds like that you are somewhat tight, but I don’t know how aggressive you are. Aggressive implies that you are raising a majority of your hands that your coming in with. Without knowing more about the hands you are limping in with, I can’t really classify you as aggressive. I would look more into raising with your strong hands as opposed to limping. Limping in with strong hands invites other players to enter the pot and potentially outdraw you.

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The first time I played, I don’t know what to do and my goal was just to win money. But when I learned more and more things about how to play, I became more enthusiastic and more sensible when it comes to goals and the like. However, for awhile now, I’ve been playing fake money, so I became bored.

I like and love the game, but there’s no challenge when there’s no at stake. No stake to run after, to get, etc. So as of the moment, I’m planning to try games with real cash stakes. Do you think it’s actually the best thing to do?

By the way, I’m also bothered about players doing all in every hand, or keep raising in limit game which I believe works on individuals. Well, I’m not that worried when the game is 1 v1, but when already more than 4 people, it’s already a different story. Typically, I would try to raise, then he raise back as always, so others just call, making the entire game nonsense. Any advise with this?

Thanks in advance,
Alex
Alex,

Definitely give live cash games a try. At lower limits you will run across a lot of limpers usually. You two choices are to either play strong hands and try and punish your opponents when you have them or to loosen up your hands and see a lot of flops cheap. When you hit, you extract maximum value for your hands.

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