Make me aggressive, rarr!

I always thrive to be TAG, as that is the winning style. My game is definitely tight (but not too tight). My aggression, however, I think needs some help.

First of all, how would you define aggressive poker play?

I think one problem I may have with aggression is, that I don't know when there is an opportunity to be aggressive. I'm often aggressive when it's inappropriate. So, when exactly is opportune time for aggression?

How about... How aggressive should my re-raises and opening bets be?

All of these, and more... I need to know more about aggression.

Wow that is such an open ended discussion. Truly, not a smart aleck response (for once, yeah I know ). As much as I don't have time atm to type a great response, I'll at least point you to a CC Aggression in Poker article. Something you can peruse as you get deluged by input from others regarding when and where.

Here's fun experiment to try. Play a cheap SNG and pretend you don't have a "call" button. Your only options are to fold, check, raise, reraise, checkraise, etc. Anything but flat call. While this is not ideal for any one type of play long term, it will show you better how aggression plays into poker. Obviously don't just live by this, but it is a fun experiment.

to be agressive take stabs at pots that no one seems to hit after the flop make a substantial raise after the turn if everyone checked flop and turn and see what happens from there.

What i do to be aggressive is.. get pissed and play in freerolls i came 4th doing that i was soooo proud of myself

I don't think that is the kind of aggression I want in poker. The aggression you had there sounds like an emotional state; probably the same anger you feel while on tilt.

rarr ??? RAWR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I highly recommend reading Killer Poker: Strategy and Tactics for Winning Poker Play by John Vorhaus - it not only includes several different drills you can do during play to ramp up your "selective aggression," but also discusses some of the philosophical and psychological reasons that it's and effective approach to winning poker.

Publisher's blurb (which overstates everything, as they will - Vorhaus, a renegade poker master? As if... he's one of the most respected poker writers around):

"Killer Poker: Strategy and Tactics for Winning Poker Play has everything you always wanted to know about dominating the game, crushing the competition, and building a bad-ass reputation — with outrageous tactics from a renegade poker master!

It’s your choice — be a good, effective poker player or be a great poker player, an animal of strategy and revolutionary tactics that force the competition into making bad decisions and leave them reeling in your wake. Hey, why just win when you can dominate and crush? In this take-no-prisoners approach to the game, leading poker journalist John Vorhaus shows you how to leave your inhibitions at the door, analyze and fix your own flaws honestly and fearlessly, gain confidence, and play some of the best poker of your life — by completely changing your state of mind. Not for beginners, this book will show you how to turn marginal hands into big winners, how to use other players’ powerful images against them, how to read minds at the table, and how to energize your game with the self-awareness that winning poker requires.

With a sharp, witty writing style and a way of getting right to the heart of the matter, John Vorhaus uses examples to show the reader how to conduct the brutal self-examination and mental discipline necessary to get that “killer” attitude. It’s time to put your cards on the table by manipulating, pressuring, misleading, outthinking, and outfoxing your opponents. Then you can cheerfully take their money and go home.

John Vorhaus has been writing about poker since 1988 and is the only poker strategist to have written for every major poker publication in print since then."

Another rip-off

OK, QUick FIx.

Download the beta software at FT. THen get into a screen full of WSOP sng Satelite freerolls. I can fit 4 boards comfortably on my screen. Do this for 5 hours, every time you bust out, get into another one. This will get you crazy aggresive. The blinds jump so fast you HAVE to get aggressive.

After you have a better feel for how aggressive you HAVE to be. Come back here and Watch the entire Hole Cards Revealed videos narrated by Dorkus. They will restore your sanity yet leave you with a bunch of newfound bravado.

Did you miss the "Publisher's blurb" notation and the quotation marks, or are you just a dick?

FT = Fulltilt?

Once you've learned position and TAG, selelctive agression is definately next.

Now it's time to stop playing cards and start playing poker. Poker is a confidence betting game. You know how to play cards, the cards now become tools secondary to playing people.

Go play the 50 cent and 1 dollar tournaments, never limp, ALLWAYS raise, even if your the BB and got nothing don't check .....RAISE!

You can afford to lose a dollar use these little tournaments to experiment. Don't minimum raise, everytime you come into a pot raise at least 3x BB.

Watch how people react, when you raise too often, they become suspicioous of you, some of them will start calling you with inferior hands. make note of who they are, you'll get a chance to pounce on them later.

Notice who's scared and who's a gambler, who you can pick on, who will think you have the nut or trash, file your impressions of these people in your mind and use that information when you need it.

Your chips are tools of the trade, limping and minimum bets don't get you information and information is what you need to make good decisions.

Now don't go in playing a maniac, that's not the purpose of the excercise. Play TAG in the beginning allwats raising, never limping, develop your table image. The table need to know that if they get in a pot with you it will be costly in the early stages.

As a tournament progress's you can get LAG in the later stages, isolating the opponents you've got information on.

Iv'e done this several times and I still do just to keep my edge, using the 1 dollar tournaments as practice grounds. You'll find that when your hitting your flops and winning the showdowns early it contributes to your table image immensely.

If your not hitting your flops and are getting called down with better hands and being outdrawn on your image drops huge. There comes a time when you've bet too often too much, and the table will no longer respect you.

CHANGE GEARS .. tighten up ...ROCK

If they are scared of you, bully them, if they aren't they need reason to be scared, rock up and slam them with quality.

Sometimes your negative swing for one or another given tournament is insurmountable, other times the cards will be hitting you over the head and your trash speculative hands will make you a table terrorist. Most of the time it's somewhere in between, practicing aggression and reading skills in these little tournaments can give you experiance that adds to your confidence.

And confidence is what aggression needs to win.

Good Luck.

Yes FT = FULLTILT
At FT, go to Lobby, find the Forums, then Features Request and you will find the beta software. Has resizeable windows, Still a few oddities but they are of the inconvienience variety.

Why the beta? Is this not available in the current version of the software?

I found one freeroll under the WSOP and Satellite lobbies. I can't seem to find the Register button :S

A little of both.

I have a different take on the subject of aggression. Read about it here:

Stick's Poker Blog: Correct Stakes Helps Aggression

I dont think resizeable windows is in the regular version yet. There is no regular button for these. Under the play money, sng, satelites, you will find all of the sng satelites for both FTP and Freerolls.

Trick to the satelite freerolls is that new ones appear about every 3 minutes or so. That is not regular. @ may appear at once.

Set to Play Money, SnG's, then Satelites to weed out all the stuff you don't need to see. Make sure the Running box is unchecked.
The best of these would be the Poker AfterDark .com events, only 180 people, the PAD .net sng's hold 360 pple but they fill fast, really fast. Faster than most folks can move thier mouses, so try this:

Put your mouse to the right of keyboard, so your thumb can reach numeric pad enter key fast.
Open the bottom tourney now registering and move that window so the register button will appear in the same spot as your mouse will be at. Close that window. Now when the freeroll appears you are ready to;

Open the freeroll lobby with a double click, your mouse should be in position to click on register (Single Click Only!)
With your left hand, hit the space bar, this enters the amount for the tourney, which is zip, it also moves the active button to the ok spot and you can hit the enter key with you right thumb.

Sounds complicated but becomes second nature easily.

Treat this as exercise.

There's one little trick that's good if you are willing to gamble, (wink, wink). Here's the scenario. Flop comes out A A 5; everyone checks all around on flop. You have nothing. You get that one guy who makes a moderate bet on the turn. You know the scenario. Everyone folds and he collects the pot. What you can do for a little aggressive factor is to raise that guy 3X his bet. 9 outta ten times he will fold. If he calls or raises fold. Try this and see what happens.

That's a great read. Thanks.
I think I can relate to that.


I often do that

The point of my post is to get into situations where waiting is deadly. In those WSOP freerolls, the blinds change every 3 minutes. I played one 3 days ago where sane poker was played, and at the final table everyone there was considered a short stack because everyone had less than 10 bb's

In such a situation, one has to ramp up the agression else perish. True, many of the early level agression is BS, roulette stuff. But once half the field is gone, that tames down somewhat. One still must be agressive.

With 4 games going at once you are playing the cards and not the players. This is the part of agression I thought Smells_Flushy needed to work on after reading his post. Fear of pulling the trigger is maybe as bad as pulling the trigger at the wrong time.

After doing this, the CC hole cards revealed vid's will temper this newfound agression.

This regimin did wonders for my game. I got funky beat out of a sat last night to a guarenteed $750,000.00. I wont say bad beat cause I was gamblin a bit, but Preflop I did get all in with the best hand. Just didn't stand up. I would never have done that before. Fear of agression and the agressor is the thing we all need to overcome to one degree or another.

Again, IMHO

Thanks dj11. It sounds like a good idea. I will give it a try, but I hope I don't get overly aggressive in future

Yikes Holy cow 'babe, you do have some grapes! Mine just shriveled up into raisins.

Ya, I think I'm gonna have to get one of those athletic supporters for when I play poker.