more aggressive...

i want to be more aggressive. i try to play tight/aggressive, raising with premium hands but it is hard when over cards don't hit and players start to peg my habit. should i occasionally raise with suited connectors, or even gaped cards to change gears (when in position )? k6 suited? A7? any advice to more agressive would be appreciated. thank you

I think you're looking for a way to be looser in your hand selection - you can be aggressive with a very narrow hand selection (which is tight/aggressive) and you can be aggressive with a broader hand selection (which moves toward loose/aggressive).

When you start expanding your hand selection, look at what you currently play, and from what position, and then start adding categories. So, if your initial hand selection is 88+ and AQ+ from middle position, you could add suited connectors 87s+. SC's are a logical progression from a tight hand selection - adding smaller pocket pairs is another logical progression.

Note that I'm referring to opening the pot here with a raise, not limping or calling somebody else's raise.

Don't underestimate the importance of position - start by adding to your range from the hijack to the button. Once you get comfortable with how to play those hands in position, you can look at increasing the hands you play from middle position where there's a good chance you'll be out of position.

Once you get comfortable with your new ranges for the different positions, look at the various discussions of stealing in the forum. A couple of hands you listed here are complete junk and I wouldn't suggest playing them other than as a pure steal attempt - meaning that if I'm called or raised, I'm going to be letting go of the hand barring a really good cbet opportunity or a miracle flop.

If you want to be aggressive you can start by NOT calling. Raise, re-raise or fold. No other option. If it's good enough to call, it's good enough to raise. If you are first to the pot you need to put in a decent size raise (3xBB as a min.) even if you decide to play suited connectors and you are first to the pot, you need to raise. It's tough to do, believe me, I know. But being aggressive is the difference between ITM and being a participant.

I went on a downswing about a week ago, where I lost a chunk of my BR. It thought it was because of 'variation,' well I looked at my hand histories of about 10 SnG's and found out I was calling waaaay too much and I didn't make that many continuation bets. So I went back to raising,re-raising and making a c-bet even if I missed the flop. I got back to my old self again and not only did I get my stack back but it grew 25% in a day! Playing aggressively is more about courage than technique. If you re-raise with A-Q and the board is rag-rag-rag, can you fire a bullet? Maybe two?

When it's bubble play or high blind and you have A-rag can you shove? or do you fold waiting for a powerhouse. That right there is the difference between ITM and being a participant. Also, if other player get the feeling you are waiting for the nuts, every time you are in the blinds you are going to be hammered.

Lots of people claim to be aggressive, few really are. It's not easy breaking out of the tight/weak mold. It's something you are going to have to work at. The more you work at it, the easier it gets. You will get sweaty palms and gulp before you hit the raise button or fire a bullet when you completely missed the flop. But that's part of what being aggressive is all about.

If you know someone is tryin to steal your blinds, you need to find the heart to hit that all-in button. Sometimes when you have nothing. If you don't you end being terrorized.

Good luck on becoming more aggressive.

Excellent and concise layout for how I'm going to try to play for the next couple of months (years?). Will report results when I see them----thanks
for sharing!!!

All you need to do is represent! Bet the same with a set of top ten hands and dont overbet and mess about. Theres no need until you grasp the way you actually enjoy to play poker. Bet,Bet,Bet. I dont think ive ever seen a three barrelled bluff from anyone at microstakes. Maybe fire one or two but not three! Build a pot, then take it down. If you have a VERY VERY VERY strong hand, trap if you dont fold when they are betting at you.
Raise at them, fold to them, unless you have a half decent hand! 89? QJ? **** off

very good responses LizzyJ and Chigal, i will do my best to practice this and hopefully see my game and bankroll increase. Thank you for your time and advice!

LizzyJ, do you really play poker in this way or is it just a layout?
I think raise, re-raise or fold is very dangerous. You can win much times, but if you lost one time or more , your poker would be turn loose/agressive.
You tell "If it's good enough to call, it's good enough to raise", but sometimes we can only call and change our mode of play the hands.
Be tight/aggressive is different of be aggressive/.......

From early position only play with the premium hands, in later positions or the cutoff and the dealer, you can open up your hand selection, and become much more aggressive. Once you have a tight table image, you may get away with early position raises with moderate hands. Plus your tight table image will help you steal blinds in late position. Make your raises the same or close to the same, to keep your opponents guessing.

Do you play cash, SNG or MTTs? Hard to give good advice without knowing that.

For cash game, the basics of good aggressive play is: never limp. Ever. Don't open-limp, don't limp behind. Preflop you either raise, fold, or flat call a raise when you have position on him.

That also means play tightish in early position and loosish in late position, i.e. CO and BTN.

The consequence of this preflop approach is that you will end up playing most pots postflop in position and often as the preflop raiser. That should give you a lot more ability to pick up pots with selective aggression postflop.

If you want to play more loose, you should also consider the "small ball" thing, which really helped me to widen my range/hands that I play in the last time.

It basically is more post-flop orientated play, so you want to see a lot of flops and then (based on what your opponent holds/not holds) outplay opponents after the flop. Its more likely that the flop didnt help anyone than people are letting a hand go preflop.

You should only raise 2.5times the BB with this strategy, because you'll risk less chips.

Also you will play a lot more hands that have straight/flush/set value because this are the real "money hands". (If you run PT3, just look at how much you won with one pair,two pair and so on, and then look at set, str8 and flush.. self explaining.. ).

So you'll play hands like suited connectors down to 34s, any pair more often. And the aim is to hit big or make the opponent fold to a flop bet.

Whats also cool with this strategy is, that when you hold a monster you'll get more action based on the "loose" image you built up with beeing in a lot of pots.

I really recommend "Power Holdem Strategy by D. Negreanu" for this strategy. Its an awesome book with some other chapters than "small ball", too I'm still reading in it, but it already helped me to improve my game I believe

there is a list on different site's that u can find a list with the cards u can play in what position take a look at it but dont forget that position is important 2

Sly seems to have the right of it. Just add a few extra hands into what you are willing to play pre-flop. Also...if they know that you will fold everytime, simply because they didn't hit...well sometimes I feel like I have to raise them and try and call their bluff...just hope you have higher kickers.

It sounds to me like you need practise with post flop more than opening your preflop range.

If you're the preflop raiser, your default action should be to bet, and bet between 1/2 pot and pot, on the smaller side if it's tournaments (because the stack sizes are smaller) and larger if cash. You need a reason not to bet.

Reasons not to bet include; more than one caller, missed the flop but the cards fit what you think might be your opponent's hand range, and other more complicated situations.

If you're playing low stakes or play money people might still call your flop bets anyway, and sometimes they'll suck out on you, but in the long term you should be able to give up when you know that they're not going away or have you beaten and overall you'll come out ahead.

+1 !! I am only just starting to understand how important position is on the poker table and these sort of plays I found very risky when I was a complete beginner. However now I realize that being the initial raiser in a hand gives you such an advantage, taking down 8BB+ pots with cbets more often, or just simply letting the hand go if someone shows strength. It feels like I'm starting to actually play poker now instead of just waiting for that big hand!!