How do I play ago Micro-Stakes aggro fish?

I am at a very frustrating point in my bankroll building journey right now. I am playing the $5 NLHE 6-Max tables. I play both zoom and regular. Zoom is fairly easy because the play is a lot more tight passive and almost every pot is heads up. However I am having a terrible time making any profit at the regular tables.

I sit down at these regular tables, I usually play 1-2 at a time and 1 zoom, and there's almost always at least one player with a VPIP/PFR of somewhere around 50/30, 40/25. And I'm not talking about the stupid maniacs that' just goes all in with any two cards on any board. These types of players will generally try to catch two pair or a set and then get you all in with your TPTK. The rest of the hands they are stealing pots by betting pot sized bets every street and getting you to fold your top pair or draws by the river when they miss and costing you a fortune.

This makes the tables extremely loose. The other passive fish start calling even wider hoping to crack someone, and pot control goes out the window.

If I end up in late position or even worse in the blinds with a big hand and its raised before it gets to me and I 3-bet I often end up with 2-3 callers. If it hasn't been raised yet and I open-raise I often end up with 2-4 callers. Now even if I do hit a TPTK or my overpair holds up the pot is already rather large.

These situations are great when you flop sets, or top two pair or monster draws, but more often than not, you're going to showdown with a pair. And the aggro-fish are constantly potting bets and check-raising because they know the tighter players aren't going to want to call off their whole stack.

And I just seem to have the worse luck with picking spots to look these guys up. Last night I get dealt AKs in the SB and of course the aggro fish is UTG and raised and had like two callers so I 3-bet rather large trying to atleast isolate the aggro-fish and it works. the flop comes 10-9-3 rainbow. so i check to him, he checks. turn is a king, so i bet out, he flats. river is another low blank now the pot is huge so i figure lets not be gready i've gotten enough value with TPTK there is no straight or flush so i check to him there is about $4 in the pot at this point and he goes all in for about another 3 which has me covered.

Do I call, do I fold? I call. He's got 10-9. Another hand with the same kind of player, AK again, but it comes down all spades but there is an ace of course I don't have any spades, so I bet out once and he calls me we both check/check to the river where he goes all in because now there are 4-spades on the board so I fold and he flashes ace-2 offsuit no spade either.

Its always the same ****ing pattern with these assholes, make one big bluff when they first get there and their table image isn't ruined then the next time they go all in they've got split two pair or some garbage they caught on the river.

I'm just so tired of losing entire bankrolls to these kinds of players. I feel like I'm being bullied and it's really frustrating.

I try to play a TAG game where I am the aggressor, but be smart about it. I'm keeping pots small when I don't have big hands and stealing lots of blinds and dead money on the flop when other players seem weak. These guys are totally ****ing this up for me and I feel like I have to pay huge amounts to see flops that aren't multi-way pots, or just play a super passive fit or fold never raising preflop, never stealing any blinds or small pots on flop, and just waiting to flop the nuts.

You have a number of ways to play

1. If your game is not yet able to adjust to this player then simply leave that game....these players need quite an adjustment

2. If you have the moxy then play their game raise big pre to fold out the other players and play in position this is key...choose good flop cards those that can flop well....suited connectors i particularly like......if you connect just have to go with it....chk call or chk raise either way your aggro is going nowhere......if they are playing virtually every hand chances are when you connect they dont.......this is high varience poker and you have to have a good post flop game.......what you will find is you felt them once or twice and they will start to avoid confrontation with you....you might have to lose a few to get there though

3. I love doing this......I min raise with a seriously big hand AA...KK...QQ most other will fold not wanting to play against aggro...I will chk raise all way to river and jam....again high varience but by the river aggro is either folding or calling off there stack.....most of the time they show top pair.....again remember they will hit bigger hands often as they play pure garbage as well so have to be prepared to take the hits.


From what you say though until you have a better post flop game I would move tables...GL

Post specific hands an what site do you play on, possibly you could get a better deal to help build your BR.

Zen and poker for you seem to be two different things, which is fine.
The question is, do you have the wrong style, or do you have bad luck?
Some studying to do....

Alright, quite an interesting question and the adjustment is not very hard, at least not on the logic, rather on the ego...cause "they bully you" out of your well prepared "TAG" strategy.


So here are the things you don't want to do:
- Start playing back by 3betting and shoving wider
- Start "coming over the top" once they start potting every street
- teach them a lesson for being so mean to you.

Things to do:
- use brain, do math.
- only play in position against them

An aggro fish generally has a limited lifetime and they WILL self destruct.
Consider playing that way yourself, what would you be scared of? You splash and spew every single pot with marginal hands, collecting pennies but once in a while you run into a monster that you won't see cause you did all the betting. Your worst nightmare is a calling station who just doesn't want to fold.


So when it comes to game theory, your range is too wide for the betsize you use and this is a serious leak. And the only reason you don't explode right away is that you win larger pots than you're supposed to win because people fail to adjust and play ABC against you, which means they play call>check>fold too often. This makes it rain money for you, since people widen their range in a race to bust you, so they call your overbets with too much trash, which leads to a lot of folds to your potsized cbets.


First thing you do against them is tightening your calling range with premium hands, such as AQs+, JJ+. 3bet shove or fold. Profit should be huge, especially in multiway pots. Do not call AJo, KJo and crap like that.

Second, reduce the combos of offsuit broadways. TPTK sucks multiway, so you need backup equity in the form of draws.

Third, abuse the fact that you are multiway so often and play more speculative hands from IP, since pot odds are huge and implied odds as well. In games like these it's not uncommon to rake in two buy ins at once when you make the nuts and you definitely have the right odds to call 98s from the BTN against 3+ people, even when the pot is huge.

Forth, when you play heads up against him and he starts firing, call a lot with TPTK and let him bluff off his stack. Pot controlling means being passive and induce bluffs. It does NOT mean to "defend" (what a stupid concept anyways) your TPTK by raising and bloating the pot, cause he will shove and then you have to decide if you want to call your AJo on J84r. Call and make him selfdestruct.

Spewster had some great stuff there.

I’ll add that we call down lighter. Don’t take aggro fish out of the lead often, make our raises really polarised comprising monsters and low equity draws. Implied odds shoot up so call turn pot size bets with draws if there’s enough stack behind to make it profitable.

On the turn a flush needs to win 4* the bet from the entire hand to break even. So if the pots 20bb and villain bets 20bb we need to win an extra 40bb from a the hand overall. The pot will be 60bb on the river. Aggro fish will offer that up on a plate.

Look for bet sizing tells. I can count on one hand aggro fish that haven’t had some sort of bet size tell. It’s often strong means weak and weak means strong. But not always.