Practising Aggressiveness

I have many things in my poker game that I need to work on, but aggressiveness is one of the things I know I need to be better at - I just don't really know how to go about it.

How do I practise aggression? Do you remember that at some point you said to yourself, "from now on, I'll re-raise in this situation"? Or any other conscious decision to step up aggressiveness?

Thanks!

Actually, here's a good example of when I decided to be more aggressive than I normally would be:
pokerstars 1/2 Hold'em (9 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

Preflop: Hero is Button with [Kd], [Ac].
UTG calls, 3 folds, MP3 calls, 1 fold, Hero raises, 2 folds, UTG calls, MP3 calls.

Flop: (7.50 SB) [5d], [Ks], [Js] (3 players)
UTG bets, MP3 folds, Hero raises, UTG 3-bets, Hero calls.

Turn: (6.75 BB) [7h] (2 players)
UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG calls.

River: (10.75 BB) [2h] (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets, UTG calls.

Final Pot: 12.75 BB

Normally, I wouldn't have raised the turn, fearing KJ or some other two pair. This is the sort of thing I have a problem with, really, and I know it's costing me a lot of money.

I believe aggresiveness comes from being patient in selecting hands.. with those hands you need to be aggresive. Per say the AA's, KK', ace,king

QQ's.. and if you notice someone always stealing your blinds.. need to take a stand and re raise the blind stealer.

I personally say bet a hand if you have it or think you have it.... you flop say two pair.. bet it...flop high pair showing with good kicker.. bet it.. I personally don't like using check raises to much cause I don't want the fellow to get a free card especially on a straight or flush draw. Now say you limp in with pockets and hit your set on the flop.....say you have 4's and flop k,j,4 rainbow. Get aggresive with the 4's.. why give someone with per say holding 10,9 or q,10 a free chance to draw. If they are going to draw on you.. bet aggresive and make them pay to draw on you.

I should have been more specific, my bad:

I'm happy with my preflop aggressiveness. What I need to be better at is later streets, especially the turn and the river, and specifically raising and re-raising. Betting my hand in an unopened round is not a problem for me - it's re-raising a raiser that I'm poor at.

Yes understandable.. yet just because someone called doesn't always mean you should back down. I actually love Elephants that call me all the way to the rive when I am holding the best hand.

Yes your goal is not to get to the river but if that happens. Have notes on your opponents. A loose cannon can have anything... Just bet more aggresively then normal against them. If someone calls to the river with your aggresiveness.. then value bet... Yet even at times the all in bet on the turn does work and times backfires.. but I'd rather be the one making the all in bet then having to be the one to call it.

LOL where is XD where you need him.. We both have the problem of betting to aggresively but rather be to aggresive then not aggresive enough.

Okay, here's another one. Here, I chickened out, and I this is precisely where I suck.

PokerStars 1/2 Hold'em (10 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

Preflop: Hero is Button with [Ad], [Ah].
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 3 folds, MP3 raises, CO 3-bets, Hero caps, SB calls, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls, MP3 calls, CO calls.

Flop: (21 SB) [8c], [Qc], [8d] (5 players)
SB checks, UTG+1 checks, MP3 bets, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, SB folds, UTG+1 calls, MP3 calls, CO calls.

Turn: (15.50 BB) [9c] (4 players)
UTG+1 checks, MP3 checks, CO checks, Hero checks.

River: (15.50 BB) [2d] (4 players)
UTG+1 checks, MP3 checks, CO checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: 15.50 BB

Ahhh you play limit while I play no limit.. I don't like limit cause I can't scare of the loose cannons and what nots ,because your limited to how aggresive you can be.

Looking back at that last hand I posted makes me sick to my stomach. No one capped the flop after I bet: Clearly at least QQ was out of the question, and likely something like A8 as well. Why didn't I bet the turn? Fearing a flush.

I should have bet on the turn, and if I get checkraised, I know that I need to fold. If they call, I bet again on the river. Argh, so stupid. Missed at least 4BB there on the turn and the river.

Yep you have it now.. make the flush chasers pay to chase the flush. If you are going to lose to a flush chaser.. at least you made them pay to chase it. No free cards for any chasers I always say.

twizzybop said:

LOL where is XD where you need him..

Click to expand...

I agree, wait for Xdman to come on later and this one is right up his alley. I'm to aggressive, but can't even start to tell you how to be.

I realise you are a limit player but I suggest you try out a 6 max NL table a couple of times with some cash you are prepared to write off as R and D. Go in with a plan. Mike Caro suggests some exercises to learn different facets of the game. One of them is raise every time you are in the hand for a whole session and write down what you learn, or only call for a whole session and see what happens. A good one is to pick a bluff victim and have a go at him/her. Then have a go at the same player again a few hands later. Obvioiusly you aren't going to win too much but the exercises aren't about the cash. You'll learn a lot of things you otherwise wouldn't and gain some very valuable insights into the game.

Well for all you NL players telling people to make the jump from limit to no limit, well I think you are misguided! Unless you just have more of a natural talent for NL learn to be a winning limit player first! Most of you won't but if you are smart you will.

Now Paulson asks a superb question! Basically he wants to find that happy medium between effective aggression and overplaying a losing hand in cash games(Late in tournaments are much like ring game play) or maximizing your wins and minimizing your loses. You are very correct when you say you are concerned about a couple bets here and there being important because in Limit success is determined over a longer stretch of time and by smaller margins than NL.

I am only guessing but I would say aggression or actually lack of is the effect of an another issue with your game. That is reading or guessing at what your opponent is holding. You start imagining doomsday scenarios. The flop is when whatever hand you think he has must be decided of course you are going to be thinking about what he has preflop but postflop make your decision and stick with it. Trust your first impression and run with it play enough hands and you will be right way more than you are wrong. In the first hand is your opponent a good player who is properly playing his flush draw aggressively? Did he limp with junk and catch 2 pair? I would put him on something other than a draw because he doesn't appear to want this hand going to a showdown! Most likely KQ. His check call on the river, which I personally think is the worst play in poker, says you very likely had him outkicked or he overplayed an under pair. If I am wrong about hand reading being the issue please tell me and we'll see if we can get the hole fixed. There have been many times when my game would get off and bouncing what is going on, off the guys here helped tremendously! Actually Diablo while not personable was tremendous at analyzing hands.
Now with aces in the hole on the second hand you had a HUGE pot by the time the turn hit you HAVE to fire at it and see what happens you have 4 players still in on the turn so yeah one of them likely hit a flush but you can't play HUGE pots weakly. With a big pot you will know real fast if you are beat on the turn! Anyways I'll wait to see what you say and see if we can work through it bro!

As you correctly pointed out (and as I've come to realize myself after having slept on it) my problem is - paraphrased - paranoia. My hand reading skill is actually pretty decent (I'd like to think so, anyway) but when I get re-raised, I re-evaluate and usually decide that the worst possible scenario is what has happened. Essentially, my fear clouds my objective thinking.

Looking at the hand afterwards, with no emotions invested, it's clear that I most likely had the best hand. No one capped the flop. Although it's possible that someone would have hit the flush on the turn, I have to bet. If I get check-raised on the turn by the hand I figured on a draw (which in this case would have been UTG+1), I might have laid my hand down. I put the CO on KK after the flop (which turned out to be correct, by the way - yay me), but I had no idea what to do with MP3. He's the one I was afraid held QQ.

So I checked the turn, fearing a check-raise. That was dumb. But not value betting the river is a disaster! See, here comes another impulse that I need to keep in check (ha-ha?): I didn't check for a good reason. At this point, I was so overcome with the idea that my rockets were beaten that I checked to end the hand as soon as possible, so I could find out. It's dumb.

Fortunately for me, it's not something that's likely to happen again. That's the beauty of experience, isn't it?

Anyway, you're sort of right. It's not primarily reading that's the problem (although it was with MP3), it's first and foremost my lack of confidence in my reading when people act differently than I would have in that situation. Schoonmaker calls this the "egoistic fallacy"; we expect other poker players to behave like we do.

So, to recap: I placed UTG+1 on a draw and CO on KK. I was right in both cases, although UTG+1 was going for some weird sort of runner-runner gutshot. I don't know what he was doing in that pot at all with KTo. MP3, as it turns out, held AQo.

I spent the latter part of last night reviewing the traits of the tight-passive player (in Schoonmaker's "Psychology of Poker") to see if this description fits me. It doesn't - by any counts I'm to the aggressive end of the passive/aggressive scale. But I still need to learn to take a deep breath on the turn and think things through for a few seconds and not check fearing the doomsday scenarios. It's stupid, and it's costing me money.

Thanks, XD, I appreciate it.