No Limit Texas Hold’em playing styles have evolved immeasurably since online poker first took off in the early noughties.
Back then, tight, or conservative play, was generally considered correct.
Nowadays, the fearless internet kids are raising, re-raising and clicking the all-in button with a whole range of hands, making them hard to read and especially hard to beat.
Aggressive poker has now been accepted as the right way to play the game.
No swearing
When we say aggressive poker, we don’t mean writing profanities in the chat box in a bid to intimidate your opponents.
Aggressive poker is about making bold plays, bullying opponents into folding and stealing pots. It’s a tricky style to master but can be extremely effective, especially against tight players, or rocks.
Aggressive players don’t limp into pots or commit the cardinal sin of habitually calling.
It’s all about betting, raising and re-raising. Betting and raising are superior plays to calling for two reasons. First, your hand can win the pot uncontested if the other players fold. Second, it may be, or become, the winning hand. By just calling, you can only win the pot by having the best hand.
One big upside to aggressive poker is that your fellow players will usually pay a lot of money into the pot when you have a strong hand. After seeing you scoop in a number of pots, scepticism will take hold and they will probably give your betting and raising less respect.
Keep betting aggressively and you can expect a nice payoff from non-believing players.
On the downside, you are more likely to be rumbled when you bluff. It’s just part and parcel of playing this style of poker.
Tournament titan
To get the rush of winning your first online tournament is going to require aggression. You won’t always have the best hand, so a fair share of bluffing and thievery of the blinds and pots is a must.
Sitting patiently and praying for aces and kings to arrive will mean a demoralising wait while your chip stack gradually evaporates and the blinds escalate.
Be sure to take stabs at uncontested pots. A bread and butter aggressive play is the continuation bet. Let's look at an example:
Before the flop, you have Ace-Queen and you raise. Then the flop fall Jack-7-4.
That's a somewhat vexing outcome, but it’s worth remembering that your hand will miss the flop about 70% of the time. (In other words, you won't get cards on the flop that put you in a strong position.) It’s the same for your opponent.
If you have position and your opponent checks, take a stab at the pot with a continuation bet. Your ace may have put you in front and a bet may well be enough to get your opponent to fold.
That said, we're not suggesting you should follow a strategy of blind aggression. You may be dictating play and making powerful moves but it only takes a few reckless bluffs to go bust. You have to know when to slow down if you suspect your opponent has you beaten and isn’t folding.
Time and time again online, you will see players accumulate a skyscraper stack of chips, only to blow it in a few hands by being overly aggressive and loose. Yes, you should be bullying players, but the aggression must be controlled aggression.
Bursting bubbles
When an online tournament approaches its climax you will often see players tighten up, especially when it’s on the bubble (one more player needs to be eliminated for the others to be in the payout positions).
This is a prime opportunity to steal blinds and pots away from players desperately hanging on for the money. Even after the bubble bursts you can identify those retreating into their shells and hoping to climb the payout ladder by staying out of the action. Punish their passivity.
An old adage in tournament poker worth remembering states: ‘To live you have to be willing to die’.
In essence, you have to make bold, risky plays to win a poker tournament. Conservative play just doesn’t cut it anymore.
In our next article, we'll look at Top ten rookie mistakes.
