Most poker players are not aggressive enough. If you want to compete with high-level players and increase your winnings against those weaker than you, you need to incorporate more aggressive moves that are spot-on and timely.
More specifically, you must do two things:
- Notice situations where you never or rarely bluff, and consider what bluffs you may have in your range.
- Constantly create new raises and betting ranges for situations where you would never normally do so.
Finding places where you can play more aggressively is no easy task. And the last thing we want is for you to waste all your chips in the next session by bluffing too much. Therefore, we'll try to help you get the hang of it by giving you four situations in which players tend to play too passively:
- Probe betting in the tournament
- Raising bets after a continuous betting round.
- Continuous betting is postponed.
- Chek- raise on the flop after calling your opponent's 3bet.
We'll finish by discussing situations where you should never play aggressively.
Let's get started!
Probe betting in the tournament
Probe bet - a bet where you are out of position and your opponent has not made a continuation bet when he had the opportunity to do so. Such a bet is only possible on the turn or river.
In general, you can often bluff by making probe bet, because most players' checking range on the flop is very weak. So, for this reason, in your probe you can add more bluffs to your betting range, especially against weak players who don't care about balancing.
Of course, this doesn't mean you have to bluff your way through probe place a bet every time you have the opportunity to do so. Why not? Here are a couple of reasons:
- You will be vulnerable to more experienced players who will "catch" your strategy.
- Finally, you will encounter situations where the cards face up on the table are more suited to your opponent
It is very important to match your rank to the cards face up on the table. If the cards are more favourable to your range, say 8-6-5-3 or T-9-5-4, you can play probe bet quite often and force your opponents to fold weak hands. On cards that are unfavourable to you, such as J-9-4-A or A-K-6-6, check more often so that you don't overdo it by bluffing against a range that has many strong hands.
One more tip for probe bets: given that many players have a weak checking range, you can probe betting on value.
Raising after a continuous betting round
You shouldn't raise on the turn very often after you call on the flop. Most of the hands we want to draw for value in the tournament were valuable in the flop, so we can raise in the flop.
There are other situations where we can only bet in a tournament, let's look at one example.
100 NL 6max. Effective chip count 100BB.
Our hero is dealt 5d 5h in BTN position. HJ raises to $2.50, CO folds, SB and BB also call, and the hero calls.
Flop (bank $6,50) Js 8c 2d.
HJ continuation bets $2,75, hero calls. The response on the flop is a bit 'loose', but we can't call it too bad, because Hero will be playing in position and has got better than 1 to 3 odds.
Turn ($12 in the pot) 5c. HJ continues and bets another $7. What will the hero do?
The right card has been dealt. Now we have a set and we want to bet for value, but we should also have a few hands that we would bluff with in this situation to keep the balance.
Since a pair of fives (3 possible combinations) makes up your entire range (in terms of value) in this situation (unless you passively played 88 or 22), you only need 2 or 3 combinations to bluff with to keep the balance. Given the equity of the best hand to bluff Qs Ts or Ts 9s on the other side, it is better to play these hands with a call to avoid a situation where the opponent can 3bet shove. T9s (without buying into the suit) is also a good candidate for a bluff as it also has enough equity. The specific hands you choose to bluff with are not very important, the most important thing is that there is a balance between your bets for value and your bets as bluffs. You can use a similar strategy in pots, where the flop is both your opponent's and you check. Just consider which hands you would bet with on the flop, as often you may not represent them when raising on the turn.
Deferred continuous betting
Delayed continuation bet - when the aggressor checks the flop and bets on the turn. Normally, we postpone a continuation bet when our hand is not strong enough to bet on the flop, the turn and the river. A good example is when you raise pre-flop with an ace of one suit and a low card (As3s) and check even though the table is face-up with an ace. We also often choose to postpone a continuation bet when we have a very strong hand and are blocking possible strong hands from our opponent. Let's say we have QQ and the board is open Q 7 2.
Choosing the right hands for a delayed continuation bet as a bluff is much more difficult than deciding which hands to bet for value. It is especially difficult for players who always bet on the flop with a buy on the turn or flush. They then no longer have any hands with which to bluff in the tournament.
A good strategy is to check the flop occasionally with some backdoor a purchase, with the intention that you will raise your bets if a card that favours your purchase appears in the tournament. For example, you might check Kd 5d on a flop of Js 7c 6d with the idea that you will be bluffing if a buy (9, 8, 4, 3, or the reel) opens on the turn. Admittedly, there will be situations where a card in the hand will be unfavourable to you and you will be forced to discard your cards when you reach the probe bet, but that's the reality of that solid and balanced game.
Here are some rules to help you decide whether to bet on the flop or to postpone the continuation bet with your existing backdoor Procurement:
- C-bet the flop with low backdoor purchases that will be difficult to play against probe bets, such as 6s 5s when the flop is As Kh 3d.
- Choose a delayed continuation bet with higher cards, which can sometimes be used to answer probe the bet. Example with Kd 5d above.
There will also be times when you check the flop, get no more equity on the turn, and have a chance to bet if your opponent checks again. Hand selection in these situations may seem arbitrary, but don't let that stop you. The least you can do is to consider what hands you are blocking and if you have no equity, take it that way.
Check- raise on the flop after calling your opponent's 3bet
Sometimes you call a 3bet with no positional advantage and you catch a monster that could draw a lot of chips from your opponent who has the highest pair or a pair in his hand that is higher than all the cards face up on the table. When you get a c-bet, you have two choices:
- Check-raise flop against your opponent's c-bet and push all your chips on the turn.
- If we just call, then we get value both because the opponent is betting for value and because he is bluffing.
If you choose the first option, you also need to consider which hands you are check-raising with when bluffing. Let's look at an example:
$0,50/$1,00, 6-max. Effective chip count - 100BB.
Our hero is dealt Tc Td in HJ. Hero opens to $2,50, CO 3bet to $8, everyone folds, hero calls.
Flop (bank $17,50) Jd Ts 4s. Hero checks, CO bets $10, Hero raises to $32. The hands with which we could raise for value are TT, JJ, JTs. So we need to think about the hands we would bluff with in this spot. The obvious candidates are hands with a buy-in to something strong, AsQs and KsQs, but also As Ks and 9s 8s if we call pre-flop with those hands.
On the other hand, these combinations have too many equityto be considered as bluffs. If these are your only bluffs, your range will always be too strong, and your opponent will almost always fold to your check-raises if he sees this. So we need hands that have less equity.
Possible candidates are KQs (no wines) or AKo and AQo with one wine. We can balance our shove range by check-folding some AQo, AQo if the tournament opens with a non-wine and shoving everything else.
Don't deny the flop
The aim of this article is to help you add more bluffs to the game. On the other hand, there are some situations in which you should never bet. For example, when you are playing HU (head's up) against someone who was the aggressor before the flop and you don't have a position advantage on the flop.
This is because your opponent's range will normally be stronger than yours, which means that your value bets can only be made with very strong hands that can beat the opponent's hole cards. There are several reasons why it is better to choose a check-raise line than to place a bet yourself.
- Your opponent will usually bet for value with strong hands, so the check-raise line will allow you to swell the pot.
- You will provoke your opponent to bluff with several of the combinations he may have.
- This will protect your checking range.
Calling with vulnerable cards (top-low pair on an 8-6-5 table) is a very common mistake for new players. It's a really bad move, as your opponent will often force you to fold a stronger hand or call a bet when he has something stronger. In other words, such bets are ineffective.
If you never bet on value in a given situation, you cannot bluff in that situation. Even when it seems reasonable to bet because your opponent shouldn't be able to flop, good players will realise that you can't bet for value in such a situation and will play you by calling or raising.
Let's summarise
The article contains a lot of information to digest. If you feel that it is all too much for you, don't worry, no one becomes a good aggressive player overnight. Read the article as many times as you need.
Good luck!
Printed from: https://www.upswingpoker.com/aggressive-poker-strategy-spots/
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