Aggressive Poker Strategy
The general winning strategy that the vast majority of poker players pursue is simple - tight and aggressive. Many aspiring professional poker players fail because while they are tight enough they lack the aggression that defines a winning player. Aggression is key. It helps you win pots, it helps you increase the size of the pots you win and it breeds fear in your opponents that can be exploited to your advantage. It is not enough to be merely tight - if you are tight and passive you will never make it as a professional poker player. You will get ran over by the more aggressive players.
It is not enough to merely be aggressive. Being aggressive in the wrong spots is worse than being passive. Aggression in small pots is often a mistake, just as passivity in large pots is generally a mistake. When the pot becomes large your overwhelming consideration is not to save bet’s but to win the pot.
Ask yourself - do you frequently put your opponents on the nuts if they raise you? Do you find yourself blindly calling down? Do you often wish you had gotten more value out of your hands on the river? Do you find yourself waiting until you have the nuts to raise? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you might be playing too passively. If you answer yes to all of these questions you are almost certainly a weak-tight player who is throwing valuable bets away. While there are a few games and a few opponents against which this strategy is close to optimal - namely extremely aggressive players who will three barrel with anything but fold to resistance - the vast majority of games and the vast majority of opponents play a loose passive game and a standard tight aggressive strategy will earn you far more.
Aggression is the mark of a winning player. If you desire to become a professional poker player you will need to be tight and you will need to be aggressive.
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