Mad Man Poker

In today’s landscape of poker players, aggression is all you can find.

With Gus Hansen as ultimate poster boy, the tables are slowly taken over by players who’d rather lose face big than quietly advance.

This puts a standard poker player for a problem, even before sitting down at a table.

Let’s face it, the best way of taking care of an aggressive table, is tight play. People can not beat you when you always hold the best hand and the fact that the rest of your table is a bit more loosy-goosy when considering standard holdings is always a help when looking down on a monster.

Or so every standard book and article may want you to believe.

If this were true, tables nowadays would be overflowing with tight youngsters that go back to hardly playing a hand and take caution when it comes to mediocre holdings.

Nothing of the sort, however. Today’s heroes are guys like Tom Dwan, with a complete lack of respect for standard plays. Unpredictable, arrogant and over all aggressive to the bone.

Does ‘durrr’ know something we don’t?

Actually it seems he does. Assess your play. Are you a cautious player to begin with, then your basic style might be well put for the standard answer to aggressive tables.

But if you are a natural basher, an aggressive player to begin with, you might have a choice to make.

Do I start playing tight or do I stay true to my nature and be a slasher amongst thousands of other players like me?

The truth for once does not lie in the middle, but, on the contrary, further up the spectrum of aggressive play.

Think about it: you need a table nicely balanced with aggressors and rocks. Do you want to be a rock? No? Then force the other guys to be.

I already mentioned here that forcing a player to adapt to your strategy always gives you an advantage. This is even more true when talking about maniacs being forced to go into hibernation as their standard play.

Mind you! Outaggressing the aggressors is not as easy as it may sound. It is most definitely not reraising every pot back to your table mates; it’s also not pumping every pot you play into infinity. Both those tactical plays can be part of your strategy, but can not be the tactic on itself.

How to start? Well, first of all: There we go again: train your read on people! Find physical tells, find betting patterns, find a gut feeling in your belly telling you when to push and when to stop. It’ll make the difference between walking head first into slowplayed aces and outbluffing the bluffer.

I said it before, I’ll say it again. Your read is your weapon as an aggressive player. Knowing when to fool around is what creates the illusion you’re just throwing around chips hoping to hit hard.

When entering “bashervile” on a table, you’ll notice that first you get a lot of callers. Why? Because usually you’re about the only one keeping your raises small. Every aggressive playing strategy starts with caution. You’re probably starting out as one of the more conservative players. People don’t need to see you’re an aggressive player, they need to feel it. Influence like that is not established in a few hands and building into your maniac mode makes for a very scary effect where people take you for a tight player when all of sudden you start hitting back … hard. This will automatically put up the idea that you are a master of changing gears (which you should be) and it can never hurt to withdraw a bit of awe from your table.

Then you start slashing! Not caring anymore about who is loose and who is not, you assess when you want a pot and you attack it! This can be based on you holding a hand you actually expect to be the best hand or you assessing weakness in your opponents. The results you’ll see are amazing!

Why?

Well, tight players are your natural opposite. They don’t like your aggressive play to begin with and will usually only respond when they have the best hand or when they are a bit fed up with you. The first case is a pity, but as long as you keep your pots small during the period you’re still putting the other guy on a hand, nothing really bad can happen. The second case, in which they get fed up with you, is even sweeter. This is a steam factor and should be welcomed with open arms. Pulling a tight player into maniac playing is getting him out of his comfort zone and is always a good thing.

Secondly the aggressive player, you’ll see, will be confused on what to do with you. Most “maniacs” are used of being the table bully and being confronted with you taking that roll away from him, he usually will either go play tight, which is, just as with the tight player steaming, a good thing, since this player is on strange territory. Or he will refuse to adapt play, stay aggressive, trying to strike back. In this last case you usually get into a state where you avoid each other and where it comes down to who can control himself the most.

To my amazement I see a lot of more aggressive players with far too little respect for position, raises or stack sizes. Should you come across a player not willing to give up his bashing life style to you, but with a lacking understanding of his relative position and stack size in comparison to you, put on your party-hat and bring out the music, because you already have the birthday cake you can just guzzle up real nicely.

In aggressive mode, position is a double topic. You can either be “in position”, able to see what the other guy does, or “first to the bluff”. If your opponent can not adjust to these changes, he’s dead and you about a stack up.

So, let’s get specific here.

First of all, what do you play?

For starters: your monsters, off course. When you can play aces or kings, AK or AQ, you have an edge, but that’s obvious.

Then, you play strong connectors, a strong connector is at least suited and should never be more than 1 card apart. It also helps when your cards are somewhere between a 9 and an ace.

A strong ace is always playable. Mind you that I said “strong”. A3 off suit is not a strong ace, it’s rubbish.

Basically, in given circumstances almost everything is playable.

Now, what is definitely not?

First of all, cards that are simply too low. Sure, 54 suited could flop you a straight, but that’s about it. Unless the flop comes 554 full rainbow, flopping 1 pair is usually too weak to continue, since we’re mostly talking bottom pair anyway. Even two pair might not be something to go cheering about. First of all, the set could be lurking around the corner, any other draw will not leave too easily, and you don’t get a lot of players off a hand with your highly disguised two pair. If by the river the board doubles another card than your 5 or 4, you lose to an overpair. Say your 5 or 4 does double and you now have a full house. OK, but still any set going over your 5 just got a better full house. You either win a small pot, or lose a big one.

Secondly, combinations with high and low cards. Say you hold K5 off suit, and decide to play your king. The flop comes out with 4 players still in the hand: 9K3. You bet out and instantaneously get raised by one of the other players. Where are you in the hand? Up against a bluff, or drawing to a worse kicker with the other guy holding AK, KQ or even KT? Here you do need the two pair to find some comfort in your hand. Pairing your downcard is also not really an option. Say the board comes 532, are you really so sure of your case? What if a 4 comes up on the turn? You might have spotted that one of the other people was drawing on the flop, but with for example, 2 spades with a 3^rd one coming off, was he drawing to the straight or to the flush? Here you actually have to count the odds backwards. Say you do hold K5 off suit and the flop comes 532 with 2 spades. You now have to fear an ace, a 4 or a 6 for the straight and 9 spades, counting the A, 6 and 4, together 18 cards are reason to slow down for you. With 2 cards still to come you actually have more chance of seeing a “scare card” completing a draw than to see the board fill up safe.

Then again, what is “safe”? The Jd comes on the turn and all of a sudden you see a lot of chips going to the middle. Did this guy hit his AJ, KsJs, even JsTs?

Big card – little card combos? Big nono!

Last, but not least: Weak giants. A hand like KT, QJ, … is very vulnerable since these hands have big brothers in AT, AK, AQ, AJ, … that will almost always get played. When holding a T9, you have the straight opportunity and hands like J9, Q9 will meet the muck a bit easier than the real monsters. With a hand like KT when you hit your ten as top pair and meet a determined foe, convinced he has the best hand, he usually has.

Now let’s get into hyper aggressive mode.

There you are, the “maniacs” surround you and you decide that you don’t feel like playing tight.

First of all, you control your chip stack by keeping your bets in a realistic realm. I already told you I rarely go outside my borders of 4 to 6 times the big blind, usually keeping it to 3 to 4 times the BB, anything else requires a monster from you to call or for you to end this pot right here by shoving your foe out of the pot. Off course, be sure to push regularly with monsters too, since this would be a major tell to any player when you don’t (“hey, he’s all in, I guess he’s trying to steal”) or to call with mediocre holdings in rare cases for about the same reason of staying unpredictable. You do this, because you will be playing a lot of hands and don’t want to invest too much when your hand does not hit. The occasional monster on the one hand, the occasional steal on the other hand. In any other case, you don’t go popping around.

If have the opportunity to wait and see what your tablemates hit on the flop, all the better. In any case you need to find out. Mostly you do that by making a continuation bet or feeler bet. Early in the game, some kamikaze will still be willing to call you down. Don’t worry, the others will throw it away and our suicidal friend will soon learn what playing with you is like.

If you don’t trust your hand, you’re out. Mostly you can do that extremely cheap. No connection to the flop, no overcards, no draw, … no bet … or call. That’s right. A tester bet should be put out. When one of the other guys already tested and got response, it’s not up to you to go jerking around.

Say you did hit the flop. Chances are slightly larger for you than for your tight friends. You play more, you hit more, simple deduction.

This is where your read and your fist of steel comes out. You now assessed you have the best hand, see no threat and find one kamikaze or even ignorant slowcaller on your way. This is where your strategy comes paying off, big time. Either you win a lot of pots on flop or turn with playing like this, and believe me you will, or you will find yourself dragging your caller to the river with you.

Time for some math: You both have a stack of 1500, blinds are a measly 10/20, nobody is in trouble yet.

You pop your AJ suited to 60. 3 times the BB, no big deal, and get one caller in the big blind. The flop comes J74 and your opponent checks to you. You now have 130 in the pot and decide to go with 80. You get a call and the pot now is 290, the ten on the turn is no threat and you make it 150. Once again the other guy sees no threat in following you and the pot now is 590. The river brings another blank, say a 5, and in goes your bet of 300. Now there are 2 options: you get a caller and just took 590, or more than a third of his stack, from the other guy or he lays it down there. That last option is usually where it’s going here. But still this gives you a profit of 290. Not bad for popping it to 3xBB pre-flop. If you from time to time get a limper to lay down to your raise, you now have 5 chances to hit a flop on your 3xBB raise. Can you drag down a pot like this? You just bought yourself 5 chances to flopping a monster board. Can you take down more? Your stab amount just was doubled, tripled, or even better. Getting 2 out of 5 times the best hand or your opponent to lay down is not that spectacular, and gradually people will notice you stabbing at a lot of pots and your tendency to pop them up when you hold the goods. This will mostly lead to a state where almost nobody is willing to call you down unless to hold a hand they’re comfortable with. If you can catch these hands on the flop, and correctly lay it down you hardly loose anything there and just go on to pick up the next pot nobody dares attacking.

Bullying the bully is not an art, it’s pure science and hard working. You need to pay attention to just about anything in the other players and try to keep your betting under control both in damage control as in delivering damage to the others.

Also, bullying the bully, as spectacular as it may be, when played correctly is a diamond that should only be taken out on special occasion. By the time people realise your doing this, the game should almost be over, or you should already be shifting into another tactic.

Also, small hint: read “Buying Table Control” again. These strategies seem very alike, but play on different weaknesses in your table. Shifting between them is relatively easy and almost invisible.

Should you feel confused, come see us. We’ll steal your lunch money, give you a wedgie and lock you in the bathroom.

The Mad Man