Learning to defeat aggressive players can make a drastic change in your playing style.
In this post, we're going to talk about $5/$10 games. These theories apply to all levels, but are generally used most when you encounter more experienced and elusive opponents, and these players tend to be in higher-level games.
Success in the $1/$2 and $2/$5 games means you've developed aggressive post-flop play. In some cases, you'll have to bet aggressively for value with good cards, even with some fringe cards, and others may pass to the end, but you still have to take risks. In some cases, you want to aggressively bluff and steal the pot that other people are too timid to fight for.
But in any case, the key to success at these levels is usually related to radicalism. However, once you reach the $5/$10 level, many of the players you meet have already taken this lesson. Radical play is a successful one, but it brings new problems. If radicals can win, how do you beat players who are also radical?
When players who are successful at $2/$5 are the first time they encounter aggressive players at a higher level, they are usually easily crushed. It's because they've trained to throw away their weak cards when they're betting, and they're going to get a lot of weak cards, and we're all the same. They think they are "right" with every fold, so they are very confused when it is clear that the fold is a mistake from a broad perspective.
The problem is that at the lower level, the fold is indeed right, but only because the opponent is not aggressive enough. A fold will be correct when facing a passive player's bet, but a call (or raise) is correct if the opponent is more aggressive.
When the opponent becomes more aggressive, the cost of a "correct" fold is significant. Most are crushed for a while and will find that they have to make a change.
Many players will enter the "poison with poison" stage in the next stage, and they try to use radicalism against aggressive players. After all, if radicalism is good, wouldn't it be better to be more?
But this can easily turn into a very bad style of play, for two reasons.
First, this does not create a solid and reliable advantage. If the opponent uses the weak card to push too hard, and your response is also to use the weak card to counter-force, then neither you nor the opponent can get the benefit. The volatility of the game you play is too high, and no one's advantage will be too obvious.
Second, if you're playing a table full game, when you create a super aggressive dynamic with several opponents, the other onlookers will not participate in your arms race, but will wait for the hand to be played.
For these reasons, it is difficult to make progress by attacking poison with poison.
The key to dealing with aggressive players is to turn passive when conditions are right. Many profitable players have a hard time making such adjustments, because passive playing cards often violates their core sensitivities.
To understand why passive play is the right adjustment, you have to understand that what you think is a radical style of play may actually be too radical.
In smaller games, the best style is usually an overly aggressive vacuum. If you're in absolute dominance in the local $2/$5 game, it's likely that you'll be able to do this by playing a little more cards before the flop, and swinging a hammer in the pot after the flop in some key situations.
This is overly aggressive, as a few more hands played before the flop tend to become weak cards after the flop. In loose and smaller games, you can make money with these extra weak cards as long as you play aggressively. But in the face of opponents who understand this knowledge, they will follow you to the end, and you are like a porcelain doll, becoming very vulnerable.
The worst nightmare for overly aggressive players is that they encounter an opponent who is tight before the flop (so it's easy to complete a good card after a flop), and the frequency of the call to the end is elusive, but frequent.
This is the strategy used to defeat overly aggressive players. You have to let your opponent guess how you plan to play the hand, and you have to follow through often.
Let's look at an example. This is a $5/$10 game with a chip of $2,000. A very aggressive player raises a bet to $150 four places away from the button bit, and the button player calls. You call with QJ in the big blind. The pot is $155.
The flop is 9-8-3. You cross the cards, raise the player before the flop the player places a $100 bet, button bits fold, you call.
The transfer is Q. You cross the cards, raise the player before the flop bets $300, you call. The pot has $955.
The river card is A. You cross the cards, and the player places a $800 bet before the flop.
Against many aggressive players, this is a very good case of calling. The A of the River card would certainly be scary because it completed the possible flush, and it was still a high card. The opponent most likely hit the card and beat you, or has already defeated you. But the pot gives you $1,755:$800, which is a 2:1 odds. This means that as long as you have more than a 31% chance of winning, you can make your call better than the fold.
At the lower levels, trying to win with a 31% chance in this case is pipe dreaming. These players aren't actually so aggressive when River cards don't have flush (or at least straights). Of course, they will occasionally do a big bluff, but there is never a 31% probability.
But aggressive players themselves often bluff in this situation. For many players, flop is the standard way to bet on the trash with any two cards. When the draw issues a Q, many players see a high card and think they should continue to bluff.
After being called and then seeing that the River cards were the perfect thriller cards, they couldn't resist the temptation to fire again at the River cards. So if you're facing this kind of aggressive player, and then call to the end, there's any possibility that they'll show up the two starting cards. Their radical style of play is inspired by the deck structure and the transfer and river cards, which have little to do with their own hands.
If you read the cards correctly – even if the odds of your opponent being bluffed aren't that high, but he still bluffs – then your chances of winning are well over 31%, and you should call.
Final thoughts
Learning to defeat aggressive players can make a drastic change in your playing style. At lower levels, a profitable play may just be about finding the right moment, but when you're at a higher level, you have to think more about how your opponent wants to manipulate you and how you can do it without giving in. Because when facing aggressive players, sometimes the call is the best weapon you have.