See also
Aggression is built into the basic strategy. If you follow it, you’ll have an attacking style of play.
In poker, if no one ever folded and every hand was a showdown, the best hand would always win. But this isn’t how the game is played. Because of the power of betting, it’s often the case that the hand that would have won is folded at some point.
In his excellent book The Theory of Poker, David Sklansky points out that every time you get your opponent to do something different from what he would have done had he seen your cards, you’ve gained. Aggressive betting and raising often convince your opponent that you have the best hand, which may or may not be true. These tactics increase the chances that your competition will make mistakes. The fact that most confrontations are heads-up, and that your style of play usually forces a decision based on seeing only two cards, makes accurate decision-making especially difficult for your opponents. Undoubtedly, some of the times that your opponent folds, he’ll have a better hand than you. Your aggressive betting drives him out. If he could see your cards, he’d make different decisions, such as calling more frequently. But if he doesn’t, according to Sklansky’s principle, you’ve accomplished your mission.
Another important related concept is that each time you pick up a pot, your stack increases. Usually, it’s in small increments as you pick up the blinds and antes, but when you win an all-in confrontation, your chips may increase dramatically. Each such increase makes you more dangerous to the other players, who know you can eliminate them in just one hand. As their caution increases, your aggressive tactics become even more effective.
A player picks up AA, KK, QQ, JJ, or AK suited an average of only once every five rounds in a full game. This means there are lots of hands where no one has a big starting hand. Someone has to win these hands. That someone is typically the most aggressive player at the table. Often, there’s one dominant player at the table. If the other players allow it, he’ll pick up more than his fair share of blinds and antes, as well as post-flop pots.
Good players continue to pound on tight passive players. This is how they want you to be - civil, docile, and easy to control. If you want to win, your job is to make these players as unhappy as possible, and you do this by fighting aggression with aggression. Instead of allowing them to back you down, you put them to a guess for all their chips. They hate it! Look how upset Phil Hellmuth gets on TV when someone doesn’t do what he wants him to do. In one WPT event, Antonio Esfandiari drove Phil absolutely crazy by consistently coming over the top of him when Phil raised pre-flop from late position. Antonio was supposed to be nice and fold like a good boy, but instead of following Phil’s script, Antonio re-raised, literally driving Phil to distraction. You have to adopt the same tactics to win.
Anyone can have an extremely lucky run of cards. But even then, without aggression a stack eventually gets chewed up as the blinds and antes increase. A tight player with a good run of cards gathers some chips; an aggressive player with a good run of cards gathers a lot of chips.
To be successful, you must continue to attack throughout the tournament and be willing to go broke at any point in your effort to win. Ironically, the more you learn about no-limit hold’em, the harder it may be to stay aggressive. Why? Because as your skill level increases, you realize that you play better than a significant number of your foes. Knowing that you can outplay others may persuade you to take fewer risks. You may ask yourself, "Why should I jeopardize all my chips before seeing the flop in this hand when I know I can pick up some easier pots later?" Like Phil Hellmuth, you may not want to risk all your chips without a lock, or close to it. This can serve to ameliorate your newly acquired aggressive tendencies. Knowledge can increase fear of loss, and this can be counterproductive. Several top players did better early in their careers when they knew less, but were more aggressive than they are now.
