Can you handle aggressive players in no limit hold'em?

It is very difficult or it can seem very difficult to combat aggressive play in no limit hold'em poker games. However what you need to factor into your strategy is that the level of variance that you are about to encounter will increase. It has to increase otherwise you are simply donating money to the stack of an aggressive player or LAG as they are known in the poker world. Let us say that you open raise with A-9 in the cut-off and an aggressive player three bets you from the small blind with a pot sized re-raise…….what should you do?

Well firstly it is not a single play in a vacuum that we should be considering here. If this were the first hand of the session or the first hand that we played against an unknown player then the correct default play would be to fold. Your A-9 is likely dominated as long as your opponent is playing properly…….but what if they are three betting you almost every time that you open raise?

Clearly then something has changed here and the strength of your hand has risen sharply because your opponent simply cannot have a legitimate three betting hand with this much frequency.

So this is now starting to fall into a pattern and you need to react to that pattern to prevent yourself from being run over. So you need to design a plan of attack to combat your opponent's line and the most obvious step is to four bet them even though on the whole your hand isn't generally strong enough for such a move. However in my experience then most aggressive opponents that you will face will show a bias towards certain lines. The most obvious line is that they will three bet you pre-flop.

Another line is that some players will call you pre-flop and then look to put a move on you on the flop or turn. Once again as a one off then you can probably give them the benefit of the doubt but once they have demonstrated the same line twice then you can rest assured that this is the beginning of a pattern that you need to adjust to and quickly. This for me is the best part of playing poker whether you play live or online.

Carl "The Dean" Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk