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We all know that aggression is very important in Texas Hold’em Poker but it is carefully selected aggression that is correct and not just aggression. If you have raised for three consecutive hands and continuation bet the flop each time and been check-raised by the big blind when heads up and been forced to fold the hand then you are playing bad poker if you elect to do this for a fourth time.

You simply cannot be blindly aggressive in poker once you reach certain levels. This is because the better players will adjust to beat you and respond to your playing patterns. Let us look at a sequence of hands to show what I mean. In the first hand it has been folded around to us on the button and we open raise. The small blind folds and the big blind calls! As yet we do not know their hand or they ours. They check the flop and we make a continuation bet and they check-raise.

We have nothing and fold. Now whatever hand our opponent has is academic because even if they have a strong hand in that situation then they have still seen us raise pre-flop and then seen us fold to a flop check-raise. This then makes the likelihood of them trying this play again greater and their range will tend to be wider. In this first instance then we need to give them credit for a hand until we see a pattern immerging.

Now let us say that on the next orbit that it is folded around to us again and we have a playable hand. Do we raise here……I think the answer is yes but we must raise with the knowledge of what has happened previously. At this stage it is important to see the hand without the actual cards and merely see the patterns that are involved in the actual play of the hands.

Only then do we add the cards as extra information. Let us then say that our hand is Jc-10c and our raise gets called and the flop comes Qd-8c-6s giving us an inside straight draw. Both us and our opponent have 100 big blind stacks but here we can us the fact that we have equity in this pot and the previous hand to launch another continuation bet. If our opponent check-raises again then they are the one who is now showing a pattern.

Of course we are also starting to show a pattern but we have the chance to adjust here and win the pot by three betting. If we call the check-raise and our opponent shoves the turn then we cannot call if we do not hit or straight on that turn card. But three betting the flop now puts great pressure on our opponent and even if they call our three bet then we still have chances to win the pot!

So try and be aggressive when it is correct to do so and not just because you think that you have to be aggressive…….there is a huge difference.