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Tackling aggressive raisers in no-limit Texas Hold’em

These days you really do not need to be an experienced player in No limit Texas Hold'em to know that aggressive play is good play. So more and more players are raising from position to steal the blinds or three betting steal raisers in steal positions. So just how do you tackle these players and their aggression? Well in my experience then aggression and aggressive play needs to be handled carefully. If you are an unskilled player then you need to be very careful how often you become aggressive.

This means that you are escalating pots and when pots become escalated then flop, turn and river bets increase in importance and the action on each subsequent street. So if you lack skill in no-limit Texas Hold’em (and there is no point in deluding yourself if you don’t have it) then aggression can seriously get you into trouble. In this instance then it is no different to driving a car. If you lack driving skill then you are taking very serious risks when you drive with aggression and with speed and putting your own life at risk and those of the passengers in your car.

A similar scenario comes from fighting; if you are unskilled in fighting then you really shouldn’t be walking around looking for trouble. The over aggressive tendencies are once again going to be your downfall. The more confrontations that you get yourself in then the sooner you are going to find opponents who are your superior. In a game like Texas Hold’em then you are going to find many opponents who are aggressive and especially from position! Many players abuse position in the belief that it is the be all and end all of poker.

While position is very important in no-limit Texas Hold’em, abusing it can really only succeed against poor players. There is a name for players who abuse aggression and it is called a “LAGTARD”. There are various ways to play back at these people and one of the best is to simply re-raise if you have a playable hand. This applies whether you are in position or out of position. Re-raising an aggressive player is the simplest way forward and it also allows you to see your opponent’s level of seriousness.

You could call the raise as well as a counter measure both in and out of position and then look to make a play post flop. But what you cannot do in no-limit Texas Hold’em is to call raises merely looking to hit flops and then fold to a continuation bet of you miss. This is far too weak and easily exploitable by aggressive play. In today’s modern online poker environment then aggression is really the name of the game and this is especially the case from position. So you are always going to find players who over abuse aggression and their position and these are perhaps some of the best players to play against in online poker these days.