Global Premises

The Aggression Trap Aggressive online poker players tend to win more often than passive players. Poker experts continually exhort players to bet aggressively to win pots. According to Dan Harrington, a WSOP winner and writer of best selling how-to poker online books, “In general, aggression (betting and raising) is better than passivity (checking and calling).” That is because aggressive betting sets up two scenarios: You are holding the best hand at showdown, or your opponents will fold and you win the pot right away. Yet one must be cautious about being too aggressive. Raising many poker online hands to steal pots is also going to lead to a downfall. Aggressive players can become heedless of those quieter players who set stealth traps that aggressive players blindly fall into. Like a bully who is always looking for a fight, an overly aggressive player is at some point going to run into an undercover monster who easily smacks down the aggressor. To be a successful aggressor in poker, one must be selective about which hands to play. In late position, you can play more marginal hands like suited connectors or make huge raises with even medium pairs. Your play should tighten up in spots too and in ways that the others players notice so that you don’t set yourself up to be called as an aggressive bluffer. Too much aggression will encourage a smart opponent to slow play a monster hand and let you dig yourself into a hole with aggressive raises.