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Playing Aggressively at Micro Stakes Tables Against Passive/Weak Players

Monday, December 15th, 2008 by Phil

Aggressive poker is good poker, especially at the micro stakes.

At the micro stakes you’re going to come across many passive players. They only play when they have a strong hand. This means that you can bully them around a little. You can steal a lot of pots and steal their blinds. But there is a another reason why you should continue to play aggressively even when you have a big hand yourself. By playing aggressively you will be able to cause these passive players to make mistakes, often big ones. That is why I champion good aggressive poker against passive opponents.

There’s also a cause and effect when you play good aggressive poker.

By playing good aggressive poker you’ll often find that you’ll win bigger pots when you have monster hands. The key is to be consistent with your aggression. You’re raising constantly and the other players are getting annoyed.

They want to play poker not fold, so when you’re constantly opening a pot with a raise, they’ll start to call with less than optimal holdings. The flip side to this cause and effect is that sometimes when these weak/tight/passive players know that you’re super aggressive, they’ll start to limp in with big holdings like AA/KK/AK for example, hoping that you’re going to raise the pot and they’ll re-pop you. Or they’ll start to raise with weaker holdings that you can exploit.

In either situation you’ve managed to control the game by your aggression. You’re forcing the passive/weak/tight player to change his/her game which puts you in control. They’re playing out of their comfort zone, which means the advantage goes to you.

You’ll also be able to play big pot poker against them.

Here’s an example of how I leveraged my aggression into a decent pot.

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 9 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $26.50
BB: $25.50
UTG: $2.75
UTG+1: $45.55
UTG+2: $6.55
MP1: $18.00
MP2: $26.10
Hero (CO): $33.85
BTN: $9.35

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is CO with Ks Kc
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.25, 1 fold, MP1 raises to $1.10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $3.90, 4 folds, MP1 calls $2.80

Flop: ($8.40) 4s Kh 6s (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets $5, MP1 raises to $14.10 all in, Hero calls $9.10

Turn: ($36.60) 5d (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: ($36.60) 9c (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $36.60
MP1 shows Td Tc (a pair of Tens)
Hero shows Ks Kc (three of a kind, Kings)
Hero wins $34.80
(Rake: $1.80)

I had been pretty aggressive and I get a perfect situation. A big hand (in position) versus a weak/tight/passive player who opens the pot in EP. I re-raise him 3.90.

I’ve set him up by constantly re-raising him during the course of the session. Most of those re-raises were standard re-raises like .75-$1. I have conditioned him to think that I’m stealing again. He doesn’t even notice the bigger re-raise because I’ve raised him so many times that he’s determined to play his 10s no matter what.

I hit my set on the flop. Most beginners will probably want to check this behind. But I know that he’s got a decent hand otherwise he wouldn’t have called my initial PF re-raise.

This particular hand the other player was probably sick and tired of my constant raising and re-raising and felt that his 10s were good in this spot (I actually put him on a stronger hand than 10-10 perhaps QQ or even AA) but the results are the same. By constantly hammering this weak/passive player I induced him into make a big mistake.

You might think I’m ego tripping but I’m simply here to try and help new players to embrace aggression as a way of life in poker. There are other ways you can leverage your aggression into big pots if you play smart aggressive poker.

So the keys to playing super aggressive poker:

1. Know your opponent.
2. Play your position.
3. Don’t be afraid to play big hands aggressively, especially if your table image is one that is loose aggressive.
4. Don’t be afraid to lose some money on some bluff attempts. Even a big bluff that doesn’t pay off can reap benefits later on.
5. Constantly test the opponents, eventually they’ll make a big mistake that you can exploit.

Now playing aggressive has its negatives also. Your swings are going to be bigger because eventually the other player will suckout or they’ll actually have a super strong hand. However,  those occasions are negated by the times you’re able to steal chips and win huge pots because the other players couldn’t lay down a huge hand. Sure sometimes you’ll lose some value, but if you play solid aggressive poker along with position you can really hit some big pots.