Stealing from the stealers and the re-bluff part three

This third and final part of this series leads me into the subject of aggressive versus defensive bluffing and the merits of each one. One of the most common mistakes that players make in poker is being BLINDLY aggressive and this is not a useful online poker strategy in many instances. Being aggressive in poker is essential and passive poker players are not winning poker players but if aggression was the be all and end all in poker then it would be all too easy to become good at it.

Let me give you an example, it is folded around to the button who raises. Many players raise here purely because it has been folded around to them and they have position and they see other players do it. This is a play that COULD be correct but it also COULD be wrong and if you blindly do it then you are not going to know the difference.

This is an example of aggressive bluffing. Raising here, missing the flop after the big blind calls and then betting the flop after they check even if you miss. The problem with aggressive bluffing is that it is very up front and obvious what you are doing…..bullying opponents into submission.

In this example, many poker players in the blinds will actually be EXPECTING a raise from that position so the raise has absolutely no element of surprise. Consider this example with the example of the 4-4-2 flop and how the bluff was achieved there. One example was blatant and obvious and the other was creative and subtle and carried far more menace and meaning.

This is not to say that aggressive bluffing is wrong because that is certainly not the case at all. Obviously if your opponent is so weak and timid that they constantly fold to aggression then blatantly raising is the correct play irrespective of how it looks to others. There is an awful lot to be said in poker for having the initiative and keeping it.

The skill that makes aggressive bluffing very effective is obtaining the correct ratio of aggressive action to folding. If you are raising constantly every single hand, then before long your opponents will start calling you and playing back at you. They are doing this because they do not believe you.

If a rock who had not played a hand for thirty minutes raised before the flop and then bet the flop, he is going to get a lot of respect. But if a player who raises one hand in two does exactly the same thing then his play will get called and even re-raised much more often than the rock.

It is all to do with your calling and raising frequencies and what patterns you yourself are slipping into….there is a term for this and it is called TABLE IMAGE. You need to be fully aware of what yours is at all times. Remember that what your opponents are seeing you do is having a direct impact on how that are playing in pots against you.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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