| Recently, during one of those long, rambling poker discussions about luck versus skill, I was surprised when a fellow professional poker player made the comment that some players are definitely “born” luckier than others. Through spluttering coffee, I exclaimed that for someone who calls themselves a professional player that was a mighty dangerous declaration! Surely, I reasoned, if you believe that luck does not, after all, equal itself out over time, how could you put your very livelihood into the hands of fates unkown!? My friend simply shrugged and gave as an example a very successful player, known to us both, that to categorise simply I would call “uber-aggressive”. My friend played live cash games with our uber- aggressive acquaintance for many years and said that over that time he undoubtedly hit more back door, nut or winning hands than you could shake a stick at. He also declared that he hit more good flops. |
| Perhaps you, like I, can already see the direction that this conversation was about to take, from my part at least. What I felt my friend was failing to see, as I promptly told him, was that the reason this player “appeared” to make so many more hands, was that because of his aggressive style of play, he would almost certainly see more flops, turns and rivers, than most other players. Where most would check and/or fold, he would bet and raise with the result that he sees more turns and rivers than most because of the way that he plays. Now I would like to add at this point, that few players are as aggressive as our mutual acquaintance and though, for him, it is a successful style, it may not be for everybody. An essential beauty and complexity of poker is that there is more than 1 successful style of play, and one of the keys to becoming successful at the game is finding you own style and rhythm. Aggression is undoubtedly important, and you cannot have success without it and one of the main reasons, is this. When you play a hand aggressively you often give yourself the opportunity to win the pot in 2 ways. You may hit your hand and win simply on merit of having the best hand. But you also give yourself the opportunity to win the pot without any showdown and not having the best hand at all! By playing hands aggressively and forcing opponents to play for more money, you will often find that you can get players to fold the more marginal hands and draws. So to put it another way, our mutual acquaintance is no luckier in the long term than anyone else, but simply the more aggressive you are, the more hands you are in, the more flops you will see and thus it appears that you hit more of them. But an aggressive player will also win more pots with no showdown and so the rate at which they are scooping in the chips, is more frequent, but has nothing to do with luck. But when you play aggressively your advantage is not only statistical but psychological too. Aggressive play can be intimidating to some players and they will often bluff and steal less against aggressive players, for fear that they will just be re-raised out of the hand. The level of aggression you have in your game should vary according to, as usual, a host of factors. But also it should be within a range that you feel comfortable with. Don’t try and force your game to be something it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating playing passively, most of the time, when you are in a hand you should play it strongly but the number of hands you wish to enter into will vary. The aggressive player in my story does play more hands than most, and actually more than I would advise for an average player. He is able to make it successful as he has a fantastic feel for the game and the big pots to gamble in. But he is a perfect example, on a rather immense scale of why aggressive players win more. It has nothing to do with luck, unless you believe, perhaps, that we make our own luck? Good Luck at the tables! |
